Monthly Archives: March 2012

Canadian Support for the Monarchy Appears to Change According to the Survey Question

by CarolynHarris | 5 Comments

The Duchess of Cambridge celebrates Canada Day in Ottawa, July 1, 2011

I am quoted in Sun newspapers across Canada today regarding recent poll data that only 29% of Canadians support showcasing the monarchy in Canada.Ā  In the interview, I argue that responses to polls regarding the monarchy change according to the phrasing of the question.

This particular poll probably received favourable responses from only 29% of Canadians (with higher numbers in British Columbia and lower numbers in Quebec) because the word “showcasing” evokes images of expensive celebrations occurring to honour royal visits in a time of comparative fiscal austerity.

In contrast, a January 2012 poll discussed by the Ottawa Citizen asked whether respondents were in favour of abolishing the monarchy after Queen Elizabeth II dies. The result was an even split with 43% in favour, 43% against and 14% with no specific opinion. Once again, the phrasing of the question probably strongly influenced results. There is clearly greater support in Canada for continued ties to the constitutional monarchy than there is for “showcasing” the monarchy within Canada. The reference to Elizabeth II’s death, however, probably evoked concerns regarding Prince Charles’s eventual kingship, once again influencing responses to the poll.

Of course, the value of all this polling data is called into question by evidence of widespread confusion regarding the structure of Canada’s government. As recently as 2002, when Elizabeth II celebrated her Golden Jubilee, only 5% of respondents to an Epsos-Reid poll were aware that the Queen is Canada’s head of state with 69% assuming that the Prime Minister (the Head of Government) occupied this role. Regardless of the question, polls measuring support for the monarchy are undoubtedly influenced by this misunderstanding of how Canada’s government is structured. Greater awareness of Canada as a constitutional monarchy is necessary for reliable data to be gathered regarding Canadian attitudes toward the Queen and her successors.

Prince Harry in Jamaica, the Duchess of Cambridge in Leicester and the Apprenticeship of a New Generation of Royals

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Prince Harry and Kate Middleton (later the Duchess of Cambridge) attending Prince William's 2008 Investiture into the Order of the Garter

Prince Harry has arrived in Brazil after charming Belize, the Bahamas and Jamaica. His informal approach to the royal tour endeared him to audiences throughout the Caribbean. In Jamaica, he diffused a potentially awkward meeting with Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, who favours cutting ties between Jamaica and the Constitutional Monarchy, by giving her a hug and declaring her his “date for the evening.” Despite concerns that the visit to Brazil would be disrupted by protesters objecting to the United Kingdom’s claim on the Falkland islands, Harry successfully promoted Anglo-Brazilian trade, joking “Please, please – if we show you how to play rugby – don’t do what you’ve done with football, and leave us wishing we hadn’t!”

Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, the Duchess of Cambridge accompanied her grandparents-in-law Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh to Leicester, the first stop on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee tour of the United Kingdom. The royal party received an enormous welcome with thousands of people gathered around Leicester cathedral, De Montfort University and the Clock Tower. The Duchess’s presence demonstrates how completely she has been integrated into the royal family since her wedding last year. Prince William is currently stationed in the Falkland Islands but the Duchess continues to undertake royal duties in his absence with the support of his grandparents.

Queen Mary with her granddaughters Princess Elizabeth, the future Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. George V's consort believed that younger royals should be prepared for their future life of public service.

Prince Harry’s tour of the Caribbean and the Duchess of Cambridge’s involvement in the Diamond Jubilee tour of the United Kingdom should be seen as a kind of apprenticeship in the life of public service expected of a working member of the British royal family. Both Harry and Catherine have been learning from more experienced members of the royal family. Harry has been in constant contact with his brother, Prince William, who completed a successful tour of Canada with the Duchess of Cambridge last year. Catherine is learning from the Queen’s lifetime of experience undertaking public engagements. This support for younger members of the royal family reflects the values of Elizabeth II’s grandmother, Queen Mary, who firmly believed in mentoring new generations of princes and princesses.

