After a week of professional and creative frustration, I did what I always do when I’m sad, and on Saturday night, I took myself to the ballet. It was a mixed programme celebrating the works of Frederick Ashton. Divine. Whenever I go to the Royal Opera House, I look up at the coat of arms at the centre of the proscenium arch and think about divine right. The Royal Ballet was granted a Royal Charter in 1956, and The Royal Opera in 1968; it is hardly surprising to see the monarchy stamped all over it. Dieu et Mon Droit, says the coat of arms, a strange callback to a time when the English language was not such a dominating force.1 It’s the coat of arms of both the monarch and the state, and both are bound up in the ROH — it’s the kind of space where state and monarchy seem to mean almost the same thing to those who most believe in them.
A couple of years ago, I took my sister to see Like Water for Chocolate, a new, exhilarating ballet adapted from Laura Esquivel’s novel. By chance, it was the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee; before the ballet began, the orchestra played ‘God Save the Queen’ and the audience was invited to stand and sing. Almost everyone did, though we did not — I refused to be pressured into showing any reverence towards an institution I despise. If these people cared so much about the monarchy, why weren’t they out watching the fucking parade? It seemed absurd to me. More absurd was watching such a strange and challenging show, a magical realist tale of doomed love, after the conservative-royalist-nationalist nonsense we began with. In my favourite part, the protagonist’s sister runs off with a revolutionary soldier. I wondered —was she in love with the man or the revolution? Maybe it didn’t matter at all. They ride off on soldier’s horse, the sister straddling him, lovers face to face. In the book, they’re fucking, but obviously, the show somewhat leaves this to the imagination.
The show left an impression on me; so too, did the spectacle of the Jubilee. Christopher Wheeldon, the choreographer, has an OBE. Most titans of Ballet wind up with a title of some kind. Wayne McGregor has a CBE and has just been knighted. Darcey Bussell is a Dame, as are Antoinette Sibley, Monica Mason, and Merle Park. Margot Fonteyn was a Dame, and so were Alicia Markova, Ninette de Valois and Marie Rambert. Sir Anthony Dowell, CBE. Sir Anton Dolin. Sir Frederick Ashton and Sir Kenneth MacMillan. Deborah Bull even got life peerage, she’s a Baroness in the House of Lords! The list goes on and on.
This monarchism is perhaps more unavoidable in the world of dance than in other art worlds, but it’s hardly exclusive to it. Such titles are conferred to icons in theatre, film, television, literature, visual art and music. The Royal Variety Performance dates back to 1912, and has been televised since 1960; a few royals are always in attendance as honoured guests. Institutions with royal charters include the BFI, the BBC, the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Academy, and most prestigious universities, dance schools and conservatoires — among them the Royal Academy of Dance, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts and the Royal College of Art. British Vogue commemorated Queen Elizabeth’s death with a purple cover, less than a year after a cover dedicated to the platinum jubilee.
Perhaps what I am actually illustrating is how profoundly the monarchy is embedded in British life, particularly in bourgeois worlds and institutions. It isn’t exclusive to the arts by any means — there are chartered institutes of bankers and linguists and accountants and farmers and engineers; the royals have long made a point of involvement in every significant industry. Many companies boast of Royal Warrants and royal connections. Business people from every corner of the country make the Honours lists each year. A quick dive into Fragrance: Floris displays Royal Warrants at its 89 Jermyn Street store, and Penhaligon’s tells tall tales of founder William Penhaligon’s status as Court Barber and Perfumer to Queen Victoria, though I’d note I haven’t been able to find anything about this beyond the regurgitation of the same line of copy over and over again, even if King Charles did grant them a Royal Warrant earlier this year. Jo Malone, easily the most famous living individual in British perfume, received an MBE in 2004 and a CBE in 2018.
You could say that my point about bourgeois institutions is prescient — is it surprising that the monarchy is so associated with the luxuries of British life? This country failed to overthrow the monarchy permanently. Where other bourgeois revolutions succeeded, ours did not, and I find myself wondering if the British Royalty have warded off this threat by paying such careful attention to the nation’s bourgeoisie. In any case, the history of art and pleasure and luxuries can hardly avoid the history of monarchy. Ballet began with court pageantry and developed into a performance-based form in the court of Louis XIV. Catherine de’ Medici brought her perfumer to France upon marrying Henry II. Novelist Frances Burney was ‘Keeper of the Robes’ to Queen Charlotte. Art and fashion orbited royal courts for many centuries — that of the elite, anyway. It strikes me that popular culture was rather distinct for most of history, something that belonged to the people rather than something that was served to them by corporations for their more passive consumption. More on that another time, I suppose.
There is a defeated sort of practicality to much of British liberals’ cooperation and collaboration with the Royals. It’s a little backwards, maybe — a relic from our nation’s long history — but there’s no use objecting to them, they’re always there. For many, they are considered relatively benign. It’s only a constitutional monarchy; the family have limited power; the country is still a ‘democracy’. Never mind that the Crown Estate is one of the largest landowners in the country, or that there are still 90-odd hereditary peers in the House of Lords, or that the compromises made to weaken the power of hereditary peers have hardly been a radical step towards democracy.2 Never mind how extensive the violence and exploitation done across the Empire in the monarchy’s name.
