The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration to be as dramatic as The Crown
It’s been a horror year already and it’s only May, but the Queen’s 2021 is set to get even more dramatic and possibly even more miserable.
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There is an oft repeated anecdote that had King Edward VIII not made a dash for Wallis Simpson’s fragrant embrace and life on the continent, the Queen would have had a thoroughly happy life as countryside-mad aristocratic woman, all fox hunting and hordes of dogs.
Sometimes I wonder: Would she have been much happier if her life was full of thoroughbreds and Jack Russells. Because, reigning? It’s a rough gig.
Next year will be the Queen’s platinum jubilee which makes 70 years on the throne. (Queen Victoria must be rolling over in her grave with jealousy.) It should be a huge celebration, all commemorative shortbread tins and bunting.
Should that is. But then again, when has ‘should’ come into when we are talking about the royal family?
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The reality is that the run-up to Her Majesty’s landmark year, and the year itself, is shaping up to be a fairly miserable one with Diana, Princess of Wales, haunting the palace anew, a worrying new Netflix documentary in the offing, a massive courtroom showdown brewing, and Netflix ferreting about in the shadows.
(Don’t worry, there will still be plenty of commemorative biscuit tins to snap up.)
In April, the Queen lost her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, taken to the great Land Rover obstacle course in the sky at the age of only 99. (Well, the Queen Mother was hosting a house party at age 101 when she suddenly died.)
He was, famously, “her strength and stay” and no doubt a constant font of questionable jokes. However, that support, friendship and helping hand in trying to call her family rabble to order is now gone.
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Things are hardly better when it comes to the next generation. Prince Charles is regularly beaten in polls by his son Prince William when it comes to the question of who should rule next, as if the crown was some sort of reality competition involving buzzers and a BBC newsreader or two.
There has been much hand-wringing and brow furrowing over whether, given his tepid popularity and aloof persona, the reign of Charles III will see the monarchy come far too close to toppling.
(Most organisations don’t bring in 72-year-olds to lead them into the 21st century.)
Everything the Queen has worked so hard for could come undone thanks to her son’s inability to ever impress the hoi polloi and his (former) bouts of infidelity.
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Then, there are the Queen’s grandchildren who are nearly outdoing their parents in the drama game. Over the last three and a bit years, the image of the royal family as a bunch of dull plodders keen on wool jumpers and meeting with regional Lord Lieutenants in between Mustique jaunts has been wholly replaced with that of family dysfunction and toxicity on a scale that would wow even Kris Jenner.
Prince Harry now lives in California with his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, where the couple have spent the last year signing (estimated) eight and nine figure deals, taking their own photographer to events (a preschool and war graves) and spending a lot of time talking about compassion.
Unfortunately that compassion does not seem to extend towards his frigid family given only in March, the couple spent three and a half hours enumerating their grievances against the palace to worldwide TV audiences. (Less than two hours were broadcast.)
Philip’s recent funeral ultimately served as the backdrop to what smelled decidedly like a carefully choreographed, briefest of public reconciliations for William and Harry when cameras filmed them briefly speaking to one another. (Handy that.)
That Harry then left the UK the day before his just widowed Gan Gan’s birthday, optics be damned, does not suggest the Duke’s brief return to the mother country was all healing hugs and Marmite sandwiches by the fire.
Don’t think I’ve forgotten Prince Andrew here who saw fit to gad about with old pal Jeffrey Epstein after the financier was a convicted sex offender. In July, Andrew’s friend and Epstein’s alleged madam will go on trial. We are definitely a long way from the conclusion of this sordid chapter.
And not one of these noxious and protracted crises is likely to be resolved anytime soon which makes it particularly lucky that this week the Buckingham Palace gift shop announced they are adding a new gin variety to their booze section. (I still find the fact that major palaces have gift shops more than a tad crass.)
If this family’s drama-prone ways weren’t enough for the 95-year-old sovereign to have to face then we get to the fact that she will have to share the spotlight in 2022 with Diana, Princess of Wales.
Next year will mark 25 years since the death of Diana whose tragic shadow continues to cast a very long pall over the palace.
This week, it was revealed that Netflix is making a new documentary about the princess using hours and hours of previously unreleased recordings. Added to which, expect a deluge of biographies, books and TV specials about her life, all of which will dredge up the misery of her years in palace captivity for pretty much everyone involved in this sorry tale.
2022 will also see season five of The Crown hit screens which will pick up in the early ’90s right as the blistering War of the Wales’ kicked off.
(It is absolutely and utterly abominable that thus far the hit series has nearly totally excised Sarah, Duchess of York. If we don’t get some Gaelic toe-sucking and a lot of red haired inanity in the new season then I will lead the very angry charge.)
Again, the royal family now faces another populist drubbing as old wounds are painfully reopened in the name of entertainment.
The problem with these small screen outings isn’t just that they will remind those of us old enough to remember these sordid goings on but that The Crown and the doco will introduce a whole generation to the royal family-as-villain trope. (Never have baddies had such questionable dental work and quite so many small dogs.)
All of this boils down to one simple fact: There is no respite, not a drop, on the horizon for the Queen. Instead, the next 18 months portent even more melodrama and even more snowballing PR crises.
This current period of tumult is such a sad coda to her (nearly) seven decade reign which has seen her keep the whole slightly ludicrous ship of monarchy afloat for the better part of a century. After having heaved and dragged the crown into the 21st century, to have to watch the whole thing teeter in her twilight years thanks largely to her family’s doings must be heartbreaking.
Such is the pathos of the whole sorry mess, even Netflix’s most dedicated troop of screenwriters couldn’t have come up with such a nearly farcical comedy of errors. But then again, they do have The Crown season six coming so … get writing kids.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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