There is no doubt the Brits are past masters at staging " Royal " events that attract a world audience. Be it a Wedding, a Coronation or a Funeral, it will be staged in pomp and circumstances that bring it to television screens that fascinate millions of people.
The funeral of the Queen's ninety-nine year old husband, Prince Phillip was such a showcase event orchestrated to cover rifts in the Royal family and with the splendor of Windsor Castle as the backdrop. Colourful military uniforms and Royal salutes from historic cannons provided the spectacle outside St Georges chapel, but the entire Royal family wore civilian attire to mask the fact that rebel Prince Harry has been stripped of his military ranking.
Queen Elizabeth conducted herself with dignity, but her frailty was obvious and soon she will join her husband in St Georges Chapel and there will be a Coronation to anoint Prince Charles as the hereditary King of England.
The history of Europe was ruled by Kings and Queens in earlier centuries and most have now been replaced by Presidents. The glue that held England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales together as a country is loosening and if it ends in rupture it will raise a doubt about the future of the House of Windsor's rule.
It is also doubtful that overseas countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand will indefinitely retain an overseas monarch as their head of state. That was an inevitability when Britain headed a mighty empire, but its withdrawal from the EU leaves it a lonely little island in the North sea.
The past history of the rule of Kings in England is colourful. There have been numerous civil wars as competitors have challenged for the throne, and Kings have been executed when they lost the confidence of their subjects. One king was deemed quite mad and that madness lost the country its American colonies.
Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales is next in line to sit on the throne and now he is a colourful old man. It is likely that his past will come back to haunt him. There was the ongoing scandal of his marriage to a beautiful commoner that the people took to their hearts and Charles wrecked that marriage by his insistence in maintaining a mistress.
That ended with the untimely death of Diana in Paris, followed by Charles marrying his former mistress who will probably serve as his Queen when he assumes the throne. In the eyes of some of his subjects his former antics make him unfit to head the Church of England, which is automatically the task of the King of England.
Charles will come to the throne with baggage and may not attract the respect his mother gathered by her long years of faithful and obedient service to her nation. How he fares will depend on public opinion and be recorded in future history books !
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