The monarchy may not have the power to act upon their whims as feudal monarchs once could, but does that matter? They are present in every part of public British life, bringing confusing and dated ceremony, obfuscating the undemocratic and oppressive reality of the British state and the capitalism born from it. But if we put aside practical and material matters — what of spiritual ones? I think about it whenever I hear the anthem sung or see that motto. It’s a motto that supposedly dates to Richard I. When people in the arts court royal favour or accept honours and titles or show deference to working royals on visits, what do they think about divine right? Not even the royals would claim to believe in the absolute divine right to reign, but I often wonder what they think the relationship is between God and their positions. I guess I think constitutional monarchy is a bit of a joke. A botched revolution, if you will. An insult to the people, an insult to all pretences of democracy.
I suppose this has been on my mind this week because of the selfie Taylor Swift took with Prince William and his children after one of her London shows. I hate to write about Twitter discourse but the response interested me. Many pointed out what a conservative, even reactionary institution the monarchy is, and that such a photo op does more for them than it ever does for her. She’d never pose with Trump, surely — what was she thinking? I’m not sure how much I agree with this. I have no desire to defend her, and I am well aware that all differences of culture and status aside, she the billionaire climate criminal will find her class interests are relatively aligned with those of the British Monarchy. But I think this reaction of disgust understates the scale of monarchist reverence across the arts in the country. Many British celebrities would and do do the same. I wonder how seriously she takes the royals anyway.
To international eyes, there seems to be something kitsch about the monarchy. A piece of history, the fairytale past. Again, there is something casually dismissive — they have no formal political power, they’re basically just a tourist attraction, etc. Such photo ops make me think of dollar princesses — as if instead of marriage, the trade is one of PR, lending the prestige and fairytale glamour of the institution in exchange for Swift’s influence and even ‘cool’.
In an austerity-wrecked country, I can understand some of the undignified desperation for royal approval, even if I don’t respect it. The Royal Opera House is the largest recipient of Arts Council England funding. This can’t be entirely credited to its royal connections, but they are certainly part of it. Becoming a great national institution in this country pretty much requires the involvement and approval of the royals. The line between British nationalism and monarchism is hard to distinguish.
There is plenty more to say on nationalism and arts funding, but I do want to keep this fairly brief, so I’ll save it for another time.
There is another motto on the coat of arms at the ROH. Honi soit qui mal y pense. Shamed be whoever thinks ill of it. It’s the motto of the Order of the Garter, an order of Knighthood made up of the King, the Prince of Wales and 24 members. Andrew Lloyd-Webber was appointed to it just this year! You might say that such words mean little now, that this is all ceremonial. But if it means so little, why does it persist? Why not get rid of it all? You encounter the same very British attitude over and over, the notion that stubborn attachment to a point of principle is naive or childish. You should just play along, keep such principles to your private life, and well out of your professional one. I disagree, obviously. I’m reminded of Heathcote Williams, who graffitied Buckingham Palace in the 70s in protest of Queen Elizabeth II signing Micheal X’s death warrant — he was hanged in Trinidad, six years after the UK had abolished capital punishment.
People reject honours all the time — a rising trend throughout the 2010s, according to an FOI request made by the Guardian — and general republican sentiment is rising, especially among British youth. And yet British cultural industries are often keen to imagine republicanism as a marginal belief. It is tolerated in successful writers, artists, and musicians, but rarely considered a serious political belief.
I think it should be. The monarchy may have significantly less power than they once did, but they are hardly powerless figureheads. They’re a family — and beyond them, an entire social class, albeit a small one — told of their superiority from birth, living in luxury funded partly by the state, growing separate personal wealth with outrageous tax exemptions, often profiting from the use of formerly common land enclosed many centuries ago. Can a claim to power or a demand for reverence ever be just symbolic? With over a millennium of such violent history attached to it, I’m not convinced. I’ll keep going to see the Royal Ballet, but I will keep hoping to see the end of the monarchy, and certainly the end of their influence in the arts, all the same.
‘God and my right’
For international readers - the House of Lords is the upper house of parliament, formerly composed almost entirely of hereditary peers (nobles, i.e. Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Etc.) In 1958, life peerages were introduced — titles which cannot be inherited, but which entitle the peer to a seat in the House of Lords, and are nominated by the Prime Minister and officially appointed by the monarch. Since 1999, the House of Lords has been primarily composed of life peers, and the hereditary peers of the country have had to nominate 90 among them to take seats, rather than being directly entitled to it.
this is so SO good & reflects a lot of how I feel working in a big art institution. my partner & I were at the ROH the day the queen died and when they played the national anthem & the audience stood up to sing I had no idea what to do with myself, it was so strange.