Royal Wedding - style and substance

The departure of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their first official overseas visit to Canada seems a suitable day on which to post my final set of reflections on their wedding.

TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

One of the official photographs.

Image: The British Monarchy on Flickr

What struck me in particular about the wedding day was the sense that this was an event with a style and panache that was traditional, combining splendour with restraint. There was not the more elaborate or emotional style of the royal weddings of the 1980s, but an emphasis on traditional values and practice in both church and state. There was a real sense of being back on course, but with two new and attractive players centre stage. The best of the old and of the new.

The last time the sovereign's grandson in direct line of succession married was in 1893 when the future King George V as Duke of York married Mary of Teck. There is a description of that day in James Pope-Hennessy's wonderful official biography Queen Mary. That was essentially a private wedding in the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace. This time the scale was very different, and very much a public event as royal weddings have been since 1922. Nonetheless this seemed closer, in the best sense, to the certainties of the later years Queen Victoria's reign than some more recent marriages.

This emphasis on tradition, on service by the Duke and Duchess to the Crown and their prospective realms, the religious values stressed in the service itself, down to such details as the inclusion of the national flower emblems of the United Kingdom in the wedding dress of the Duchess, all indicate to me at least, a reassertion of a tried and tested way of doing things. The official photographs carried the same message - a happy young couple and their families, but also a real understanding of what monarchy is about.

Even within an institution based on the principal of continuity, we appear, to borrow a phrase, to be looking at a hermeneutic of continuity.

The new personal standard for the Duke of Cambridge for use in Canada.
The grant of this is in itself is both a new departure, and a reassertion of ancient tradition.
There is more about it here.

Image: Yahoo

Further reflections on the Royal Wedding - the popular response

Today being the birthday of the Duke of Cambridge seems an appropriate one on which, apart from expressing best wishes to His Royal Highness, to try to finish my reflections on his wedding to the Duchess.

In this post I want to comment on the popular response. Quite obviously from the crowds in London and the worldwide television audience there were a very great number of people watching because they wanted to. So much for the argument which one has heard before every major royal celebration for a generation and more - "People aren't interested anymore."

In a very British way we prepared in a very understated way for the celebrations. One or two shops started having commemoratives in their windows, then a few more ,and a few more, and Union flags started appearing. Slightly sheepishly people began to prepare to celebrate, and to admit to being positive about the day.

Nor can interest be dismissed with the jokey "Thanks for the day off" line which appeared. The popular response was extensive and genuine, and more complex than some would have us believe. Of course there is the appeal of pagentry and finery, and there is something of the general well wishing towards any couple entering into marriage, and here was a young couple clearly in love and serious about their committment to one another.

I sensed there was much more than that - a sense of a real wishing well to this couple because they are who they are and represent what they do. People wish them well because they wish the monarchy well. After the difficulties of the 1990s this was an opportunity, indeed the opportunity, to look to the furture with a renewed belief in the tradition the institution embodies and carries. People were wishing the couple well because they really wanted things to work out well.

Friends who were in London have described that positive good will amongst the crowds, and watching it all on television here in Oxford at our party at the Oratory I sensed that feeling not only of affection for the Duke and Duchess, but also for that which they committing themselves to. At that party there was also that sense of community which such national events bring out.

this was not I suspect confined to subjects of the Crown. One friend in London told me that he was aware of the considerable number of Germans around who seemed very interested in the wedding. He, I am sure rightly, explained this as an awareness (sensed rather than expressed) on their part of what they are lacking in their own national life.

Another friend summed up the mood with his reaction to the day - "Who would not want to live under such a system?"

Exactly.

Royal Wedding - further thoughts on Christian marriage

In my post Royal Wedding - Christian marriage I commented on the fact that this was very obviously a statement of Christian belief and commitment, and could be seen as an emphatic response to the secularising trends of recent years. Ina few short sentences the vast watching public heard the essentials of Christian teaching on marriage enunciated and proclaimed in word and ceremony.

I am not I see the only person to be struck by this. Stephanie Mann of Supremacy and Survival has an excellent post Reflections on the Royal Wedding on this and other aspects of the wedding, and has links to Elena Maria Vidal' s Tea at Trianon post The Royal Wedding: Killjoys Be Gone!. Both stressing the very clear emphasis on the Christian nature of the marriage of the Duke and Duchess, and citing an article by Melanie Phillips which forcefully underlines the point, and expounds reasons as to why so many people can and do relate to the institution on monarchy.

