A Very Special Fairytale
They've got this royal wedding all wrong. I know because I've seen plenty of documentaries on prince and princess nuptials. First of all, the prince has either to scale an impossibly tall tower, brave a cursed forest or combat some leathery flying lizard. Then, and only then, does he get to wake the princess up with a magical kiss, a mythical flower or an enchanted superstore loyalty card.
OK, so they were Disney films not documentaries, but shouldn't Wills have to do a little more to win the hand of fair Kate? Isn't there something in 1 Samuel about David having to secure 200 Philistine foreskins in order to marry King Saul's daughter Michal? Perhaps that's going a bit far, but couldn't he at least plunder the Channel Islands? Maybe they could have revived Royal It's A Knockout (Google it, you youngsters) and placed the wedding bands at the top of a greased pole surrounded by inflatable giants. Though on second thoughts, maybe not.
Gone, it seems, are the days when monarchs would sally forth as commander-in-chief, heading up the charge, proving their nobility through acts of daring and outlandish bravery. Nowadays, it seems, upholding the regency amounts to little more than ribbon-cutting, cruise liner-launching and declaring parliament either open or shut for business. It was Billy Connolly who said that the Queen must think that the entire world 'smells of fresh paint'.
Many see the wedding of William and Kate as a chance to up Britain's stakes across the globe. The most famous royal family of them all has a shiny new young couple to act as our national advocates; their mission - should they choose to accept it - to turn the world into anglophiles.
But there is a different opportunity here. As the immortal Bono once said, 'fame is currency'. And royal fame is rich currency indeed. Should they choose, they could cash it in and make a stir in all the right sorts of ways. They've already foregone the wedding list in lieu of receiving donations to 26 charities of their choice. That's a good start, a great start. And you don't have to be defender of the realm to be defender of the marginalised, the poor and the oppressed; but in an age where celebrity has become synonymous with superficiality, they could model a different path for their generation.
So may our prayer for them be like King Solomon's in 1 Chronicles 1: that they might have 'wisdom and knowledge' in order to govern their celebrity status wisely, that they might create some 'happy-ever-afters' for others as well as for themselves.
Jason Gardner
Comments
They are both well-educated and intelligent young people. What would be wise, especially if they want to avoid the media scrum suffered by William's mother, is to quietly disappear. That is, do as William's grandmother did before she was called back from Kenya to take her father's place. Princess Elizabeth enjoyed the life of an officer's wife while her husband served in the Navy in the Mediterranean. She made friends with the other women and had time and space to be herself. William then, should return to his helicopter in Anglesey and Catherine be allowed to work too if she desires before they raise a young family. Let Catherine not be the 'new Diana' as the media seem determined to label her. Let her have her own life. William, anyway will have to wait until his father passes on before he becomes King. (The Law of Succession says so.) And if the Royal Family wish to avoid a Constitutional Crisis after the loss of The Queen when there will be calls to establish a Republic, then the next generations need to start modelling themselves on the successful Scandinavian and Spanish models
Wise words Catherine, thank you for contributing.
Date:
2011-05-03 10:15:40
Author:
Jason Gardner