Following her marriage to the future King George V, in 1892, Mary of Teck had a difficult introduction to life as a senior member of the royal family. Although her grandmother-in-law, Queen Victoria thought highly of her, she had a difficult relationship with George’s mother, the future Queen Alexandra, and sisters Louise, Victoria and Maud as they viewed her as a poor relation and thought little of her intellectual interests. Mary also had to overcome her own natural reserve for a life in the public eye, eventually receiving acclaim on royal tours such as the 1901 commonwealth visits to Australia and Canada.

As a result of her difficult introduction to royal life, she was determined to help future generations of the royal family adapt to their duties. When a younger relative complained of being tired from visiting a large number of military hospitals during the First World War, Mary stated, “You are a member of the Royal Family. We are never tired and we love hospitals.” Mary took a close interest in her granddaughters, the future Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. She insisted that the their education include extensive knowledge of the United Kingdom’s history and government, taking them on frequent educational trips to museums and other historic sites.

The Prince and Princess of Wales with President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy at the White House in 1985. Charles once joked that he learned about royal life "the way a monkey learns - by watching its parents" while Diana believed that she should have received more praise from other members of the royal family for her popularity.

In recent decades, Queen Mary’s belief that older members of the royal family should mentor younger ones appeared to be less prevalent. Both Prince Charles and Princess Anne expressed their discomfort with public engagements before eventually becoming among the most active members of the royal family. In the 1990s, both Diana, Princess of Wales, and Sarah, Duchess of York discussed their feelings of isolation within the royal family as a cause of the breakdown of their marriages. Catherine’s travels with her grandparents-in-law and Harry’s consultations with his brother demonstrate that Queen Mary’s ideal of apprenticeship for young royals has been revived. Both Prince Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge are receiving plenty of support from more experienced members of the royal family for a long career of public engagements.

Book Review of Helen Rappaport, A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the British Monarchy

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There are two iconic images of Queen Victoria in modern culture. One is the Queen in the first years of her reign, as portrayed in The Young Victoriastarring Emily Blunt and Victoria & Albertstarring Victoria Hamilton and Jonathan Firth. In these films, we see Victoria succeed to the throne at the age of eighteen, enjoy freedom from her mother’s strictures then fall in love with her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and have a successful marriage despite their differing temperaments. These early years have also received extensive analysis in the recent popular biographies The Young Victoria and We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals.

The other well known image of Queen Victoria is an elderly monarch, emerging from the seclusion of her decades of mourning for Prince Albert to celebrate her 1887 Golden Jubilee as the grandmother of Europe’s royal houses and her 1897 Diamond Jubilee as Empress of a worldwide British Empire. As 2012 is also a Diamond Jubilee year, the image of the older Victoria is receiving renewed attention in such works asĀ Ā  Empire and Queen Victoria’s Little Wars. In contrast, the circumstances of Prince Albert’s death, the pivotal event that transformed the happily married Queen into the widowed matriarch, has received little popularĀ  attention until the publication of A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy.

Helen Rappaport has a gift for capturing a snapshot of royal history and using it as a lens for understanding the larger political and social conditions of the period. In her previous book, The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburgthe final two weeks before the murder of the last Russian Imperial family shed light on the collapse of Nicholas II’s rule and the factions within the Bolshevik regime. In A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy, Prince Albert’s illness, death, funeral and memorials frames the prince’s political role, nineteenth century medical practices and Queen Victoria’s impact on British mourning culture.

While previous authors have focused on the impact of Prince Albert’s death on Queen Victoria, Rappaport’s work encompasses all social estates in Great Britain and the worldwide British Empire, demonstrating that mourning for Prince Albert was an event that created common ground amongst the Queen’s subjects. In this analysis, she draws on her extensive knowledge of nineteenth century history, demonstrated in her previous work, No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War. Rappaport discusses the reactions of Queen Victoria’s most famous contemporaries. There is Lord Palmerston’s fear that Albert’s death would destabilize Victoria and by extension the constitutional monarchy, Charles Dickens’s disappointment at having to cancel a lucrative lecture tour as the nation went into mourning, and Abraham Lincoln’s heartfelt condolences that stood out within the enormous number of sympathetic letters received by the widowed Queen.

