Admit It: Royalty Is Cool

It’s expensive. It’s frivolous. It changes nothing. So why are many of us fascinated by royalty, especially the British version? And why this particular British monarch?

We’re Americans, you may say, we’ve done just fine without all that. Well, no, we haven’t – done without it, by any stretch. We’re constantly crowning kings and queens, especially in entertainment and sports. The closest we came to it in government, perhaps, involved JFK and Jackie, but somehow, it never quite satisfied.

Sure, we fought for independence from Britain and won it, but our founding fathers started out as British subjects. Much of our legal system follows British traditions. “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” is really just a cover song (“God Save the Queen”).

When I was a little boy, I collected stamps. American stamps were great, but they didn’t do it for me – I specialized in the British Empire, back when there was one. There was nothing quite as impressive in the philatelic world as the stamps from a British colony, always with the king or queen on the side.

British kings and queens have been far from perfect. Some have been scoundrels, even murderers. In more recent times, even as their power has diminished in the U.K., their public personae have taken a distinct turn for the better. For those who don’t read a lot of history, Hollywood has filled in the gaps with offerings such as “The Queen” and “The King’s Speech,” showing us how the monarchy, useless as it may be portrayed much of the time, has been the rock in periods of great stress.

Elizabeth has been no different. As a child during World War II, she took to the radio airwaves to boost the spirits of displaced British children. More recently, she has been able to maintain her dignity while surrounded by, to put it mildly, some wacky family members. And while from the outside, being born into a royal family may symbolize a life of comfort and privilege, royals are basically condemned for life to a long series of duties in what amounts to a gilded prison. Yet, Elizabeth, at 86, spent hours waving to her subjects at her Diamond Jubilee, much of it standing up.

And she seems to be one of the few British women that have a modicum of sensible taste in hats.