In a surprising move last week, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, announced their intention to “step back as ‘senior’ members of the royal family.” They further noted their intent to “work to become financially independent.” Many wondered aloud what, exactly, this meant for the pair and for the institution of the British monarchy. “Feels pretty damaging to the whole ethos and purpose of the royal family if you can just, like, quit being part of it,” wrote BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray.
In many ways, the couple’s self-removal befits the deracinated monarchy. Once upon a time, English monarchs were sovereign, supreme. The occasion of democratizing reforms such as the Magna Carta beginning in the late Middle Ages brought the English monarchy down, down, like glistering Phaethon, into “the base court.” The nobility, and later the gentry, procured means of coercing their monarch, of tempering and resisting royal power.
The reasoned individualism that animated the Enlightenment hollowed out the magisterial tradition yet further and stripped the monarchy of its spiritual imprimatur. Gone was the anointed rex imago Dei and the divine right of kings. Sovereign monarchy was recast into executive power constrained and channeled by liberal constitutionalism.
But even a symbolic monarchy can confer real value for a nation and its people, depending on what symbol is cast. Unfortunately, between the hush-hush surrounding credible allegations of sexual predation against Prince Andrew and the abrogation of civic and familial duty on the part of the Sussexes, lately the royal light is dim indeed. Harry, a distant sixth in line for the throne, has of yet lacked even the good grace to abdicate formally.
At any rate, “#Megxit,” as some are calling it, marks the second time in a century that an American divorcee has managed to stand in the way of the House of Windsor. In 1936, Edward VIII abdicated the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced socialite from Baltimore.
Uneasy may lie the head that wears a crown, but well-privileged and publicly subsidized are the royals who quit on their family.
