The Monarchy: 'Imperialistic story' or reassuring symbols?

It’s a time not just for looking back over the decades, but for assessing where we are at now in this journey with the British monarchy, and peering into its future.  Is the monarchy secure, or does it have vulnerabilities?

How can it continue to be meaningful for the people of Scotland and the UK? Here, historians, experts and commentators share their predictions.

Words, as told in interview to Vicky Allan.

Pauline Maclaran

Professor of Marketing & Consumer Research, School of Management at  Royal Holloway

The monarchy has vulnerabilities. Amongst them is the threatening court case against Prince Andrew.

The Queen’s recent stripping of Prince Andrew’s title was a good and necessary move.  When you look at the royal family as brand, you can see a parent brand that has to control its sub-brands. They cannot risk the tainting to themselves that this potential scandal might bring. They minimise it by putting him in the naughty corner. They show that they also recognise his disgrace – though let’s acknowledge that he’s not been found guilty and we’re a long way from that. 

The Queen can never deny he’s her son, and allegedly her favourite, so all they can do to control that is try and position him as their wayward son. Everyone can relate to that. People will have sympathy for the Queen. But it is damaging because it’s very seedy. He’s been accused of sexual assault. It doesn’t look good – particularly in this era of the MeToo movement. 

At the moment, I don’t observe that people are judging the Queen. That’s not to say that people aren’t judging the monarchy as an institution.  People have been demanding more value from the monarchy in recent years and this gives more fodder to those who say that we should abolish it. 

In the latest YouGov pols, the popularity of the royal family has really fallen in the younger generation. That’s not good because apparently it was quite strong two years ago. So there is a big change, and I’m sure Meghan and Harry have something to do with it. Generation Z are much more politically and socially aware around issues of diversity and equality. 

In terms of the impact of the Prince Andrew allegations and the split with Meghan and Harry, I think things will be fine while the Queen is with us because she does garner huge support.  But it could easily change if anything were to happen to the Queen and Charles were to take over. Then we could quite easily have a wave of people joining the cries of, ‘What’s the value in the monarchy if they only run around disgracing themselves?’ We know that Charles is not nearly as popular as the Queen or William and Kate. 

How do the royal family get through this? In the short term, I think they’ll try to hype up the jubilee celebrations more and remind us of their value – the pageantry, all that side that is so glorious about them. That will also be a chance to foreground the Queen who is without doubt hugely admired and loved.  The royal family as it stands at the moment without Meghan and Harry really risks standing too much for white privilege going into the future. That’s another reason they will face an uncertain future, regardless of what happens with Andrew.

But I think it would benefit both brands, the Harry and Meghan brand and the royal family brand, to have a reconciliation. Because the royal family needs that diversity that Meghan brings and that appeal to Generation Z and Millennials.  But also Harry and Meghan need to renew their royal relationship because their kudos was their royal connections, but doing things differently. They’ve lost some of that. 

READ MORE: Platinum Jubilee: Tom Devine on the future of the monarchy in Scotland

Murdo Fraser

Conservative MSP

Queen Elizabeth has been a fixture in the lives of the great majority of the British population for decades. Indeed, anyone under the age of 70 will have no memory of any other monarch. Even amongst those who are not royalists, she is widely admired and respected for her consistent service and duty, and the gracious manner in which she continues to conduct herself. She has been a figure of stability and constancy throughout a long period of change.

Opinion polling would suggest that there continues to be strong support for the monarchy both in Scotland and the UK.  Having a head of state who is a non-political figure, and therefore is seen as being unifying for the nation, as opposed to having a potentially divisive elected head, is a major advantage compared to republican democracies.  Inevitably, the accession of a new monarch who may not prove as popular as the current Queen may lead to some questioning the future of the monarchy, but overall the benefits of the institution will outweigh concerns about the personality of any individual holder of the office.

Charles has broad public support, and there is no reason to believe that his accession to the throne would lead to any reduction in support for the monarchy, although any change in the personality of the monarch will undoubtedly cause some uncertainty. While Charles would not appear to be as popular with the public as his mother, Prince William has consistently very high approval ratings, which would suggest that the future of the monarchy is secure in the long term.

Sara Sheridan

Author of Where Are the Women? and historical fiction 

I’m a republican. I feel a link to the past in lots of different ways. And actually the story that the royal family tell is a very imperialistic story, often a very male story. We have a Queen on the throne at the moment, but largely, over history, it has been a very male story. So my connection to the past comes from looking at the actual diversity of our history and the actual achievement of people who changed the world.  When I wrote Where Are The Women?, it gave me a connection to history I hadn’t really had before. I stopped thinking of history as a series of dates around legislation or around wars or who was on the throne and started to think of it as a chain of hands that you could touch, going back and back and back.