The effect of Prince Albert’s death on ordinary Britons was no less profound. Long periods of court mourning, which Rappaport observes long predated the death of the Prince Consort, changed the nature of British funerals, social events and fashion. With cotton shortages created by the American Civil War, wearing wool crepe or bombazine dyed black out of respect Prince Albert was a practical choice as well as a fashionable one. As the Queen’s mourning was lengthy, long periods of seclusion and mourning attire were adopted by any widow who could afford the time and wardrobe to commemorate her own late husband in the same manner.

Rappaport also provides a well written and sensitive portrait of Victoria’s and Albert’s marriage and the impact of her intense mourning on her children and court. Like Matthew Denison in The Last Princess: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria’s Youngest Daughter, she is deeply critical of Victoria’s decision to keep her young children in an atmosphere of sadness and seclusion in the years following their father’s death. At the same time, she notes that Victoria had been raised to be dependant on others and a long period of mourning allowed her to avoid the terrifying prospect of exercising sovereignty alone. Rappaport also questions the one hundred and fifty year old diagnosis of typhoid fever as the cause of Albert’s death, revealing years of ill health before his final illness in 1861.

A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchyis a well written, insightful account of an important period in nineteenth century British history. Readers interested in the personal history of Queen Victoria’s family will gain a new perspective on the monarch as a wife, mother and widow while those looking for a snapshot of Victorian culture will be fascinated by the details of how an entire nation and empire mourned alongside the Queen.

Royals of the Caribbean 2: Prince Harry is Partying with a Purpose in Belize, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Brazil

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Prince Harry greets the crowds gathered outside Clarence House on April 28, 2011, the day before the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton

Prince Harry is currently on a tour of Belize, the Bahamas and Jamaica, representing his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II in honour of the Diamond Jubilee from March 2 to March 8. His travels will end in Brazil from March 9 to 11, to discuss the passing of the Olympic torch from London in 2012 to Rio de Janeiro in 2016. After these official duties, he intends to spent a few more days private traveling in South America. Along for the tour are forty journalists from around the world, increasing the international profile of Harry’s travels.

The current Jubilee tour has received far more attention that the Earl and Countess of Wessex’s visits to the other commonwealth nations in the Caribbean. In Belize and the Bahamas, the coverage has reinforced the popular perception of Harry as a party prince. Pictures of Harry dancing a Belize street party, sampling a wide selection of island rum cocktails and receiving a marriage proposal from the reigning Miss Bahamas suggest that the tour is simply a tropical version of his usual nights out in London.

In fact, a better comparison would be to the numerous diplomatically sensitive tours that members of his family have undertaken in past decades. While the Bahamas appear to be an unambiguously friendly setting for a royal visit, both Belize and Jamaica appear to be growing apart from Commonwealth. Queen Elizabeth II takes her role as Head of Commonwealth very seriously and values good relations between all the member states. Prince Harry has not been sent to the Caribbean just to have a great time but to demonstrate the continued desirability of a close relationship between the United Kingdom and these Commonwealth nations.

El Castillo, the most impressive of the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich, where Prince Harry went hiking during his trip to Belize

Belize is currently at a cultural crossroads. In the past, it was the only English speaking nation in Central America. Although Belize retains English as its official language, immigration from Guatemala and El Salvador has shifted the nation’s demographics. More than half of Belize’s 300,000 inhabitants are now Spanish speakers and knowledge of English or Belizean Creole (which Harry included in one of his speeches) is no longer necessary for citizenship.

While English and Spanish speakers currently peacefully co-exist, there are concerns that land shortages will cause conflicts in the future. When Harry hiked through the Mayan ruins, enjoyed local drinks and danced in the streets with Belizeans of all backgrounds, his actions symbolized the potential for a peaceful, prosperous future and a continued close relationship with the United Kingdom.

Portia Simpson-Miller, the current Prime Minister of Jamaica. Simpson-Miller has expressed her support for removing the Queen as Head of State and transforming Jamaica into a Republic

Prince Harry will face an even more complicated diplomatic situation when he arrives in Jamaica later today. The current Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller is interested in changing Jamaica from a constitutional monarchy to a republic. Supporters of this change have objected to Prince Harry’s visit. For example, according to Britain’s Sky news, Verene Shepherd, professor of history at the University of the West Indies has stated, “In 1962 we had a kind of political separation. But decolonisation is not complete and Britain needs to make amends. . . and so I’m sorry, I object.” For Shepard, Harry’s presence represents the continued legacy of colonial rule.

