A wedding reflecting Britain as it is today
Britain has a most definite spring in its step. Traditional and modern, gospel singing and Thomas Tallis, the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex reflected a country that is very far from the depressing, isolated place that some gloom-mongers would have it be. The global reaction has been extraordinary: watched by an estimated 1.9 billion people on the day, the world continues to be enthralled by an occasion that combined the fiery sermonising of an Africanamerican bishop with the grandeur of St George’s Chapel, and by the warm acceptance of a mixedrace woman into the Royal family.
The longer-term significance of the marriage will be to remind the country of the sort of place it really is. There is a tendency on the Left to see prejudice around every corner, all the while missing a transformation in attitudes that has been driven, in part, by an increasing number of mixedrace marriages. On the Right, there can be excessive pessimism about whether it is truly possible to integrate newcomers. Both sides have reason to check their assumptions. Some of the most fervent and patriotic well-wishers on Saturday were from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Bishop Michael Curry, the head of the US Episcopal Church, who will go down as one of the ceremony’s most memorable characters, quoted Martin Luther King in his address. King, of course, hoped for his country to become a place where people are judged not “by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”. This is a message at odds with a current fashion for identity politics. But it is consistent with the public acclaim for the new Duchess of Sussex, who has won hearts for her grace and kindness, not because her mother happens to be black, although her background has shown definitively that Britain’s great institutions are not exclusive or unchanging.
There may be other interesting implications from Bishop Curry’s address, which won praise from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. “Preaching is not a past art,” Mr Welby said. “The use of language to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ just blew the place open… The people were gripped by it.” Can we expect a little more passion and a little less prevarication from the Church as it spreads the Good News? If so, it would be a fitting legacy of a triumphant wedding, and another sign that Britain is comfortable accepting the best the world has to offer.