I am not yet tired of hearing about the pregnancy of the Duchess of Cambridge, but I am
tired of hearing people moan about how they don't want to hear about
it. It's been only two days, and I am already blisteringly weary of
dismissals of the news: "Who cares?" and "Just another celebrity
pregnancy media frenzy." Sorry. Tisn't.
I
will grant that many are far too wrapped up in the lives of
celebrities, and the hysteria some Brits show over the Royals can
sometimes seem over-the-top and bewildering. I hope (probably in vain)
that the Duke and Duchess can live out her pregnancy in some kind of
normalcy (and in health--that the Duchess has been hospitalized for
hyperemesis gravidarum
is a cause for some concern), but there is no escaping the fact that
she, her unborn child, and her husband are walking history. That is a
future monarch she is carrying there, and questions of the wisdom and
feasibility of the continuation of a monarchy in Great Britain aside
(that's a topic for another time), the pending birth of a future monarch
is a big deal.
Not
as big a deal as it would have been four, or even one, hundred years
ago, but a big deal still. Whatever one's opinion about the royal
family, there is no denying that who they are and what they do is
considered to be top news by millions: it is estimated that some 300 million people watched Prince William and Catherine Middleton's wedding in April 2011, 1.2 million people lined the royal pageant route on Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee and 14.7 million watched the Diamond Jubilee Concert in June 2012, and 10 million people
a year in Britain alone have tuned into the Queen's annual Christmas
Speech in recent years).* The members of the House of Windsor fascinate
their subjects (even while they and the royal system which they embody
may infuriate some of their subjects as well), and, if interviews with
some of those who come out to line The Mall during celebrations such as
Royal Weddings and Jubilees are any indication, their service to the
Commonwealth engenders loyalty, admiration, and gratitude in many. That
being the case, the birth of a child who will change the line of
succession and thus change the future face of the British monarchy is
certainly newsworthy.
But
what is infinitely more compelling to me, what has me excited to hear
about this pregnancy, is the sense of history that comes with this
news. So much of Britain's history rests on who sat on the throne and
who could or could not produce a legitimate successor, and while the
political ramifications of not producing an heir are less dire now than
they have been in Britain's past, the event of Prince William's marriage
and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge's, subsequent pregnancy
connects us to that past. I have always thought that the British seem
to be more aware of their history during their day-to day lives than we
are--a result, perhaps, of having a national figure who is a living,
breathing link to hundreds of years of royal and political history. The
royal family we see today--Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Prince
William, and, of course, all the rest of the Queen's children and
grandchildren--are a result and a reminder of hundreds of years of
history. The current Queen's father gave a rousing speech at the start
of WWII that helped unite a country under threat; her uncle was at the
heart of a scandal that tested the relationship between the monarch and
parliament; her grandfather ruled during WWI, her great-grandfather had a
period named after him (Edwardian), her great-great grandmother, too
(you might have heard of it). When we watch The King's Speech
and get swept up in the story of that man's life and the history he
lived, is it not marvelous to realize that the dignified woman we see
celebrating sixty years on the throne is his daughter? Or to think,
when we see that episode of Doctor Who
with Queen Victoria that plays on the history of her family, that that
story (in more realistic terms, perhaps) is still being told?
Millions
of people the world over can do this, too, can trace their ancestry
back hundreds of years, can point to the historical events their
families influenced or were a part of. And history, after all, is made
up not just of the names and deeds everyone knows but of the names and
deeds no one knows. But the children of the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge will be the next step in a part of history that we can see,
and that is just mind-bendingly brilliant. To think that these children
will be the direct descendents of people who stare at us out of black
and white plates in our history books; to realize that the past isn't
dead, that, in fact, it walks about, living, breathing, falling in love,
having children; to be reminded of this is simply grand.
And
we Americans, who are so unfailingly interested in trying to pull the
beliefs and attitudes of our founding fathers into the present, who are
fascinated by the complex histories of our own important ruling familes
(the Adamses, the Kennedys, the Bushes), and who have a history of the
family Bible with its carefully filled out family tree at the center,
should have no trouble at all understanding why the impending birth of
the great-great-great-great-great grandchild of a figure of such
national and international historical import would be breaking news.
*The population of Britain in 2010 was
~62 million, meaning about 16% of the population watched the Queen's Christmas Speech. By contrast, about 37.8 million people watched President Obama's 2011 State of the Union Speech, or about 12% of the US population.
These comparisons are not strictly one-to-one (I don't mean to equate
the President of the USA's State of the Union Address and the Queen's
Christmas Speech; they do not serve the same function), but the point
that people care about the royals is adequately made, I think.
**Also, a nod to Jane Murray's The Kings and Queens of England, which is always my go-to for sorting who-came-after-who and who-was-who's-father.
