Who Is Up For A Royal Wedding?
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Some of the most enthusiastic about the upcoming Royal Wedding between Kate Middleton and Prince William are American friends of mine. We have already despatched some Royal Wedding memorabilia to them, and expect to send more in the coming days as the Wedding draws nearer. Its April 29th by the way.
The Royal Family should be delighted by this news, after all the American colonists fought and beat the forces of one of their descendents, George III well over two centuries ago. In any event all of this should be taken with a pinch of salt, because I suspect that it is the Royal entertainment factor rather than any hankering after a past no long remembered. But like those ‘Tories still hanging out in the Great North Woods’, mythology plays its part. And so does collective amnesia. For there were some North American regiments that did stay loyal to the Crown along with some Native Americans. There were some large landowners who didn’t go over to the Revolution, but who still somehow manage to hold onto their wealth. All of the above were regarded as ‘traitors’ by the Founding Fathers, and their continuing absence from the history books suggest that some attitudes die hard. History is taught in rather a different way north of the border in Canada.
Be that as it may, the excitement levels have not yet built to an appreciable level in Britain, a country that at present feels rather sorry for itself and deeply cynical about any attempts to drag it out of its self obsession. Still, the sight of an attractive couple getting married on a Spring day with all of the pomp and circumstance that goes with it will lift the spirits of many.
I don’t begrudge them that, despite being a lifelong republican.
