At the risk of visualizing the Founding Fathers rotating in their hallowed graves, I’ve been enjoying the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth. Just as everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, even the most patriotic Americans can get sentimental when the Brits trot out their royalty.
Part of this kinship is a shared heritage and culture and a (mostly) common language. We can credit the Founding Fathers with the sense to hang on to the best British stuff, such as Shakespeare and the Magna Carta, instead of stamping out every vestige of the old order as the French and Bolsheviks did. It’s hard to visualize a similar bond between any other two nations, even those with similar cultures (think India and Pakistan or the Balkans).
It’s easy to embrace the British (and Canadians and Australians) because they’re so much like us. We may find it hard to relate to the odd customs of the French, Arabs or Chinese, but we tolerate the eccentricities of the Brits (such as warm beer and driving on the wrong side) because they’re family – like the goofy uncle who tells embarrassing jokes but you love him anyway. We’ve even forgiven the Brits for burning the White House.
It probably helps that I’m part Scottish. Whenever I hear bagpipes I get the urge to invade something, and when my daughter painted herself blue at the age of two I chalked it up to genetics.
Watching the Queenfest was fun because nobody does pomp and circumstance like the British. No other people can be so dignified and so zany at the same time: the Queen doing her understated wrist-wave from the royal barge while rain-soaked subjects with painted faces cavort in the streets. Super Bowl halftime shows and Moscow May Day parades just don’t measure up.
Even the Americans who claim to dislike the British do not take it all that seriously. A sailor on my ship in the Navy, a streetwise kid from Brooklyn, was intensely Irish and disparaged the English daily… until he went ashore in Hong Kong. There his favorite pastime was to walk into a bar frequented by British sailors, settle in with a beer, and then stand up and loudly propose a toast to the Queen. The Brits cheered and bought him a beer or two. Then he would move on to the next Royal Navy bar and repeat the performance.
The royal family is fascinating because they are fairy-tale and folksy at the same time. TV coverage of the 1994 Winter Olympics showed the King of Norway hanging out with the spectators like an ordinary working stiff. You won’t catch the Windsors rubbing elbows in the crowd, but hearts melt every time the Queen dotes on a toddler.
If nothing else, the royals are so damned durable that they eventually grow on you. Tabloid scandals are momentary blips in a reign of decades and the tradition of centuries. Prince Charles has developed a sense of humor (something new for the Windsors). He will make an engaging monarch if he outlives his mum, and the next generation is off to a classy start.
Memo to the Founding Fathers: The royals have learned from the mistakes of George III. It’s okay to love them again..