Story by Chris Graham

I didn’t know why I was there.

I mean, I had long since given up on the idea that I was going to somehow land an audience with the Queen.

Oh, I had harbored that illusion early on - specifically back late last year, when word made its way from across the pond that Queen Elizabeth II was planning on coming to Virginia to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown colony.

I had envisioned at the outset being able to ask Her Majesty a question or two - perhaps even being given the opportunity for a sitdown interview.

After all, I get that kind of access to governors and senators and other such well-known elite types when I want it.

Alas, those hopes were dashed pretty early into the process for signing up for media credentials to cover events on the Queen’s itinerary - when it was made clear to those of us in the journalist set who thought we wanted to be on hand to take in the spectacle that is a royal visit that there would only be a limited number of opportunities to be in Her Majesty’s presence, and that those opportunities would be doled out to select members of a press pool.

Yes, and on top of that, there would be no questions.

Pretty much what I would be allowed to do was stand there and maybe, if I was lucky, get a glimpse of her as she made her way from the airplane to the tarmac or the governor’s mansion to the State Capitol or some other nonstarter of a nonevent.

So why was it, again, that I decided that this all sounded good to me?

***

“Americans are the most fanatical about the royal family,” says Cele Otnes, a marketing professor at the University of Illinois who has been researching the British royal family for an upcoming book on the branding of royalty.

There’s actually more ambivalence about the royal family in Britain - “because of the sort of republican, sort of non-royalist folks, and because of the money issue, and because certain personalities in the royal family have been problematic,” Otnes says - than there is in the States, which is interesting, given our history of having decided a couple of hundred years ago to forcefully shed our ties with the royal family in favor of republican democracy.

No matter, because over the generations we Americans “have developed a much more romanticized view of the royal family,” Otnes says.

“Part of it, I think, is because we valorize celebrity so much more than that culture does. They have the royal family, and then they pretty much have David Beckham and his wife - and they’re moving over here,” Otnes says.
“We’re fascinated with wealth and luxury and celebrity over here - and the big thing is, and what I hear a lot of people say who visit Britain as tourists, is the appeal of the rituals, all the pomp and circumstance and the majesty of the ceremonies and rituals that they’ve kept into play to help distinguish the British royal family from mere mortals,” Otnes says.

“We can’t have it, ever - and so that’s appealing. The rituals, the history - Britain is a lot older than America. And all of that is very tantalizing,” Otnes says.

***

Otnes was among the people that I contacted in relation to this story who related to me that I absolutely had to watch the movie “The Queen” - which was nominated for six Academy Awards and won one, Helen Mirren for best actress for her portrayal of Elizabeth.

I finally was able to do that several weeks after Elizabeth’s visit to Virginia - and I have to say that its portrayal of how the royal family handled the death of Princess Diana had me wondering even more about the hubbub that we created for ourselves surrounding the visit.

“That’s one of the tensions - when a commoner joins the royals, he or she is expected to behave like a royal, even though they haven’t had that background or that training, necessarily,” says Michael Marsden, dean and academic vice president at St. Norbert College and the author of The Search for Secular Divinity: America’s Fascination with the Royal Family.

“That’s what leads to perceptions that persisted between Prince Charles and Diana, between Prince Andrew and Fergie, and so on,” Marsden says. “But then again, when Princess Diana traveled the world, she was received as a commoner who became royalty - and respected because of that. And Fergie was received in many respects in very much the same way - a little less, maybe, but she touched the royal throne, you know, and that’s really a part of her mystique as a person and is what gives her credibility.”

That was the tension in “The Queen” - that Diana had sort of humanized the royal family, and that Elizabeth as the matriarch of the family had resented her for it, to the point of dawdling over what to do in the wake of Diana’s tragic death in 1997.

“My experience in England is that there is that love-hate relationship with the monarchy,” Marsden says. “Overall, I think there’s respect - but there’s this tension because it costs a lot of money to maintain the royal family, and that’s a tension in a society where there are poor, and there are things that need to be addressed on the social-issue level.

“In our country, I think we’re fascinated by it because we don’t have it - and because we don’t have it, we kind of wonder what it would be like. And so they come and visit - and when they do come and visit, then we behave accordingly,” Marsden says.

***

Ah, yes - behaving accordingly.

In the days leading up to the Queen’s arrival in Virginia, I was among those planning to cover the trip to receive a list of royal protocols.

I so much wanted to poke mean-spirited fun of them - but I somehow resisted, fearing that I would be banned from even being allowed to stand 100 feet away in a driving rain on the off chance that she might wave in my direction as she made her way from one building to another.

But still …

“When the Queen enters a room, everyone stands.” OK, I think that passes the smell test - I mean, we do that for district-court judges here, right?