Royal Wedding - Westminster Abbey

Watching the Royal Wedding on television I was struck by the thought that King Henry III might well be pleased with the fact that his great creation of Westminster abbey looked so splendid on the occasion - despite the damage inflicted upon the fabric over the centuries in the name, at least, of some of his descendants. What he would have made of the trees in the nave I am not so sure - they were, well, different, and one up on the average flower arranger.

Westminster was a far more suitable choice than St Pauls, quite apart from the risk of evoking memories or comparisons with the Prince's parents' marriage there. Westminster abbey speaks of the sacral nature of English and British monarchy, and it is a potent, living link with and reminder of past generations of the royal house since the death of St Edward. As was pointed out in the television commentary it is there that the Duke and Duchess will, in the fullness of time, be crowned. It is also a very beautiful building, which, in my opinion, for all its architectural importance, St Paul's is not. As a medievalist I know I regret the loss of the previous St Paul's in 1666 (not withstanding the fairly bizarre Carolean attempts to modernise it by Inigo Jones or proposed by Christopher Wren), and the present cathedral, despite all its historic and iconic associations, remains, to my mind, cold and lifeless. It was said that the Duke and Duchess chose Westminster because of its beauty, and for the wedding the abbey church displayed both that and was in itself a reminder of the historic dimension of the occasion.

The practice at the abbey of displaying their spectacular altar plate on these occasions either on the altar or on the side of the sanctuary appears reminiscent of the way in which medieval nobles showed off their plate on grand occasions on sideboards - as in the picture of the Duke of Berry at table in the Tres Riches Heures. However I wondered if the origin of the practice at the abbey is not so much a desire to show off their treasures or wealth as such, but a memory of the pre-Reformation practice of displaying relics and statues of the saints on festal occasions. Thus at York in 1483 when King Richard III created his son as Prince of Wales in the Minster the altar was decorated with silver gilt figures of the Twelve Apostles. I do not know, but thought it possible, that, after the loss of such reliquaries and votive figures, the memory lingered that on great occasions the altar should be decorated with something in silver or gold, and in default the alms dishes and such like were displayed.

Royal Wedding - Christian marriage

One feature of the Royal Wedding that was very striking was that this was emphatically a Christian marriage, and that the service addressed that unashamedly.

Such a Royal wedding is clearly going to be according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England by law established, but this ceremony was much more emphatically so than some have been in recent decades.

The fact that it was exclusively Anglican, with other church men as guests rather than ecumenical participants, stressed the fact that there is an Established Church with claims to address the nation. The prayers offered, the choice of hymns and music, the liturgical choreography and, perhaps above all the Bishop of London' s sermon, ending with its quotation of the prayer composed by the Duke and Duchess, stressed that this was a serious Christian marriage. The Archbishop of Canterbury had commented on the seriousness of the couple's approach in an interview a few days previously. He may, perhaps, have had at the back of his mind Archbishop Runcie's later comments to his biographer about the personal ill-preparedness of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981.

However much of this can be credited to the Archbishop, the Bishop and the Dean of Westminster, I am sure that the lead, and the final approval, for such an approach must have some from Prince William and his bride. That augers well for them and their attitude to both their marriage and to the life-long task that faces them.

Furthermore a huge audience worldwide witnessed and heard an exposition of the traditional Christian concept of marriage. The modified, but succinct and classical Prayer Book language with its outline of the purpose of marriage, as well as the in the ceremonial and spoken acts that surrounded the sacramental union of man and wife, expounded the theology and high seriousness of the calling being entered into. The fact that the couple to be married combined that understanding with obvious love for each other underlined the point. Their position may be exceptional, but the essential human simplicity of marriage came accross - the idea was made accessible to anyone watching in a way that was unmistakeable.

Royal Wedding - Scotland

On the radio news on the evening of the Royal Wedding there was a report about celebrations in St Andrews where TRH the Duke and Duchess met, but pointing out the much lower level of celebrations in Scotland than England, and how a republican-minded group had demonstrated outside Holyroodhouse.

