How to watch royal TV specials...

...turn the sound off. As is fairly typical with this sort of thing, E!'s "Forbes: Twenty Hottest Royals" had some nice footage, but the commentary was mostly worthless. I was particularly edified to learn that "in the old days, royals had to marry royals, but Princess Diana changed all that." Really? Amazing how Diana managed to convince that stuffy old King George V to encourage his children to marry British aristocrats instead of foreign royals, nearly forty years before she was born! Also rather...creative was the breathlessly authoritative declaration that Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark (so styled because her patrilineal great-great-grandfather King George I of Greece was originally Prince William of Denmark) is "only half a royal" (whatever that means) because Denmark still "recognizes the monarchy" and Greece does not. Or something.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed being introduced to some of the younger representatives of the royal families of Dubai, Swaziland, Thailand, Brunei, and Japan, none of whom I had previously heard of. I suppose one should give the mainstream American media a little credit whenever they deign to acknowledge that there are still reigning royal families other than those of Britain and Monaco.

William to the Caribbean

Prince William will battle drug lords in the Caribbean as he begins his naval career.

New republic threatens Gurkha tradition

While the abolition of any monarchy is bad enough in itself, it should also be noted that no monarchy ever falls without other traditions also being endangered. The Telegraph reports that the heroic Gurkha regiment is the Maoists' next target.

Pomp, Pageantry and the Throne

As a sort of follow-up to yesterday's post, this interesting New York Times article from November makes it clear how irksome even a primarily ceremonial monarchy is to leftists and republicans. Monarchy's enemies all understand instinctively that the Crown matters even if it never overrules the elected government; its supporters forget this at their peril.

Cusack on the Crown

Writing at Taki's Magazine, Andrew Cusack eloquently laments the fact that HM Queen Elizabeth II will probably sanction the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, a piece of legislation which certainly seems to be contrary in principle to any serious concept of a Christian Monarchy, which the United Kingdom nominally still is. While Mr. Cusack makes good points, it remains my position that HM cannot and should not be blamed for consistently acting within the constraints of modern constitutional monarchy, according to which the sovereign is expected to automatically sign any bill passed by the legislature. We have seen in Europe and elsewhere what has happened to monarchs who have strayed outside the "democratic" box. It should also be noted that none of the modern examples of British or Commonwealth royal intervention cited by Mr. Cusack involved an attempted royal veto of any legislation approved by the elected government, and even King Baudouin's defiant gesture on abortion was obviously not effective. While a relatively activist style of monarchy has been fairly successful in the Principality of Liechtenstein, the last European King who clashed with his government was Constantine II of Greece--now in exile for the past 40 years.

Traditionalists who long for a more active Crown should think of modern royalty as prisoners in a golden cage, in which case it is up to us to rescue them. We can start by trying to combat the false belief that only those who have won elections are entitled to have any real influence in government. But for the time being, that is the way Britain works, and it is the MPs who voted for this bill, and the ordinary people who voted for them, not the Queen, who should be held responsible for it. I doubt that even all of those opposed to this Bill would wish for it to be defeated via royal veto, so deeply ingrained is the democratic mindset even among "conservatives."

Forbes: Hottest Royals

Forbes identifies the world's twenty "Hottest Young Royals." Apparently a related E! TV special will air at 9 PM EDT on June 6. I'm sorry that no representatives of the generation of European Catholic royalty born in the 1980s (Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, the Habsburgs, etc.) were included; apparently they weren't considered to have enough "international Web and media presence."

What next for Gyanendra?

Deposed monarchs of the past have explored a number of options, the BBC helpfully informs us, as King Gyanendra is formally evicted from the palace.