Why I fear the monarchy will die with the Queen

A controversial view by a royal historian on the eve of the Queen’s 90th birthday

NExT Week, the Queen will celebrate her 90th birthday. As the nation marks that milestone, our thoughts will inevitably turn to the future.

I believe we must face the reality that, when the Queen’s reign comes to its natural end, there is likely to be an urgent debate about the role of the Royal Family in modern Britain — a debate whose outcome is uncertain.

Like no other public figure, the Queen has become part of our lives over the decades, a calm, reassuring presence above the bitter political fray.

Indeed, no Briton under the age of 64 has the experience of rule by any other monarch.

It is partly because of her dutifulness and longevity that the institution of British monarchy looks, to some, so secure. Even in our noisy, democratic age, where tradition is treated with suspicion and most politicians with contempt, there is no powerful opposition to her position as Head of State.

Revelations

Even with socialist Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader, the republican movement has never been at a lower ebb.

As recently as the Diamond Jubilee of 2012, the Queen’s approval ratings passed 80 per cent, a level of popularity of which prime ministers can only dream. Yet it would be wrong for monarchists to be too complacent.

A belief in the long- term security of the throne could be badly misplaced. For it is possible that the Queen’s longevity and fidelity may disguise much deeper misgivings about the role of the monarchy in the 21st century.

After all, admiration for the present incumbent does not necessarily translate into support for the institution itself.

So far, the debate over its continued existence has been largely suppressed out of respect for both Elizabeth II’s remarkable sense of duty and the fact that she is in the sunset of her reign.

But the questions will not go unasked once a new monarch ascends the throne. That event is bound to be the cue for a very public argument over the institution, one that could see the beginnings of wholesale changes in our governance.

There is no absolute guarantee about the monarchy’s long-term survival — particularly when so many aspects of our constitution are questioned and in flux (example, leading to votes on Scottish independence and Uk membership of the EU). The Queen may represent reassuring continuity, but current high levels of support for the monarchy could quickly evaporate.

There are several factors to consider. One is that apart from the Queen herself, there is growing suspicion about the legitimacy of an unelected, unaccountable ruler whose elevated position is based only on an accident of birth.

Throughout the world, there is now a deep antipathy towards governing elites that act in their own vested interests, as shown by the widespread anger about the revelations in the Panama tax scandal.

That feeling is particularly strong among young people, who have been brought up with the concept of social justice and have no time for the concept of hereditary privilege.

In my work as an academic, I talk to a lot of students, many of them born since Princess Diana died, and the traditions of the monarchy mean little to them. The very concept of hereditary privilege is likely to provoke resentment rather than reverence.

In the same vein, we live in an increasingly secular, multi-faith society, where traditional, Anglican Christianity is no longer the dominant national religion.

Again, that ultimately weakens the grip of the monarchy, partly because the sovereign’s key role as ‘Defender of the Faith’ now has little resonance, and partly because so few people have any connection with the Church. A central element of the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 was her anointment by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a ritual that reinforced the ancient belief that monarchs ruled by divine right.

That moment was treated with such veneration that it could not even be shown by the television cameras. But by the time of the next Coronation, any such ritual might provoke incomprehension and even hostility.

Part of the Queen’s enduring appeal is that she has never bared her soul to the public — unlike Prince Charles. Even in the era of the celebrity confessional, she has remained enveloped in mystery.

The great 19th- century constitutional expert Walter Bagehot famously wrote that, for the monarchy to survive, it was important ‘not to let daylight in on the magic’. The Queen has brilliantly fulfilled that edict.

We know nothing of her political views. She has never given an interview in her entire reign, nor become embroiled in any spat — despite the recent claim by a redtop tabloid newspaper that she supports Brexit.

Controversy

But it will be impossible for her successor to behave in that way.

Elizabeth II’s reticence belongs to a bygone epoch, long before the invention of 24-hour news coverage, social media and the ‘selfie’ photograph.

She came to the throne when Churchill was Prime Minister, Britain still had an Empire and less than 10 per cent of the population had television sets.

Public restraint was then expected of our rulers. But we now live in a very different world, one where accessibility is everything and self-discipline is often seen as aloofness.

There is also the question of the personality of her heirs. Queen Elizabeth, with her selfless, profound sense of duty forged during World War II, has been ideally equipped for the role of sovereign. The problem for Prince Charles is that he brings a lot of baggage, both personal and political.

In many ways he is an admirable figure, with his pioneering interests in architecture, environmentalism and the fight against inner-city deprivation.

But all these pursuits have involved him in controversy.

Moreover, the past turbulence of his private life, especially his fraught relationship with Princess Diana, alienated many of his long-term subjects who, even to this day, view him in the shadow of that tragic saga.

The clouds over Prince Charles have prompted some to call for the succession to be passed to Prince William.

Privilege

Yes, William and his wife are popular (as their current tour in India proves) but not only would doing so make a mockery of the very essence of the hereditary monarchy, but the prospect of William on the throne presents its own problems.

In the eyes of many monarchists, he and his wife Catherine have not yet proved themselves as fully paid-up members of ‘The Firm’, with eyebrows raised at William’s part-time position with the air ambulance and the couple’s relatively few official engagements, notwithstanding their responsibilities as parents to young children. They are now under considerable pressure to show that they can rise to the roles that await them.

All of this shows how difficult it is to maintain a hereditary system in an era when privilege is so widely disliked.

The British monarchy has been through many crises before and survived, as with the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936.

Similarly, Queen Victoria’s neglect of her duties in the 1870s, following the death of her beloved Prince Albert, led to widespread public resentment, only for her to emerge as the revered imperial sovereign towards the end of the 19th century.

But in an age when everyone has a view and so many social media offer very noisy outlets for them, the long-term survival may prove more difficult.

AnnA Whitelock is the director of the london centre for Public history at Royal holloway, University of london