Lowri Griffiths on the Special Relationship, the Monarchy’s American Fanbase, and Why the British Find Royal Enthusiasm Abroad Slightly Baffling

Reported by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.

By Lowri Griffiths | North London Life & Commentary

King Charles is going to address the US Congress and the American reaction, from this side of the Atlantic, is approximately what we expect, which is: genuine, enthusiastic, and slightly disproportionate. Americans love the monarchy in the way that you love something that you can enjoy without being responsible for. We have the monarchy the way you might have a relative who is occasionally embarrassing but mostly decorative; Americans have the monarchy the way you have a favourite period drama. The emotional investment is real. The accountability is absent. This is a very comfortable position from which to appreciate an institution.

I am not anti-monarchy in any passionate sense. I live in North London, where anti-monarchy feeling is more common than elsewhere and where the republican case is made regularly at dinner parties with the conviction of people who have thought it through and the impracticality of people who haven’t accounted for the tourism revenue. The monarchy is a complicated institution. Charles is a complicated man. His address to Congress will be a piece of diplomatic theatre performed by someone who has been preparing for diplomatic theatre his entire life and who will do it well because doing it well is the central professional competency of his position.

What the Speech Will Do

The speech will cover: the transatlantic relationship (positive, durable, historically grounded); climate change (Charles’s passion, diplomatically phrased); and whatever the Foreign Office and State Department have agreed should be said about current geopolitical tensions in language that commits neither government to anything specific but sounds warm and purposeful. It will be received with applause at the appropriate moments. Several senators will photograph themselves with Charles afterward. The photographs will be used in constituency communications by politicians who have worked out that royal proximity is a reliable retail political move in certain American districts.

None of this will change British foreign policy, American foreign policy, or the institutional shape of either country. The speech is a symbol. Symbols matter. The symbol being communicated is: Britain and America remain allied, King Charles represents continuity with a relationship that has been important for 80 years, and the formal institutions of British governance are stable and internationally engaged. These are worthwhile things to communicate. They are best communicated by a king because kings communicate them more efficiently than prime ministers, who have to answer questions about domestic policy that make the alliance narrative more complicated.

I find this fine. I find the American enthusiasm for the event warmer than I expected, probably because I underestimate how much the past few years of political turbulence have made Americans crave the stability that a monarch symbolises, which is an interesting thing to want from an institution you got rid of in 1776 but which is comprehensible when your own institutions have been under pressure. My piece on the Coronation last year covers my more ambivalent feelings about the institution, which I recommend for balance.

London’s Take

London is largely unbothered. The King is going to America, which is where things go when they want a big enthusiastic audience. London’s feelings about Charles are fond in the way that you’re fond of someone who has been in your life for so long that criticism requires more energy than tolerance. He means well. He has been waiting a very long time. He is doing the job. The Americans will love it. We will watch it and feel the specific British feeling of slightly embarrassed pride, which is the only pride we’re comfortable expressing, and then we’ll go back to arguing about the planning application.

For royals with continental coverage, see NewsThump.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/