In contrast Simpson-Miller has affirmed her personal respect for the Queen and stated, “British-Jamaican relations will not suffer as a result, it’s just time has come for Jamaica to stand on its own two feet.” The impression Harry makes on ordinary Jamaicans will undoubtedly influence popular opinion regarding the island nation’s relationship with the constitutional monarchy. If Jamaicans decide to transform their nation into a republic on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of independence in 1962, a successful royal visit will contribute to future friendly relations between Jamaica and the United Kingdom

The controversies will continue in Brazil, as Harry is expected to face protesters objecting to the United Kingdom’s claim to the Falkland Islands. The monarchy is closely tied to this issue. Harry’s uncle Prince Andrew was helicopter pilot during the Falklands War and his brother Prince William is currently stationed there. Once again, Harry will be expected to spread goodwill in a politically sensitive climate. Prince Harry’s tour of the Caribbean should not just be discussed in the press as one long tropical party but as an opportunity for one of the most charismatic and well known members of the royal family to reinforce a positive relationship between the United Kingdom and Belize, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Brazil.

The Romanov Book Reviews 2: Robert K. Massie, Catherine the Great

by CarolynHarris | 3 Comments

Catherine II, “the Great,” Empress of all the Russias from 1762 to 1796 is a favourite subject for biographers. Scholars such as Isabel de Madariaga, author of Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great and Catherine the Great: A Short History, and Simon Dixon, author ofĀ Catherine The Great have written about Catherine as a political figure who reformed the Russian code of laws, increased her empire’s stature on the world stage, engaged with eighteenth century intellectual trends in an attempt to rule as an “enlightened despot” and expanded European influence over Russian society according to her predecessor Peter the Great’s ideals.

Popular writers such as Virginia Rounding, author of Catherine the Great: Love, Sex, and Power and Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Potemkin: Catherine the Great’s Imperial Partner are fascinated by Catherine’s intimate life, particularly her love affairs with prominent Russian courtiers, military men, and a future King of Poland, during a period when the personal lives of most royal women were carefully circumscribed.

In Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, Pulitzer Prize winning historian Robert K. Massie, the author of Peter the Great: His Life and World and Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty, synthesizes all this recent interest in Catherine’s life and reign into a beautifully written biography that brings Catherine alive as both a political figure and an passionate personality. The first half of the book, which covers Catherine’s unlikely rise to power from her origins as an obscure princess of the tiny German state of Analt-Zerbst, through her marriage to Peter the Great’s grandson, the future Peter III, to the coup that overthrew her husband and brought her to the throne is particularly fascinating.

While portrayals of the Empress in popular culture, most recently films starring Julia Ormond and Catherine Zeta-Jonesshow Catherine triumphing over Peter III soon after her arrival in Russia, Massie is careful to note that her unhappy relationship with her husband lasted eighteen long years before she achieved her political and personal ambitions. Her extensive reading of Enlightenment thinkers and cultivation of prominent courtiers during this period would have a profound influence over her activities and ideology as Empress.

Although Massie uses the famous Memoirs of Catherine the Greatas a central source for his discussion of Catherine’s rise to power, his interpretation is distinct from that of previous popular biographers for his critical analysis of her account. While Peter III has been vilified by Catherine’s previous biographers as boorish and immature on the basis of her depiction of him in her Memoirs , Massie is careful to present a balanced interpretation of his personality and motives, using accounts by foreign diplomats and courtiers who observed the unhappy marriage. Massie even identifies a key moment when Catherine unwittingly transformed an initially friendly relationship with her fiance into the antagonism that would characterize their marriage.

The second half of the book, which details Catherine’s reign skillfully captures the tensions between the Empress’s ideals as a daughter of the Enlightenment, and the realities of governing Russia as an autocrat of dubious legitimacy, dependent on the support of the nobility. Massie analyzes Catherine’s perceived involvement in the double regicide of Peter III and Ivan VI, the partition of Poland, the hopes raised by her interest in legal reform, and the brutal aftermath of the Pugachev rebellion. Massie also attempts to refute some longstanding myths about Catherine, turning a critical eye to accounts of the number of her love affairs and the supposed “Potemkin villages” that were said that to have been built for her tour of the Crimea.

