And One More Thing by Quentin Crisp

Author:Quentin Crisp [Crisp, Quentin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

10. The BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY

Every fourth of July, America celebrates the casting off of its colonial rulers and the establishment of the country that I now call home. That historic American attitude towards the British royal family was short-lived however. At independence they considered them tyrants. Now they are given the movie-star treatment. Of course, Americans can do that because they don’t have to live with them day-in and day-out.

In spite of their modern-day fairytale-inspired enthusiasm for the British royals, replicating them here would be a bad idea. Moreover, I think America is fine the way it is. Monarchy-free. England exists because of royalty and royalty exists in England because the English believe in privilege. In America there is no privilege. If you work at it, you can become President. Well, not, I think, if you are black, for as I have said before, America will never recover fully from slavery. Royal privilege is altogether different.

You see, you don’t have to do anything to become King of England. It’s all bloodline. Monarchy would never work here. People would be too angry. They would say, “Why is the Queen so rich? She doesn’t do a stroke of work!”

In truth, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The Queen works almost every day on behalf of the government and country and, I would guess, her life is very tiring and above all very lonely. I would never want to be Queen of England. I wouldn’t even want to be Prime Minister.

In spite of what I have said about England over the years, England is more broadminded than people imagine. We have had a woman prime minister in the form of Mrs. Thatcher[29] and, a long time ago, a Jewish prime minister by the name of Mr. Disraeli[30]. In America, the furthest they’ve veered away from the White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant model has been an Irish-American president. But you could never have a Jewish president or a black president or a woman president.

The Queen, of course, was not our first female national leader either. Not that the Queen really rules England; her role is more advisory. It is the prime minister who rules England. But before the current queen we had Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.

Victoria was only twenty-three when she became the Queen of England and she reigned for almost sixty years. She must have married Prince Albert fairly young because she had any number of children. Prince Albert was not favored because he had a German accent, although so had Queen Victoria, but he spared her several mistakes. Without him, she would have written to foreign princes saying how angry she was at some trivial insult. He would calm her down saying, “Oh, I don’t think I would send that.” And she didn’t.

Queen Victoria also had a great sense of duty. She married off all of her daughters to German princes in the hope that it would prevent World War I. Of course it didn’t. But the idea was good in theory.

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