There may have been less interest in Scotland - though clearly St Andrews joined in enthusiastically - but it may not be so much of a news story as might appear. I do not blame this on stereotypes of Scottish dourness or whatever per se, but I do recall hearing from a Scotswoman forty years ago that even in Edinburgh people did not turn out for royal visits as they did in England.

That said I recall seeing crowds on television for the state visit of the King of Sweden to Edinburgh in the 1970s, and the crowds who greeted the Pope in the city last September were very impressive indeed. Maybe the Scots are less responsive, but they will turn out if there really is someone to see. So perhaps the public response last week was less exhuberant than selsewhere, but it may well not be a significant new development.

Royal Wedding - the media

As I wrote in my post The Royal Wedding I intend to publish online some thoughts and reflections about this splendid event. I will divide them up by theme, rather than put all my ideas in one single piece.

Inevitably the way the media covered the wedding attracted attention. The press were obviously extensive in their coverage. Even where one might have found a somewhat grudging attitude or studied disinterest this was not the case. Thus not only The Guardian, but even The Independent covered it as a news story with pictures: poor old Andreas Whittam-Smith must be turning in his metaphorical grave as First Church Estates Commissioner. The Guardian news coverage was mainstream, not driven by an editorial line other than reporting the news, and indeed from what I have read seems very positive.

Now on these occasions I do not read feature articles in The Guardian for the sake of my blood pressure and mental equilibrium - and The Independent is permanently beyond the Pale for me. However a friend did draw my attention to this article by Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian, which might suggest that some at least in that world are learning some sense in these matters; it makes good points and is worth looking at.

A piece from a not totally different standpoint with which I also was rather taken is a commentary by Ian Dunt on Yahoo - his last line is forceful.

The excellent Australian Radical Royalist has a piece about the coverage in Australian press The [republican] Age gives in! Front page of The ..., which suggests that there as here the republican-minded press realised that even its readers were likely to be interested in the facts of the wedding. Again The Guardian reported that Royal wedding boosts Australian monarchists .

As someone commented to me he disliked the fact that the British republican minded minority gets undue coverage. This may not be metropolitan chattering-class bias so much as a modern obsession with fairness and equal access to the media. The principle of the party political broadcaste being distributed on the basis of support tends not to be applied. I wonder if the media here take as seriously the much larger monarchist groups in some continental countries such as Portugal. Maybe, after all, it is the chattering classes to blame...

I can appreciate that journalists often have on these occasions to fill up the column inches with relatively little information upon which to proceed, or do not have the historical background to really interpret the stories. A piece I did read, a profile of Prince William, in the Sunday Times Magazine the weekend before the wedding illustrates something of this. The writer was using relatively little in the way of hard facts and yet does create a sympathetic and convincing portait of a man who emerges as both serious and dedicated as well as likeably uncomplicated. The article starts here, but readers then need to subscribe to the Sunday Times online service to read it all.

I watched the wedding on BBC. I rather missed out on the instant punditry from Simon Schama et al - and that may have been no great loss. I did slightly wonder who had got David Starkey under contact. However as both are early modernists the long duree of the medievalist would perhaps be lacking...

The BBC coverage was much better than some of that a few years ago when it had fallen into a rather sickly fashion concious style. This was very clear in the coverage of the wedding of the
Earl and Countess of Wessex. I remember a friend saying of then that as a firm monarchist the effect on him of the gushing commentary was to be temporarily irritated into a sceptical mood. This time the coverage, and commentary, measured up to the significance of the day.

The Royal Wedding

Well the Royal Wedding went very well indeed, as I for one expected, and, dare I say so, predicted back in November in Royal engagement.

Image from Yahoo

What I did not forsee was that press coverage in advance was not as bad as I rather feared, which is good, and even better, even I did not forsee quite such an enormous outpouring of affection and regard for both TRH the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and for what they represent, and that is very good indeed. As HM The Queen was heard to say "It's amazing." Well, actually, perhaps not, but it must still be reassuring for the Royal family and, I firmly believe, for us as a nation.

From the Ordinariateof Our Lady of Walsingham newsletter

I will write more about the Royal Wedding and share some thoughts it has engendered in coming days.