One thing I have tried really hard to do this summer, especially the last few weeks during the warm, sunny weather, is to avoid watching television. This hasn’t been terribly difficult for me. I’m not much of a TV watcher, except for sports I follow and the evening news. Even in a world where news can be reached instantly on your computer, I still prefer to either watch it on TV or read it in a newspaper. The impetus for this is to jump-start my motivation to do things that I either never get time to do during the school year, or to get odd jobs done that I deliberately put off. So far this summer, I’ve been pretty successful. I built the bunk beds for the kids’ playhouse. I hung the new mirror we got at Christmas up on the wall--only six months later. I got the garden tilled and planted, and even have it weeded, although I need to credit the boys for that last bit. I even got my man-cave tidied up, relatively speaking. By my standards, it’s a lot tidier, but I’d wager that if you didn’t know better, you’d still think it’s messy.
The bonus of keeping the TV off is that I haven’t had to follow the constant gaggle surrounding the birth of William and Kate’s baby. Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge don’t need last names; everyone on the planet knows who they are. I can’t immediately think of any couple that radiates that much star power. You wouldn’t necessarily need to live in a Commonwealth country to know them. Heck, the Americans fought the Revolutionary War to be free of the Royals, and their media is as smitten with them as anyone.
The concept of the monarchy as the Canadian head of state is a contentious one. If you’re a Canadian, you know the history, or at least you should. Canada was a colony of the United Kingdom, until in 1867, four provinces hashed out a deal to form their own nationhood from the ashes of colonial Britain. The relationship has been a dicey one over the years; after Canada grew from the founding four players to the ten provinces and three territories, there are moments when a Maritimer feels he has nothing in common with a Westerner, let alone other Maritimers. Still, our fledgling democracy took root, but not without one dangling strand of nostalgia keeping us firmly attached to the old empire’s underbelly. The Monarchy.
Canada is a lot like hockey, the great game we cling to with such national pride. We like our product, but for the life of us can;t help but with feel there is always something wrong. So we tinker with it, twist it in half a million distorted ideas and concepts until one day it looks nothing like we imagined it in the first place. And we still admire it, to the point that it is infallible. Of course, both sports and countries change over time. That’s natural. But only in Canada do we beat ourselves up so fervently about the chronic state of affairs we find ourselves in. I’m sure every national feels that way about their own country. But here, feeling the need to change everything we do is as much a part of our identity as poutine and beaver tails.
Still, the vestiges of the past are still a rich part of our national fabric, or tartan if you like. Canada, despite the recent Conservative Party’s efforts, is a progressively liberal society. We are known for this world-wide. Maybe not Netherlands liberal, but you get the point. We seem decades ahead (or away depending on your political taste) of our blustery, blowhard distant cousins to the south, the ones who decided to rile up the masses, polish up their guns and take their damned independence by force rather than settle into lengthy committee debate over tea and crumpets like we did. Canadian history is often cited as being rather boring, but only if you’ve studied American history first.
Like our US friends, we are firmly committed to our roots. The Americans have their sacred documents, rules, and codes for all citizens to embrace and obey in perpetuity. We’re not quite as rigid, but part of that lies in the fact that we never did fully gain independence. If the US and Canada are two children, the former would be the brash, eager young cadet who couldn;t wait to move as far away from home as possible, while the latter is the sentimental fool who bought the house next door and comes over for bridge every Friday night. And we aren’t the only sniveling child. Australia and New Zealand come to mind as other adolescents who never quite made their own way in the world, erstwhile they maintain a constitutional monarchy just like we do in Canada.
And just like an immature adolescent, Australia even held referenda to decide whether or not they would move further away from home. In their most recent vote, the citizens down under opted to listen to the little winged angel on the right shoulder rather than the spikey-tailed devil on the left. So Queen Elizabeth II remains the head of state there, as she does in Canada. Admire the Royals as they might, you’d be hard pressed to locate an American willing to call anyone other than the President their leader. If anything, the USA is decisive. No lingering around the corner to see if anyone changed their mind after the big blow-up argument. Nope, they made a choice and stuck to it. If the whole thing comes crumbling down for them, just like that stubborn intrepid child who moved far away, they’d rather starve than pick up the phone and call mom and dad for cash.
If I was really that upset about the whole ‘should we or shouldn’t we’ question concerning the role of the British Monarchy in Canada’s governance, I would have done my research and pulled up numbers to back my claim. I don’t see how the Monarchy has any relevance to how we conduct our business, prepare and enforce our laws, and make our decisions. That’s not to say I think we should abolish our ties. I’m only suggesting, as millions of Canadians do, that the role the Crown plays is murky at best, and illogical at worst.
So we all turn our focus to the next generation of the stewards of our imperial historical connection. Will and Kate introduced a healthy baby boy, after what seemed like forever to those who sat fixed to their screens (television, smart phone, or anything in between), waiting for his first exposure to both the rays of the sun and the flash of the papparazzi cameras.
