A crown is placed on the head of a new Monarch. Some of us adore the way in which he exists and acts as a way of presenting us, our country and its traditions to the outside world. Some of us feel deeply proud of having a royal house that is so polished and burnished, so deserving of legitimacy, so genuinely exalted in the admiration of the world.
A few individuals, in a particular family, wear and do and represent and demonstrate all those things we would dream of doing and being and enacting. Living in grand palaces with exclusive grounds to promenade, and fish and ohunt; surrounded by servants and courtiers; so ennobled by minute rules of behaviour and speech; The pomp. The Circumstance. The Respect. The divinity of the sovereign. And so much more. Some of us think that there are nuances to this situation that are not convenient or useful to express or demonstrate; The monarch lives separate from us all. He does not converse with us in a natural way. He does not have access to the daily roadmap of a person in the general population. Not a rich plutocrat; not an oligarch; not a middle class professional; not a disabled person on benefits; not a nomad or a hermit... But a person on benefits can - and does - say things he cannot say; that person can come and go wherever and whenever; that person can take decisions to change their life into a completely different one. The king does not have liberty in the truly personal sense. He is in inside the chains of his position and so are his heirs and descendants. He fights for his space in life, and squares up against the full force of the Establishment (which is often populated by rogues and liars); he has to toe the line, while maintaining his extremely superior status in rarefied dignity. Should we feel sorry for him? Should we despise him? Should we try to approach him and console him? This sounds a bit comical, as we and him are not equals... in what way are we not equal? Do we both not bleed when we cut ourselves? Is it ok for him to try to reflect on the changes of his time? Demonstrate that he knows and understands that we no longer think as we did in 1900 or 1800... does that matter? What are all the titles for? Why do they matter? Are they a reward for good behaviour? Do they have tiles for our benefit, so we know who we are speaking to, or looking at and cheering in the Mall? I am genuinely at a loss with all this. I would honestly like to bring some order to the chaos of all these ideas and questions. Why does he travel in that ridiculous coach? There are no words to clarify this confusion. It has to be done with pots, one by one. And at the end the whole lot has to be crushed and amalgamated into a composite, sharp, granulated, colourful mass, from which clarity will finally shine. Amen [Maybe that's what he is: an amalgamation of us all...]
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