ROYAL SUCCESSION
When the ‘spare’ becomes heir
A dozen satellite television-dish trucks and their operators stood a lonely vigil Sunday near St. Mary’s Hospital, waiting on an usually wintry spring afternoon to flash the news to the world that the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, had once again given birth.
But the second child of the duke, Prince William, and his wife was in no hurry to make an appearance that would placate the scores of journalists and even more police officers huddled in cars and buses in side streets near St. Mary’s waiting impatiently to be part of the theatre that comes with such royal births.
Depending on which monarchy watcher you chose to believe, a brother or sister for Prince George, was to have arrived between last Wednesday and Saturday and is now overdue.
The venerable Sunday Times announced in a front-page exclusive on a day when thousands had perished in an earthquake in Nepal that Diana was the public’s favourite name, if it is a girl, followed by two historic royal favourites, Alice and Charlotte.
As with George, now 21 months old, it is said Will and Kate have not wanted to know in advance whether it will be a boy or a girl. As for the public, a slew of pollsters has declared that it overwhelming wants a little princess. If it must be a boy, the preferred name is said to be James.
The couple will know this important detail first, of course, presumably followed by his or her grandparents and the House of Windsor’s matriarch, Queen Elizabeth, who already has four other great-grandchildren and 16 other descendants. The gender of the fourth in the line of succession to the Throne is to be proclaimed to the realm simultaneously on an easel outside Buckingham Palace and by a tweet on Twitter. As church bells peal across the kingdom, the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery will fire a 41-gun Royal Salute in Green Park across from the palace to celebrate the birth, while the Honourable Artillery Company will fire a 62-gun salute from the Tower of London.
No less an authority on the monarchy than CCTV, the Communist Party run, Beijing-based television network has devoted a web page to the birth. It has included such trivia as the nugget that like his or her older brother, the new prince or princess will be christened in a lace and satin gown similar to the one used when King Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was born in 1841.
It has been widely noted that with this birth there will once again be “an heir and a spare” who may end up being No. 2 until the boy destined to one day be King George VII inherits the crown from King William V, who will succeed King Charles III if the Prince of Wales does not predecease his mother, Queen Elizabeth, who still looked very spry on her 89th birthday last week, the 64th year of her reign.
Having “a spare” has led to a torrent of stories about how difficult that job has been for many of those who were born into it during the 20th century.
William’s only sibling, Prince Harry, has settled down a bit since getting into trouble for cavorting in the nude three years ago at a wild party in Las Vegas and for wearing a Nazi costume to a fancy dress party back in 2005. Prince Andrew, who until William’s birth was second in the line of succession behind Charles, was known in his younger years as “Randy Andy” and went through a highly publicized divorce from Sarah, the Duchess of York. He was once again in the spotlight this year when his name surfaced in an ugly case in the U.S. involving vehemently denied allegations of sex with an underage girl.
The Queen’s late sister, Margaret, who was the “spare” until the Queen gave birth to Charles, also had a troubled personal life after not being allowed to marry a divorced air force officer.
The Queen’s father, King George VI, who led a highly respected life of great probity, was the last “spare” to become monarch. He ended the abdication crisis of 1936 by reluctantly succeeding his unpopular brother, Edward VIII, who lost the crown because he insisted on marrying American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
In all, seven British monarchs started their lives as “the spare,” so there are still fair odds that the baby to be born soon at St. Mary’s could one day become the head of the Commonwealth and king or queen regnant of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as 11 small states in the Caribbean and three in the western Pacific.