The only part of this whole process that even remotely interested me was what they had chosen for a name. Because if you are a British royal, your name carries an almost mythical stigma, which could elevate you to the highest of highest, or relegate you into the case-files of historical royal villains. Prince Charles has suggested that he may choose a regnal name, possibly George, which would make him George VII for those keeping count. That means that if he holds to that idea, his grandson--who wouldn’t have to go the regnal-name-route, since they called him George--would be the eighth to carry that name historically. I’m hoping that when George’s time comes, and it’s unlikely I’ll be alive to see it, he throws everyone a curveball and takes the regnal name Charles. Wouldn’t that be screwy!
I was a little disappointed in William and Kate choosing to name their son with such a boring, overused name. When the new Pope arrived, there was speculation that he was more liberal-minded than his predecessors, and that he would shake up the Vatican. He chose an original regnal name, opting for Francis, a tribute to St. Francis of Assissi, who I’m told did great things many years ago. Just by choosing a non-traditional title, he made a significant move towards determining how he will proceed with his term at the head of the Church. Now, I understand little George the (possibly) Eighth had no say in the choosing of his name, but it seems like this was an opportunity lost. Prince William, who has been seen largely as a ‘people’s king’ in waiting, and embraced by the hip young generation who probably follow him on Twitter, had a chance to make a big move towards changing the image of the monarchy, and I would say for the better. Why not call him something different, like Brady or Caden? Or even an older name that hasn’t got stale, royal attachment issues, such as Jason or Michael?
I really don’t care that much about the goings-on of the royal family. I will admit that their history is entertaining; they have made excellent heroes and villains in stories and movies. I admired Cate Blanchett’s performance in Elizabeth, and cheered as William Wallace fought for Scottish freedom against “Longshanks” Edward I in Braveheart. Henry VIII proved to be quite the character in the popular television series The Tutors. Of course, if you were one of the beheaded wives, you might think otherwise. Fast forward to modern times. Queen Victoria oversaw Canada’s confederation. Edward VIII’s abdication in favour of his divorcee fiancee was maybe the greatest triumph of romance of the twentieth century. Mix in alleged sympathies to the Nazis, the king who stuttered, and young Elizabeth II establishing herself as one of the longest-serving royals of any house ever, and you have a fantastic legacy of fairy tales. And we haven’t even got to Diana yet.
Lady Spencer never quite realized what she was up against. By the time she was batting her lashes alongside resident royal stiff Charles, she was already the real star of the family. Why settle for Anne when Lady Di was there? And as spunky as she was, Sarah Ferguson couldn’t hold a candle to her. Too bad really. I once got to see Fergie up close. It was at a Scout Jamboree on PEI, in 1989. Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York were paying a royal visit to the camp, and a friend called out to her to smile. She immediately spun around and flashed our troop a wicked grin. You could tell that she wanted to be there. We weren’t concerned about Andrew; besides, he was on the other side of the concourse signing autographs.
The drama of the royal family mid- and post-Diana is well documented, and absolutely tragic. What people loved about her was that she was just ‘one of us’. She loved rock ’n roll music, and was famously friends with Bryan Adams and Elton John. Does anyone remember Bryan Adams’ song ‘Diana’, a somewhat embarrassing fan-boy ode to the true queen of our hearts? You most certainly remember Elton’s moving reworking of ‘Candle In The Wind’, performed only once, at her funeral in 1997. Do you remember where you were, or what you were doing when you heard that she had died? I do. It was one of those kind of events.
With Diana’s backstory now fabled in the lore of not just a country, but in pop culture the world over, William and his wife, the young, attractive and seemingly down to earth Duchess of Cambridge are basically deities to their future subjects. As a Canadian, I felt no overwhelming sense of fealty to the arrival of young Prince George the -yet-to-be-numbered. As a human being, I was happy to see him arrive in the hands of two apparently good and humble people who never chose to be who they are. William was introduced to the world in the same way, as was his father, and his mother, and so forth for centuries. What troubles me most about the royal family is not so much the personalities, but the concept of a caste of blue-bloods in the twenty-first century. The royals have never really had any sort of impact on Canadian affairs, save for the odd photo op, constitutional signature here and there, and such. They are filthy rich, not unlike Hollywood stars and rich CEOs of banks. They have otherwise no power over anything. We are over eight hundred years removed from the Magna Carta. That was the document that handed absolute rule from the monarch to Parliament. They have clearly had remarkable staying power, and while the prospect of a new heir--yet third in line to the throne--has melted our apathetic hearts for just a little while, their future has never been more uncertain.
I find myself wondering why we worship celebrities so blindly, particularly the reluctant ones who are otherwise people like you and me, but have yet to really do anything. Then again, raising a child in these circumstances to be modest, humble, and sincere in an age of incomparable surveillance, omniscence, and celebrity is no small feat.
In the meantime, we can marvel about all the frivolities, like how Kate managed to lose her baby bump so quickly. And why the hell they had to announce the birth on a royal easel.
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