The Rants of Issachar
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Prince Charles
Continuing the grab bag of random thoughts I had while I was travelling to the Okanagan this past weekend...
Charles should never be King. The man just isn't fit for the job. It isn't because he married Camilla. While Camilla is divorced and Prince Edward renounced the throne in order to marry Wallace Simpson an American divorcée, marrying Camilla isn't Charles disgrace. It's the fact that he had longtime affair with Camilla while he was married to Princess Diana. There's good reason to believe that he was involved with Camilla before he married Diana and that he continued his relationship with her as though his marriage to Diana didn't exist.
Now there have been plenty of British Monarchs throughout history who have been unsavoury, but the fact remains that times have changed and we expect better behaviour from our royals today. The Monarchy has been reinvented as some sort of "First Family" for Britain and to a lesser extent the former colonies. This job doesn't require them to be perfect or to be the best family in the world, but it does require that they don't act as Charles has. I'm not even going to get into the fact that he has an amazing ability to come off as a wet blanket. Prince Charles also has a total lack of media skills that seem to be an essential requirement of the job.
I've been a fan of the monarchy for most of my life. I'm a firm believer in democracy, but I do love the history and the poetry of a constitutional monarchy. But still I wonder if we'd be better off without the monarchy than let Charles be our King.
Prince William may not make a perfect King either, and certainly he's imperfect like all men. Still he hasn't disgraced himself yet and if Queen Elizabeth II died tomorow, he'd be old enough to ascend to the throne. I hope a decision is made to skip Charles in the line of succession and make his son King.
Having said all of that, the marriage is a done deal. May their marriage last the rest of their lives and be a happy one.
Charles should never be King. The man just isn't fit for the job. It isn't because he married Camilla. While Camilla is divorced and Prince Edward renounced the throne in order to marry Wallace Simpson an American divorcée, marrying Camilla isn't Charles disgrace. It's the fact that he had longtime affair with Camilla while he was married to Princess Diana. There's good reason to believe that he was involved with Camilla before he married Diana and that he continued his relationship with her as though his marriage to Diana didn't exist.
Now there have been plenty of British Monarchs throughout history who have been unsavoury, but the fact remains that times have changed and we expect better behaviour from our royals today. The Monarchy has been reinvented as some sort of "First Family" for Britain and to a lesser extent the former colonies. This job doesn't require them to be perfect or to be the best family in the world, but it does require that they don't act as Charles has. I'm not even going to get into the fact that he has an amazing ability to come off as a wet blanket. Prince Charles also has a total lack of media skills that seem to be an essential requirement of the job.
I've been a fan of the monarchy for most of my life. I'm a firm believer in democracy, but I do love the history and the poetry of a constitutional monarchy. But still I wonder if we'd be better off without the monarchy than let Charles be our King.
Prince William may not make a perfect King either, and certainly he's imperfect like all men. Still he hasn't disgraced himself yet and if Queen Elizabeth II died tomorow, he'd be old enough to ascend to the throne. I hope a decision is made to skip Charles in the line of succession and make his son King.
Having said all of that, the marriage is a done deal. May their marriage last the rest of their lives and be a happy one.
