A Very Brief History of Royal Weddings

in Current Affairs, History | April 28th, 2011 8 Comments

I can’t say that we’ll be watch­ing the roy­al wed­ding. But we should at least put a thin veneer of intel­li­gence on top of the shal­low spec­ta­cle. That’s our job. In two very quick min­utes, Emory his­to­ri­an Patrick Allitt sketch­es out the his­to­ry of roy­al wed­dings, and tells you why this “Roy­al Willd­ing” stands out…


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Comments (8)
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  • Jon T says:
    April 28, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    Why would you say, or think, a wed­ding is a shal­low spec­ta­cle”?

    Reply
  • Jon T says:
    April 28, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    Why would you say, or think, a wed­ding is a shal­low spec­ta­cle”?

    Reply
    • Paul says:
      April 29, 2011 at 2:50 am

      No-one is say­ing wed­dings are shal­low spec­ta­cles. They are often won­der­ful dis­plays of love and devo­tion between two peo­ple and can be very mov­ing, even if you don’t believe in the insti­tu­tion. How­ev­er a roy­al wed­ding is noth­ing of the sort. It’s an attempt to con­tin­ue the roy­al blood­line, to pump more life into a vile and decay­ing sys­tem of priv­ilge and pow­er through birthright. As my friend right­ly put it — “Dear cit­i­zen. We’re hav­ing a wed­ding. You’re pay­ing for it but you’re not invit­ed. Now run along and have a street par­ty in our hon­our. There’s a good peas­ant. From Will and Kate.”

      It’s not just shal­low, it’s man­i­fest­ly wrong that such atten­tion and such vast amounts of mon­ey should be lav­ished on two peo­ple who seem to have done noth­ing to deserve it beyond one of them being born to some­one who died in a car crash.

      Reply
      • Blake says:
        May 3, 2011 at 4:29 pm

        Your opin­ions seem to be out of sync with the major­i­ty of those of us who live under the sys­tem you think you are describ­ing.

        A strong major­i­ty (63%) of Britains of all polit­i­cal per­sua­sions and social groups think that Britain would be worse off with­out the monar­chy. Six­ty-sev­en per­cent – includ­ing fifty-sev­en per­cent of 18–24s – think the monar­chy is rel­e­vant to life in Britain today. Lucky is the pub­lic insti­tu­tion of any coun­try that can boast of such sup­port.

        The fact that Queen Eliz­a­beth II has a six­ty-one per­cent favourable rat­ing among Amer­i­cans and that sev­en­ty-one per­cent of Amer­i­cans say the Roy­al fam­i­ly “is a good thing” for the British peo­ple seems to sup­port the opin­ion of six­ty per­cent of the British pub­lic that the monar­chy is some­thing that improves Britain’s image around the world.

        Oh, and by the way, six­ty-six per­cent of the UK pub­lic (and sev­en­ty-five per­cent of the US) still have a favourable opin­ion of the woman who died in that car crash near­ly four­teen years ago.

        Reply
  • Steve40004 says:
    April 29, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    I think it is very mean­ing­ful to the peo­ple of Britain and very ungen­er­ous of us to crit­i­cize their insti­tu­tions. It brought peo­ple togeth­er, and we have no right to make fun of it. Their tra­di­tions are a thou­sand years old, how old are ours? Keep snark out of this.

    Reply

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