Uneasy lies the head that doesn’t wear the crown

A possible solution, oddly, is contained in the Bible. One evening, when walking on the roof of his house in Jerusalem, King David spotted a woman ‘‘who was very beautiful to look upon’’. He found out that she was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, a brave soldier away fighting the children of Ammon. So he sent for her, slept with her and made her pregnant. Wanting to marry her, David wrote a letter to Joab, his General, asking him to put Uriah in ‘‘the forefront of the hottest battle’’. Uriah was duly killed. As punishment, Bathsheba’s baby died, but David’s repentance was sufficient for God to allow the next baby to live. He was King Solomon, proverbial in his wisdom.

Andrew Parker Bowles had a distinguished career in the Army, where he was a Brigadier and Silver Stick-in-waiting. True, he rode in the Grand National, but, so far as we know, no one tried to send him to the ranks of death. He became head of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps. Now it is too late to pack him off anywhere.

He has left the Army, is remarried and leads a blameless life as director of companies that make all-weather race-courses and the like. I haven’t asked him, but I am sure he is ‘‘relaxed’’ about the idea that his ex-wife might become Queen. No insult to the Brigadier is intended when I say that I cannot believe that his continued existence on this earth will really keep the Crown from Camilla’s head. All of which is said just to show how flimsy are the objections of law, Church and Constitution to something with which, in reality, people are perfectly happy. Even the few strict Protestants, unearthed by TV to condemn the marriage, happily sing the Psalms written by the murdering adulterer David. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

The question is, what is the will? In most of the media coverage, one could detect an uncertainty, a tendency of each paper and network to look over its shoulder at readers and viewers to try to guess what everyone else might be thinking. Compared with a few years ago, the runes are hard to read. In 1995, in a leading article which I think I wrote myself, this newspaper said that people would not accept the Prince’s divorce if they felt it was ‘‘a device that would allow him to marry Mrs Parker Bowles’’. In July 1997, we began to push towards her acceptance — ‘‘She is good for his peace of mind, and is, therefore, performing a public service’’. The death of Diana at the end of the following month stopped all that, and we received a great many letters from readers excoriating Camilla. I could see that any attempt to advance her cause at that point would only retard it.

Now all those feelings have died down, and anyone expressing burning anger at the prospective marriage of a widower and a divorcee, both of whose marriages ended 10 years ago and both of whom are in their mid-fifties, looks slightly mad. But by the same token, very few people are thrilled, as opposed to quietly pleased, by the engagement, and many will continue to withhold approval. Widespread boredom could make things easier, but could also produce sourness. Because Mrs Parker Bowles is a sensible, down-to-earth woman, and because she loves her fiance and he loves her, and because he needs a cure for anxiety and loneliness, I am sure the engagement is a good thing, but I am less sure that matters are now comfortably settled. In fact, the delicacy about the titles proves that they are not.

If you want to hold a finger to the wind, follow the behaviour of the Government. Labour never likes to say anything that runs risks with focus groups, but its heart is never with the monarchy. Tony Blair’s words of Cabinet congratulation to the couple were verbally unexceptionable, but his body language — bouncy, cheeky, almost satirical — suggested contempt. John Prescott, always given greater licence, said he wished the couple well and hoped that Charles would have less time for foxhunting (does he not believe that his own Government’s Act will stop that anyway?). You have only to reverse the situation, and imagine Prince Charles telling Mr Prescott not to drive his two Jaguars to see that this was not a joke, but a jibe. It was also not a slip, but politically intended. The way it works is for a Labour politician to say something critical of monarchy or Royal Family, and then either let it lie, or, if things get too hot, allow Mr Blair to come gallantly to the rescue and retract it.

This week, a House of Commons committee assailed the Duchy of Cornwall’s financial managers, asking about the money spent from its profits on Mrs Parker Bowles. Their inquiries were justified, but their tone was repellently rude and self-righteous. Their guns have now been spiked by the engagement, but they will soon start firing once again. New Labour is afraid to strike the monarchy, but more than willing to wound it. Despite his carefully projected conservatism, Blair has always been a constitutional radical. In his John Smith Memorial Lecture, delivered the year before he became PM, he set out his vision, rejecting anything that gave power to people ‘‘on the basis of birth, not merit or election’’. He scorned the fact that some people sat in the House of Lords ‘‘perhaps because, 300 years ago, their ancestor was the mistress of the monarch’’. What does he think about someone being Princess Consort because, rather more recently, she was mistress of a Prince? Poor Camilla: uneasy lies the head that doesn’t wear the Crown.

The Daily Telegraph