Dr Chandrika Kaul

Professor of Modern History, St Andrews 

Due to the longevity of the Queen’s reign, we are used to her being in control and being this wonderful symbolic head of Britain. But the possibility in the not very distant future of a new monarch introduces uncertainty and vulnerability. Yet, the Queen’s reign, and indeed the British monarchy, has always been vulnerable throughout the ages in different ways. This is an institution that has evolved and responded to moments of crisis in the past.

Although the opinion polls have Prince Charles level-pegging with his son to succeed as king, there is no reason for Charles not to succeed. We have a fairly efficient, functioning, constitutional monarchy at the heart of which is the succession. Charles should and will become the next king unless he chooses to abdicate.

Meghan and Harry’s decision to step away from the royal family has raised the issue of the Queen’s relationship to race and gender. I believe there is nothing in the Queen’s public record that would suggest that she is anything but eminently colour-blind. She has been scrupulously positive, particularly if you look at her response to countries in the African continent and the wider Commonwealth.

However, I am not aware of how many people of colour work directly for the Queen, for instance, in her palaces. When the Queen was younger, the comparison in the media with her sister was quite stark, for example, Princess Margaret was friends with a number of the great black jazz musicians of the age, whereas the Queen was not publicly affectionate in the same way. But I do not think the Meghan-Harry drama has substantively damaged the Queen’s reputation.

You may be indifferent to the concept of monarchy, and there are many in this country, including people of colour, who feel that it’s outlived its usefulness in multi-cultural Britain.  But I believe it is worth emphasising two fundamental points: First, Elizabeth deserves our respect as a person. She has managed to retain her character, her nerve, her dignity, and also a certain mystery. That’s an incredibly difficult balancing act to maintain over 70 years. She has never been politically partisan, and the fact that we don’t really know what she thinks gives her unique influence.

And second, she has dignified the office she has held. Through her tireless service, she has made the office of monarchy worth respecting. 

Roddy Martine

Author of A Royal Tradition: The Queen and Her Family in Scotland

My view of the monarchy is that every country, every nation, has to have its head of state, and frankly, if you look through history and look at the leaders who have come and gone, the republics, we’re very fortunate that actually in Great Britain we have a thousand years of dynastic rulers who aren’t really rulers, they’re symbols. 

The Queen has followed in the tradition of her father and her grandfather and her great grandfather. When you look back over the last two centuries, a key characteristic of the monarchy is that they’ve been solid and they’ve been above politics.  That’s what I feel very strongly about. I feel if you’re having a head of state they’ve just got to be above all that rubbish that froths away beneath them. The Queen has done a very good job of that – never complain, never explain.

We’re also very fortunate that William and Catherine are shaping up. Catherine is rather fantastic and long may she keep up the pace. 

One of the big things that the monarchy represents for all of us is continuity. A lot of people rubbish pageantry and pomp and circumstance. But I find it rather fantastic and splendid. It’s something that every republic envies us for because they’ve never managed to replace it once they’ve got rid of their own hereditary heads of state.

If I was the Queen, I’m not sure how I’d feel about putting on a heavy crown and getting in a coach. I rode in a coach from Princes Street up to Hopetoun House at once point and it took us about three hours. By the time I got there, I thought, “Get me out of this thing.” 

Amna Saleem

Writer of BBC Radio 4 series Beta Female

I don’t understand why this particular family, non-elected, have any meaningful place in the way the world operates, and I take issue with the way their history is enmeshed with British colonialism.  In the present, the stories surrounding Prince Andrew didn’t help matters either. The fallout from Meghan Markle’s addition to the establishment followed a series of already sketchy events.

The royal family and the British media’s reaction to Markle was disappointing but by no means surprising. They simply started to say all the quiet things out loud.  They squandered the opportunity to step into this century, choosing to cling to outdated values at all costs. 

They allowed racism to thrive and provided the media with a new target. We all watched as something as ordinary as two people getting married became a national point of contention. Here was a woman with the lightest of skin, a mixed-race black woman. I think a lot of us thought, ‘Wow, she is a really successful, beautiful, amazing woman, but even she is too much of a minority for them.’  In this day and age, a prince marrying someone who wasn’t white was something that had to be debated to death.

One of the lowest points (there were many) was when articles popped up after Markle had described that a member of the royal family had raised the issue [of how black their baby might be]. The inaction of the royal family baked the insidious nature of racism even deeper into the fabric of our society.