What will become of the royal family? That is a question people have been asking since the regime change of 2022. What sort of a state has that family got itself into? Can it survive in this form? The Queen Mother must be spinning in her grave, people think. The late Queen must have already been spinning as she was lowered into hers. All the mouldering bones of their hundreds of dead relatives, clustered at Westminster and Windsor but also dotted all over the place – Gloucester, Worcester, Reading, various places in Normandy, that car park in Leicester – must all be revolving with such vigour that, as a subterranean energy source, it represents a viable alternative to fracking.
The public rift between William and Harry (with the latter emigrating alongside his wife amid talk of vindictive and racist treatment by family and courtiers, and then selling a tell-all book about it), the festering wound of Prince Andrew’s reputation and the king’s bad-temperedness about his pen all seem to show that royal dignity and probity have disappeared. It’s a family riddled with marital infidelity and divorce. A long and noble tradition is foundering under the glare of the internet age. “Why is this happening?” people ask.
