Mixed-race monarch
Reading Anna Kessel’s article on mixed-race footballers prompts a quick, Wednesday afternoon thought: I wonder if it would be possible for a mixed-race marriage to work in the Royal Family? What would be the reaction if Prince William, say, dumped that sweet Kate Thingy girl, and started courting a black or indian woman?
A generation ago, Prince Charles was blocked from marrying Camilla-The-Commoner, and was instead obliged to marry someone from the aristocracy. My sense is that, even in the 21st Century, a mixed-race Royal wedding would be vetoed by ‘The Establishment’ (that ephemeral organisation currently embodied by a craggy Duke of Edinburgh). This would surely provoke a pretty ugly debate about the degree of racism ingrained in, and indeed embodied by our monarchy and its traditions. This would certainly weaken the institution.
But nevermind ‘The Establishment’ – That ultimately bends to the prevailing wind. And, yes yes, throughout the ages, our monarchs have interbred with the Royal families from around Europe… but this practice was always been an exclusively caucasian preserve. Would The Country accept a black or indian Queen consort for King William V? Would The Country accept a mixed-race monarch? Are we there yet?
Camilla was surely vetoed by the Queen personally. So I think it all depends on the monarch, and that Charles would be reasonably open-mined. Liz has shown that she isn’t.
Well, as long as she wasn’t Catholic, it would still be constitutional.
But Prince W knows that he and she would be bumped off by Secret Service á làDi’n’Dodi, so I don’t think he’d dare.
Well, as long as she wasn’t Catholic, it would still be constitutional.
So, she could be a Muslim?
To repeat: I’m more interested in what the public would think about it, rather than the monarch or MI5.
The Daily Mail would go nuts. I’m not sure that would be the same as “the public”, but they might say it was. Someone, somewhere must have done a survey, surely?
The Daily Mail would go nuts.
This is precisely my feeling… but on what basis could they possibly complain? I mean, what would be their argument? That a brown King is somehow un-British?
Or do you mean, a Muslim King? Either way, it seems to me that the very fact of herititary monarchy hoists a lot of people by their own petard. If one is going to defend the “you get what you’re given” principle, then you also have to lump it when the monarch makes a choice of consort that you find unpalatable.
A Muslim king would be out for the same reasons a Catholic would – they wouldn’t, in good conscience, be able to act as the figurehead of the established Church. Same goes for unitarians, thanks to their lack of belief in the Trinity.
As for the colour of the consort, I’d imagine it would depend largely on the background of said dusky-hued foreign type. Were they of solid upper class stock, educated at the finest schools and universities in the land, and spoke with an impeccable middle English accent, the chattering classes probably wouldn’t mind overly much. For the majority of the middle classes on whom the monarchy relies for support, racism is largely casual, and can be fairly easily ignored if the darker-skinned types are of the right class. Were the future HRH to hail from Moss Side, however, there really would be an uproar…
As an individual, I couldn’t give a monkeys. As for “The Country” …
I am almost getting the impression that none of us mind as individuals, but somehow collectively, as a “country”, we may take another view. If that’s right, does it make the “country” institutionally racist?
I’d imagine that the Daily Mail would, in their own inimitable way, come up with a not-coming-right-out-with-it kind of commentary that would fool their own readers, if no one else, that “they are not racist, but…”. They are, in that way at least, very clever. I’m trying to think of a way that they might do it, and am quite pleased with myself that I can’t actually.
Nosemonkey, hmm, no if the head of a church is hereditary, then surely understanding of religious truth is hereditary, and the church and the country should believe whatever the monarch believes. If the next king were Muslim, loyal anglicans should all convert. Then there would be no problem having a muslim head of the church.
Joe, proper Anglicans believe in disestablishment anyway.
Get to the point: would it supply us with a top class leg-spinner?
Nosemonkey: “””As for the colour of the consort, I’d imagine it would depend largely on the background of said dusky-hued foreign type. Were they of solid upper class stock, educated at the finest schools and universities in the land, and spoke with an impeccable middle English accent, the chattering classes probably wouldn’t mind overly much.”””
I expect you’re right here.
“””Were the future HRH to hail from Moss Side, however, there really would be an uproar”””
Good grief yes.
It’s just occurred to me that there would be considerably more fuss if Prince William started going out with a man.
Joe – Catholics are still explicity excluded from being able to take the throne, and members of the royal family (or at least those near the top of the line of succession – I forget the precise terms as they currently stand, as they were modified during the last century) explicitly forbidden from marrying Catholics thanks to the 1701 Act of Settlement. Though that’s been modified many times, the anti-Catholic bit still stands – and applies to the monarchy.
There’s nothing in law that forbids someone of any other religion from becoming king/queen, but they would almost certainly have to convert to the CofE before they could be crowned under clause III of the same Act (to my knowledge as yet unrepealed), which states “That whosoever shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown, shall join in communion with the Church of England, as by law established”.
The Coronation Oath also includes an oath to “maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel and the Protestant reformed religion established by law, and will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of this Realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them, or any of them” – although I suppose the wording is ambiguous enough so that you could technically have a monarch who was of a different religion as long as they continued to act as the figurehead of the CofE and didn’t make any moves to disestablish the Church.
Whether or not you could be a good Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist etc. while promoting the cause of another religion and having to “join in communion” with it is debatable, but I’d imagine the wording is ambiguous enough so that all that would really need to be paid is lip service. It’d still be a tad constitutionally dodgy, though…
I would think it right and just for the King of Siam to be Siamese.
Equally I would think it right and just for the King of England to be English.
If Muslims want a Muslim King I think there might be a vacancy opening in Iraq…
Equally I would think it right and just for the King of England to be English.
Primogeniture doesn’t work like that: The Normans were French. The Stuarts were Scottish (and, in the case of King William III, Dutch). The Hanoverians were German, as were the Saxe-Coburgs.
Not to mention that the Tudors were Welsh, the Angevins and Plantaganets French, Edward the Confessor half Norman, and the three kings before him Danish.
There hasn’t been a fully English English monarch for well nigh a thousand years, since Aethelred II (which rather puts pay to the whole “thousand years of history” nonsense the English nationalists always come up with). And he only counts if you accept the Saxons as English – they were also invaders/immigrants. As were the Celts, for that matter…
OK, I made my point in rather a simple manner to give it drama. I think any local ethnic group would do Frank/Norman/Scot/Dane etc.
After all, claiming that the countries of Europe (ours included) is ethnically pure is pretty silly.
But that’s as far as I’ll go…
Prince charles is an adulterer and as such is not fit to become king of England. His ugly wife, an adulteress is not fit to become queen of England.
The royal family who seem to think they deserve something more than the general population if this country should be removed from any privilege and all monies and property they have gained from such privilege redistributed back to the people.
Make England a Republic.
Long live the Republic.
The link between adultery and one’s fitness to be a monarch is non-existent. Before the 20th Century, only three monarchs did not have extra-marital affairs.
One of those who was faithful was Charles I, who had his head chopped off by the Roundheads immediately before they installed a short-lived Republic.