We in Sussex welcome our first ever Duchess

In Sussex, where I live, we feel proud that Prince Harry has just been made our Duke. We have had a Duke of Sussex only once before, who was one of the many sons of King George III. He was a man of liberal opinions, supporting the abolition of slavery and Catholic and Jewish emancipation. He was much loved: several pubs are still named after him. Unfortunately, both his weddings were declared invalid under the Royal Marriages Act. Loyal to his second wife, he refused to be buried with the Royal family at Windsor, and joined her instead in Kensal Green Cemetery.

So we have never had a Duchess of Sussex. Until now. It seems fitting that Prince Harry should have got the Sussex title, since his marriage, if it had taken place in the late 18th century (or even – think of Princess Margaret forswearing the love of Group Captain Peter Townsend – as late as the Fifties), would just as surely have been forbidden by royal rules. The honour of the original Duke feels vindicated.

Last Friday night, the Sussex Club – of which I am a member – happened to be holding its annual Sussex dinner. The club was established in 1799, and no one could call us a particularly forward-looking body. The members are not invariably young and they are certainly not “woke”. We are, by chance, all white and, by rule, all male, with the sole exception of any woman who is Lord Lieutenant of one of our two counties (East and West).

But there was a definite air of excitement about the wedding. I cannot, of course, speak for the membership, most of whom are vastly senior to me; but I am confident that, if it were suggested to us that we should elect our new Duchess as a member, we would acclaim the idea nem con.

We would love being “woked” up by the one and only Duchess of Sussex.

Some have commented that the wedding sermon by Bishop Michael Curry was unprecedented in the Anglican church. This is not true. All that arm-waving, that raising and lowering of the voice, those almost poetic repetitions, are not really foreign at all, but part of our evangelical Protestant tradition, which we then exported.

Such rhetoric would have been familiar to the English in the 17th and 18th centuries. It involves constant plays on and development of verses from the Bible (King James Version), which would have been known by a very wide audience then and are known still in many parts of the United States. John Wesley, remember, was originally an Anglican, and his astonishing preaching started the Methodist movement which is, to this day, worldwide.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who did the actual marrying bit, is symbolic head of the Anglican Communion. It has 85 million members and exists in Australia, Nigeria, South America, India, the United States, and more than 30 other provinces. He will have seen plenty of performances like that of Bishop Curry. As he said, such preaching “is not a past art”. If that style has a fault, it is that it does not always know when to stop.

The active membership of the Anglican Communion worldwide is nowadays predominantly African, and so, for a long time now, Anglican clergy from Africa have come over here to re-energise the English. More than 50 years ago, my wife’s relations in their quiet Surrey parish had a young black assistant curate called Desmond Tutu. His fiery preaching later got global attention and helped to get rid of apartheid.

The dramatic, sometimes ecstatic, tradition of speaking favoured by Bishop Curry greatly appealed to many slaves in America, as well as to the indigenous people in Britain’s African colonies. It soothed troubled hearts suffering oppression and stirred angry spirits yearning for liberation. Bishop Curry’s sermon made good use of spirituals from this tradition, such as his reference to “a balm in Gilead”. That phrase comes from the book of Jeremiah and was taken up by slaves in the 19th century.

He also used the line from a spiritual, “There’s plenty room for all of God’s creatures”. He wisely left out the final line: “Choose your seat and sit down”. There wasn’t a single seat left, on that great day, in St George’s, Windsor.

Which reminds me that the non-human star of the show was the place in which it happened. Windsor was essential to the character of the wedding, making clear the difference, which had risked being obscured, between a state occasion and a Royal family one. Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s mean the full panoply of the state; Windsor means something more intimate.

It lends itself to this because it is a castle on a hill. As in all fairy stories, the town nestles beneath the castle. Within the castle is a complicated historical microclimate of royalty, of the Order of the Garter and the College of St George, of clergy and pensioners, librarians and foresters. There are towers and courts within courts and three “wards”. There is a beguiling mixture of medieval muddle and Wyattville’s more grandiose inventions. Like most things to do with monarchy, it is a work of the imagination.

Particularly when decorated with such abundant and wild-looking flowers, the place became magical. It was encouraging to watch the couple descending through the gates to the big world beyond, to face its strange mixture of trouble and promise.