Since Catherine’s relationships with Peter III and his predecessor Empress Elizabeth are discussed in such compelling detail in the first half of Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, I would have been interested to learn more about her troubled relationship with her son Paul and influence over her grandsons, Alexander and Constantine, in the second half of the book. Otherwise, I found Massie’s work to be one of the most fascinating and readable accounts of Catherine the Great’s life and reign. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman is filled with incisive analysis and dramatic details that capture the famous Empress’s personality and achievements.

Crown Princess Victoria’s newborn daughter Estelle set to become next Queen of Sweden

by CarolynHarris | 6 Comments

Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Daniel Westling on their wedding day, June 19, 2010

On February 23, 2012, Crown Princess Victoria, heir to the Swedish throne gave birth a daughter named Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary, Duchess of Ostergotland. The baby’s first name evokes the French origins of the House of Bernadotte, which assumed the Swedish throne in 1810, following the election of Napoleon Bonaparte’s general Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte to the Swedish throne.

Since 1980, the succession to the Swedish throne has been governed by absolute primogeniture, ensuring that the eldest child of the monarch, regardless of gender will be first in line to the throne. With the birth of Princess Estelle, Sweden appears destined to have two reigning Queens in succession with Crown Princess Victoria eventually succeeding the current King Carl XVI Gustaf and being followed in turn by her daughter, Estelle. Sweden has had only three Queens Regnant in history and they were all influential political figures and interesting personalities.

The tomb of Queen Margrethe the Great of Denmark, Norway and Sweden She reigned in Sweden from 1389-1412.

Like Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, Queen Margrethe the Great, a powerful medieval ruler of Denmark, Sweden and Norway came to the Swedish throne through popular acclaim. She became Queen Consort of Norway through her marriage to Haakon VI in c. 1363. As the Danish succession did not allow for formal female rule in the fourteenth century, Margrethe ruled Denmark as regent for her young son Olaf IV. When the Swedish nobility wanted rid of their unpopular King Albert, they invited Margrethe to become their Queen. She successfully invaded Sweden in 1389. Margrethe’s rule was period of unity and prosperity in Scandinavia as she recovered previously lostĀ  territory and reformed the currency.

Portrait of King Christina of Sweden, who reigned from 1633 to 1654 by Sebastien Bourdon

The second and most famous “Queen” of Sweden, Christina, was actually crowned King upon the death of Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years War, in 1633. Before leaving on his military campaign. Gustavus Adolphus left instructions that his only child was to be raised as a Prince of Sweden and crowned King in the event of his death in battle. Known as “The Girl King” from her ascension at the age of six, she grew up to be a patron of Descartes and was determined to make Sweden the cultural capital of the North Upon assuming personal rule at the age of eighteen, she had conflicts with her ministers who expected her to marry and produce and heir. As Christina stated in her Memoirsshe felt “an insurmountable distaste for marriage” andĀ  “an insurmountable distaste for all the things that females talked about and did.” She abdicated in 1654 in favour of her cousin, Charles Gustavus, scandalized Sweden by converting to Roman Catholicism, and continued her cultural patronage as a Queen in exile. Her life was later adapted into a Hollywood film starring Greta Garbo, Queen Christina.

Ulrika Eleanora who reigned over Sweden as Queen Regnant from 1718-1720 then as Queen Consort until her death in 1741.

The most recent Queen of Sweden was Ulrika Eleanora, who spent her brief reign attempting to assert the prerogatives of an absolute monarch over the objections of the Swedish Riksdag, who favoured constitutional monarchy. During her two years of sovereignty, she created numerous new noble families, attempting to gain support for her policies of absolutism and co-rule with her husband Frederick. She was never able to achieve her ambitions and abdicated in favour of her husband in 1720, an act which she described as “the greatest sacrifice of my life.”

Crown Princess Victoria and her daughter, Estelle will be the fourth and fifth Queens Regnant in Swedish history, continuing the long and interesting history of female rule in Sweden.