“The Queen is addressed as ‘Your Majesty.’ ” I can handle that one - I remember Mark Warner telling me once that the governor of Virginia is supposed to be referred to as “His Excellency,” and as much as I think of him, he was just a one-term governor.

“The Duke of Edinburgh is addressed as ‘Your Highness.’ ” This one, I’m not sure of - after all, the guy just married into royalty. Am I correct on that? So he qualifies for this kind of treatment - how, again?

“Bowing is not expected of U.S. citizens; shaking hands is acceptable, but only after Her Majesty has presented her hand to do so.” This is where things start to get to me. “Bowing is not expected of U.S. citizens” - I should think that this wouldn’t even need to be said. And “shaking hands is acceptable, but only after Her Majesty has presented her hand to do so” - alright, maybe if we were talking about greeting her at Buckingham Palace, but we were actually referring to greeting her here, and in America, we shake hands.

“And nobody is ever supposed to have their back to the Queen. And the Queen is supposed to speak first - you’re not supposed to speak until the Queen speaks to you,” Cele Otnes adds to the list.

“All of these rules simply reinforce the sacredness of her role. We’re respectful of only one - the Queen of England. And all of these norms and rituals help solidify the monarchy’s mystique,” Otnes says.

***

Will the royal family be able to stand the test of time?

That seems to be the question that Peter Morgan was attempting to address in “The Queen.”
“It depends on when you ask the question. Because if you ask the British after there’s been a crisis in the royal family, like after the Charles-Diana divorce, the numbers of those who wanted the royal family to stay went down,” Cele Otnes says.

“William is kind of the golden boy, I think - and everybody that I talk to in Britain is just dying to have Prince William on the throne. Charles is kind of too old, too sort of old-fashioned, too frumpy, and his marriage to Camilla didn’t help matters. He’s kind of tainted - with the whole divorce thing and the Camilla thing. But I would be pretty sure that if Prince William were to take the throne, and you were to ask then, the numbers would be lower of those who would want to get rid of the Crown - because the Brits love these sort of public pageants,” Otnes says.

“They are a huge part of their whole history. The funerals, the celebrations - the Charles-Diana wedding was watched by 750 million people around the world,” Otnes says.

“I don’t think the Brits really want to do away with the Crown,” Michael Marsden says. “They complain about it - but there’s a pride in the royalty, there’s a pride in the Queen and the Prince. There’s a pride in the sense that they can trace their history back through the royal family through the millennia.

“Without the royal family, England would not have any kind of ceremonial presence,” Marsden says. “Other countries have to create it - they’ve got it. So when they go to a state affair, it’s all important. They come here, and guess what happens - we’re supposed to follow their protocol. Yet they’re our guests. Isn’t that strange? It’s a remnant of the Empire.

“It’s their one way of having any influence in the world. Tony Blair is a great politician, for sure - but what really gives them any clout in Africa, in Asia and so on, it’s the royal visit. And the protocols. They come to Richmond, Va., and they get us to bow and curtsy or whatever? Come on!” Marsden says.

***

I’ve hinted to how limited my connection was to being anywhere near Queen Elizabeth II during her time in Virginia. To set the record straight, that line above about being allowed to stand 100 feet away in a driving rain on the off chance that she might wave in my direction as she made her way from one building to another neatly sums it up.

That was as close as I was able to get - I remember at one point saying excitedly to my wife, who tagged along very much unwillingly, I must say, “I can see her hat! I can actually see her hat!”

Yeah, I’m embarrassed, too - but Michael Marsden wants me to take my self-awareness in stride.

“Although we as Americans often espouse liberation from such concepts, we really are not liberated from them,” Marsden says.
“You’ll find throughout American literature all sorts of references to the dukes and duchesses - particularly in Mark Twain. Take a look at the fact that there are all these stories about the lost prince, or the mysterious princess who turns up, or the person who claims to be Count So-and-So,” Marsden says.

“So there are all these claims to royalty - and then we’ve done a lot on our own to create royalty through wealth and privilege and influence. The great titans of American industry, what did they do? They built castles - they built estates. They began to function as royalty, in a way. If you look at Henry Ford, he aspired to a kind of royalty in his own way. I don’t think he would ever have acknowledged that - but consider his estates, the way he controlled the land, all over the country. Henry Ford was a kind of royal-like figure,” Marsden says.
“We didn’t have a traditional royalty - but we created it in different ways. And we also, oddly enough, respect it - and I think that’s why, for example, the Queen will always get a good reception here,” Marsden says.
“We’re free of the royalty in the sense that we’re not under their palm or their control - but we’re not outside of their influence,” Marsden says.

For further reading

Queen Elizabeth II visits Virginia - www.governor.virginia.gov/Queen

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue