Royally rich but never free

On the eve of the Queen's golden jubilee celebrations, THES writers examine why European monarchies endure and look at royal dynasties around the world.

Despite their huge wealth, royals shackled by duty inspire sympathy in the masses, writes Andrzej Olechnowicz.

Last month's royal funeral reassured monarchists and deflated republicans, as such occasions tend to do. The machinery of mourning marched into action. According to the newspapers, the Queen Mother was everything from the "last empress", the "people's queen" and the object of a "four-mile tide of love" to the "most magical grandmother", a "figurehead of our nation" and even a "marshmallow with a touch of arsenic".

Very few columnists mentioned her substantial personal wealth (£50 million-£60 million inheritance-tax free, with £19 million in trust funds for her great-grandchildren). In one respect they were right not to do so: the monarch's wealth has never been a matter of great concern to the British people. Republicans might like to believe this is because the monarchy has hidden the true extent of its wealth. Yet today, when we know much more, it still does not matter. Moreover, the poorest have usually been among the most attached to the monarchy. The NOP poll after the Queen Mother's death found the greatest support for retaining the monarchy as it is among the lowest social class (60 per cent). How can we account for this?

Historically, many monarchists and republicans have reached similar conclusions: that this is not what we would expect; but popularity is fickle, and "the masses" are moved by spectacle. Thus, the republican Frederic Harrison pronounced loftily in 1872: "Popularity is a vague term. In Ireland they are raising a statue to a beloved greyhound." The courtier Lord Esher observed of royal popularity in 1903: "Like all popular favour, it is worth nothing and is blown away by the first breath of adverse breeze." Several generations of political leaders accepted the crowd psychology of Gustave le Bon, who, on the basis of very little evidence, declared in 1895 that: "Crowds being only capable of thinking in images are only to be impressed by images." Therefore, courtiers organised ever-more extravagant royal ceremonies.

Republicans lament the temporary stupidity of the masses at such times, but they also blame the media - with some justice. Until recently, "gentleman's agreements" between the palace and the press prevailed whereby reporting was respectful and what could not be reported respectfully went unreported. Thus, the affair of Edward and Mrs Simpson did not feature in the British press until seven days before the signing of the Instrument of Abdication, whereas Americans had long been able to reflect on the facts that "King chooses clothes to match Mrs Simpson's" and "King might quit throne to wed Wally". Likewise, the monarchy has normally received "extra fair" treatment on TV: which other "firm" gets a free advertisement on Christmas Day? However, much recent press reporting has been anything but respectful: in 1996 "negative" royal stories outnumbered the "positive" by 8:1 in the national and regional dailies. And yet, each time, the monarchy recaptures popular favour.

But major royal ceremonies are not only about colour. They are elaborately rule-governed affairs. Moreover, they are solemn reaffirmations of the centrality of "duty" and "service" in royal life. A monarch is "on ceremony" throughout his or her reign. Monarchists have endlessly and extravagantly made this claim, even of Edward VII, that most visibly pleasure-seeking of royals. He is "pursued by the intolerable limelight wherever he goes", wrote a journalist in 1908.

After his funeral in May 1910, Arnold Bennett wrote in his journal: "It is a tremendous relief to a newspaper reader to have that funeral done with."

Mass Observation found that on George VI's coronation day, May 12 1937, "even those persons who shut themselves up most completely could not escape the day entirely". This is only in part the effect of the media. Of equal importance, royal occasions have been accompanied by royal merchandising. The 1887 jubilee saw "jubilee herrings", "jubilee eggs" and "jubilee sugar-plums". An estimated 6 million to 8 million items of coronation ware were made for Edward VIII's coronation. At these times, it is impossible to remain untouched or indifferent to the monarchy.

Moreover, although monarchs have almost always held conservative views, "the crown" has fulfilled its public role in a politically neutral way. Monarchists have also emphasised the sovereign's lack of real power and his or her "democratic" credentials. Hence a coronation tribute to George VI described him as "king and emperor" but also as the "first citizen" and "the democratic king". As a result, the republican claim that "democracy and monarchy are an unthinkable connection" (Keir Hardie) has never commanded any significant support or occasioned any thoughtful public debate.

A further claim made by monarchists is that the monarchy is simultaneously extraordinary - "enchanted", even "divine" - and quite "ordinary". George V's reign established "low-brow" royal ordinariness. He attended FA cup finals, thought Fidelio dull and was reported as saying that he would rather abdicate than sit through Hamlet a second time. According to the journalist A. G. Gardiner's Pillars of Society (1916), he treated workers on visits to mills and foundries in Lancashire "in the spirit of a fellow-workman".

This ubiquity of monarchy and its much-paraded ordinariness means that most of the population compare themselves to it at some level. On one level, royal wealth does not matter because the monarchy is such a well-entrenched institution that it is psychologically easier to accept it than to reject it.

On another level, however, royal wealth has been essential to constructing the popularity of the monarchy. Royals are wealthy but royal ceremonies dramatise that they are not free to do as they please. Sympathy for the burden of royalty has come from the poorest members of the population. In 1937, Mass Observation noted working-class sympathy for George VI, who "didn't really want" to be king. Michael Billig's 1992 book, Talking of the Royal Family , based on interviews in which 175 people were allowed to express their views freely, stated that "talk about the royal family's unenviable life is a variant of the general common-place 'money doesn't bring happiness'", adding that criticism of royal wealth was countered by claims that "they don't seem to have any freedom at all".

Such attitudes make the monarchy a profoundly conservative institution. The combination of royal wealth and royal ceremony is one way in which our society allows many people to find contentment with their lot and undermines the belief that greater material equality will bring greater happiness.

Andrzej Olechnowicz is a lecturer in the department of history at the University of Durham.