Where Is All the Good Help These Days?
by Luciano D'Orazio

The recent allegations of homosexual rape in Prince Charles' household do not, on the surface, seem nearly as catastrophic as the tabloids say. They can easily be cast with the likes of Diana's sloshed chauffeur and her stealing butler, victims of the increasingly ever-present eye of media attention.

The royal family has never been, nor has it claimed to be, bereft of scandal, either by its own members or its staff. For every Charles II, an unabashed womanizer who populated London with illegitimate children, there is an equally reprehensible courtier or servant (in this case Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, who attempted to convert Charles II to Catholicism while seducing him and various other court peers at the same time).

In the current scandal, Princess Diana's butler, Paul Burrell, was charged with theft of the late princess' personal effects and selling them abroad. But an intervention by the queen with evidence undermining the prosecution saved Burrell, and the case was dismissed. Burrell then sold his story to the Daily Mirror. In it he reported allegations by a member of the Prince of Wales' staff that a key aide had raped him twice; it also detailed an attempt by the household to cover up the allegations with royal gifts and media suppression. The scandal may soon bring the institution to the brink of collapse, and while many Britons are happy to see a good soaking, few would argue that the monarchy's complete dissolution could do anything but harm Britain's national identity.

In and of themselves, sexual impropriety and royal spin control, even under a larger media net, are not that harmful to the monarchy. What makes this particular scandal so damaging, though, is that it tarnishes a carefully cultivated image of the monarchy as the last vestige of all that is good and right in Britain. This image, carefully constructed over the past half century by Queen Elizabeth II, maintains and emphasizes an increasingly fragile legitimacy for the monarchy, a monarchy without rule, without empire, and with a huge public burden. If this image were to weaken to the point of collapse, it could be the collapse of the last viable reason for maintaining the monarchy at all.

For centuries, formal ceremonies were seen by many as a necessary evil or an old-fashioned waste of time. Monarchs, of course, actually ruled in that period, so they can be forgiven if many of them saw formal ceremonies as useless. And household staffs largely handled themselves, with the monarch involved in more important matters of state.

But the scope of rule has dimmed steadily since the English Civil War (1640-1649), and as Parliament's primacy became more apparent in the mid-19th century, sovereigns concentrated on two remaining areas of control: ceremonies and protocol. With the tangible realm limited to the palace walls, that realm became tightly controlled and disciplined. Anyone who watches the state opening of Parliament each year on C-SPAN might think this is how it was done for centuries, but it is actually a recent phenomenon, dating back only to Queen Victoria.

The same could be said for the royal household, the only other area where the British sovereign has direct control. Rules of protocol and behavior, once a guideline policed by court peers and higher-level ministers, are now carefully directed from above.

At least, this is the image. But how true is it? In terms of the sustaining of ritual and ceremony, it's accurate — pomp and spectacle matter to the monarchy now more than ever. But in terms of the household, it wavers from reality. Even though the recent scandal revolves around Charles', and not Elizabeth's, court, it points to two possible conclusions: that Elizabeth's penchant for strict household control has not rubbed off on her offspring, and that the courtly image of protocol and decorum might be just as fragile in the queen's household as it is with the lesser households of the royal princes.

It's possible that after the inquiry into the rape allegations concludes, the public eye will point to the other royal siblings. Even worse, it might rest on the sovereign herself. Sufficient doubt as to the queen's motives already exists in the dismissal of the Burrell case. A more intrusive probe may not be far behind. If the myth of royal protocol and decorum is shattered, the queen would be nothing more than a mistress of ceremonies over archaic, and increasingly expensive, rituals and ceremonies. In periods of economic austerity and rule by the free market, such pomp becomes less and less feasible. The monarchy could become nothing more than a face on money and an imprinted crown on official documents.

From a political standpoint, the monarchy should have ended somewhere in the late 19th century, as the elected House of Commons asserted its primacy over the aristocratic House of Lords. From an economic standpoint, it should have ended with the inquiry into royal spending in the early 1990s, when the British public learned how much they were subsidizing this institution.

But a quick collapse of the institution should be avoided. In one of the few nations in the world that is still largely defined by its monarchy, its dissolution could prove a damaging blow not just to British national pride, but also to the visage of Britain abroad, where public opinion remains fascinated with a society where a queen remains relevant at least in the tabloids, if not in everyday life.

Hopefully, the current inquiry, coupled with the recent "crisis session" of the royal family in response to these allegations, will stop the rot where it started and maintain the visage of the monarchy intact, at least for now. However, the inquiry into Charles' household may be the Pandora's Box the monarchy has feared for the past decade. It has survived the scandal of the royal offspring only by the steadfast personage of the queen, who rightly appeared above the fray. This inquiry, however, may soon strip that image, dragging this sovereign into the muck and making her less royal and less relevant. Such a lack of relevance may prove the death warrant that many fear — and many others fear is none too soon.

E-mail Luciano D'Orazio at loudogs1@aol.com.