Consciously or otherwise, there is a subtext to any exercise in royal diplomacy of which the visit by the King and Queen to the United States is an outstanding example. In the words of the veteran royal commentator David Dimbleby, such exercises serve to answer the question: “What is the monarchy for?”
Plainly, in the case of the King and Queen’s so far highly successful American assignment, it is to promote the British national interest and, insofar as anyone can, “rededicate” the two nations’ transatlantic alliance, as the King put it in his gently pointed address to Congress.
