Lawrence Hall, HSG
On the Necessity
of Merry Old Scoundrels
Whenever the topics of England or the royal family arise,
newsies with limited vocabularies are sure to employ two of the most tiresome
and pointless fillers, “fairy tale” and “across the pond.”
The English monarchy is arguably 1500 years old. There have
been dynastic changes and of course the interregnum of that genocidal maniac
Cromwell, but always the monarchy continued. Even those New Men, those Progressives,
those Men of Destiny, those Modernists Napoleon and Hitler, with all their up-to-date
engines of destruction, could not topple the purportedly out-of-date monarchy. The
continuance of stable government against satanic evil is not a fairy tale.
Further, the Atlantic Ocean is hardly a pond, and the
metaphor sank into the depths of obscurity long before the Titanic.
In sum, fairy tales are for Disney, and the pond is out
back (watch out for the snakes). Adult
reporters should know these things.
The
loss of Prince Philip is very real – he was a survivor of national and family
instability in his youth (it’s never good when your grandfather is murdered and
your father barely escapes a death sentence), a hero of the Second World War, a
patriot, and, essential to all of this, he was a right merry old soul.
Any
institution needs a merry old soul, and they feature in most of Shakespeare:
Bottom the Weaver, Falstaff, the Prologue in Henry V, Macbeth’s doorkeeper,
the cobbler and the soothsayer in Julius Caesar, Constable Dogberry and
the lads in Much Ado About Nothing, and others. Prince Philip’s great
sense of incorrect fun, which never degenerated into mere buffoonery, added a
bit of spice to the necessary seriousness of the monarchy. And he was a loving husband,
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather upon whom all in his life depended.
Harry
could have learned all this from his grandfather, and could have taken his needful
place as Jolly Old ‘Arry, a bit of scandal and naughtiness around him, but
always kind and loving and loyal to the nation and his family.
But
he didn’t.
The
difference is that Prince Philip chose a life of duty to his Queen, his family,
and his nation, and despite a good beginning Harry has not yet found anything
more interesting than his own self-pity.
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