A moment to consider the monarchy’s path ahead
Prince Philip was a cautious moderniser, and the co-architect with the Queen of the renovation of the monarchy that allowed it to retain the respect and loyalty of a large majority of the British people over the 73 years of their marriage. The public reaction to his death, of grief mixed with affection, is some measure of his success.
His death leaves a void not just in our national life but at the heart of the family that is such a powerful symbol, still, of our national unity. One of the significant moments of that modernisation was the decision, guided by the prince, to allow the filming of the 1969 documentary Royal Family. Conservatives in the royal household were opposed, on the grounds that it would let in daylight upon magic, in Walter Bagehot’s phrase, but it was an awkward step in the right direction. The instinct behind the decision was sound, in that it showed that they were a real family – hardly a normal family, but a real one.
Since then, the royal family has fought running battles with itself, and with the media, as it has tried to balance the demands of ceremonial and celebrity lives, but it is partly because of Prince Philip that the institution retains such a secure place in the nation’s life.
His departure is bound, therefore, to lead to a reappraisal of the role of the monarchy in modern Britain. In this debate, The Independent has, since its founding in 1986, favoured a modern and modest royal family as the best expression of our democratic state.
Of course, there may seem to be a contradiction between the principle of a hereditary monarchy and democratic government, but that has long been resolved by reducing the Crown’s role to the purely formal. The Queen’s discretion and good sense has cemented the exclusion of the monarch from any political role of substance. The crises of hung parliaments in February 1974 and May 2010 were negotiated by politicians and civil servants, and guided by convention, with no suggestion at any time that the Queen herself should be involved in any decisions. If the worst that can be said about the monarchy’s involvement in politics is that Prince Charles wrote some letters to ministers, then our democracy is reasonably secure.
More recently, the modernisation of the monarchy continued with the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, which ended the rule of male primogeniture for members of the royal family born after 28 October 2011, and ended the disqualification of those who marry Roman Catholics. Those were important changes, although in the end the holding of position by right of birth can be justified only by tradition – tradition, and
the overwhelming lack of interest among the British people in the idea of an elected president.
For those reasons, The Independent has always favoured a constitutional monarchy for this country, with as much pomp and ceremony as is needed for the purposes of national pride and tourism. The modernisation of the royal family can always go further. Its members should have jobs like anyone else, and they should be protected from media intrusion as any citizen should be, not least for the sake of the children who are brought up in such an unusual environment.
Prince Philip is survived by a family that, for all its dramas acted out in the full glare of public attention, is capable of continuing his modernisation, and we trust that it will do so.