Mantel: Royals are facing the endgame
BOOKER Prize winner Dame Hilary Mantel has delivered another Royal broadside, describing the Monarchy as a ‘self-punishing institution’ facing the ‘endgame’.
Dame Hilary, 68, whose withering assessment of the Duchess of Cambridge as ‘plastic’ caused an outcry in 2013, said of the Queen: ‘I wonder if she’s the only person who really believes in the Monarchy now, and I’m sure she believes with all her heart.’
The Wolf Hall author’s historical novels chronicle the brutal fate suffered by Royal consorts in Tudor times. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph magazine yesterday, she said she wished the Queen had abdicated to make way for Prince Charles. ‘I understand she thinks of this as a sacred task… It’s a conflict because most of the world sees the Royal Family as a branch of showbusiness.’
Reflecting on the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, Dame Hilary said that at the end of any long marriage, ordinary people sought routine and were ‘able to mourn in a natural way’, adding: ‘But what recent events bring home is how far the Monarchy’s arrangements with the media have turned it into a self-punishing institution.
‘No other family would be expected to parade a very elderly, newly widowed lady before the TV cameras, and yet it’s taken for granted that’s what will happen – just as it’s taken for granted that a new Royal mother will appear beaming on the hospital steps within a day of giving birth. There’s no legitimate public interest behind it.’
Asked about the Monarchy’s future, she added: ‘I think it’s the endgame. I don’t know how much longer the institution will go on. I’m not sure if it will outlast William. So I think it will be their last big era.’
Eight years ago, Dame Hilary dismissed Kate Middleton as a personality- free ‘ shop window mannequin’ with a ‘ plastic smile’ whose ‘ only point and purpose’ was to give birth.