MAIL ONLINE: The engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton has given the British people a welcome fillip in a chilly season. Next April’s wedding will be a big success — even if we make a mess of some things, we’re jolly good at royal ceremonies.
The hard part comes afterwards: as the Queen gets older, growing attention and speculation is focusing on the monarchy’s future. Opinion polls show that most British people would like William to become heir to the throne, bypassing his father, the Prince of Wales.
But courtiers vigorously declare that’s not going to happen. When the Queen dies — as, like all of us, she eventually must — her son is determined to succeed her.
The Prince and his wife Camilla earned warm public sympathy last week when their car was assaulted by rioting student demonstrators in London. But many thoughtful people are alarmed by the prospect of a figure of such assertive eccentricity acceding to the British throne.
I heard one of the cleverest men in Britain, master of an Oxbridge college, quite calmly say the other night: ‘The best hope for the monarchy is that Prince Charles dies before the Queen.’
This seemed a brutal observation from a kindly and temperate man, but he went on to justify it: ‘We spend our lives here educating a new generation to understand that rational behaviour requires us to reach conclusions and make decisions by examining evidence.
‘Yet now we have the heir to the throne demanding — not in a throwaway remark, but in an entire book to which he has just put his name — that we should reject science and evidence in favour of following our instincts. This is surely disturbing.’ Why Prince Charles is too dangerous to be king: In a landmark essay MAX HASTINGS tells why this increasingly eccentric royal could imperil the monarchy >>> Max Hastings | Saturday, December 18, 2010
