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And so it is written: Baby Cambridge will save us all And so it is written: Baby Cambridge will save us all
(2 months later)
In the movies, all royal births, marriages, and deaths are announced from a balcony, to a sea of lowly subjects in a courtyard below. How and why these ready-to-whoop peasants are so conveniently on hand is never made clear: perhaps they have nothing better to do than wait around on the off-chance of news. Possibly they have been kettled there by the Ruritanian equivalent of the Met.In the movies, all royal births, marriages, and deaths are announced from a balcony, to a sea of lowly subjects in a courtyard below. How and why these ready-to-whoop peasants are so conveniently on hand is never made clear: perhaps they have nothing better to do than wait around on the off-chance of news. Possibly they have been kettled there by the Ruritanian equivalent of the Met.
Against such fictions, Clarence House's plans for the announcement of the birth of the royal baby have the whiff of bathos. "We wanted to retain some of the theatre of the notice," a spokesman – who has obviously never seen The Princess Bride – recently revealed. Thus, when the baby is born, a piece of Buckingham Palace writing paper will be signed by those who have assisted the Duchess of Cambridge in her obstetric endeavour, and this piece of paper will be driven to Buckingham Palace, where it will be displayed on an easel in the palace forecourt, like the end credits of a By Royal Appointment episode of One Born Every Minute. One Born Every Generation, if you will.Against such fictions, Clarence House's plans for the announcement of the birth of the royal baby have the whiff of bathos. "We wanted to retain some of the theatre of the notice," a spokesman – who has obviously never seen The Princess Bride – recently revealed. Thus, when the baby is born, a piece of Buckingham Palace writing paper will be signed by those who have assisted the Duchess of Cambridge in her obstetric endeavour, and this piece of paper will be driven to Buckingham Palace, where it will be displayed on an easel in the palace forecourt, like the end credits of a By Royal Appointment episode of One Born Every Minute. One Born Every Generation, if you will.
At time of writing, this ineffably highbrow sequence of English pageantry had not been deployed, though that may well have changed by the time you read this. By Friday, rumour and counter-rumour concerning the precise stage of the Duchess's natal advance had reached such fever pitch that sections of the world's media already appeared to have breathed deeply of the gas and air. As high camp royal tenterhooks go, this one is on a par with speculation as to who had survived Dynasty's legendary "Moldavian Massacre".At time of writing, this ineffably highbrow sequence of English pageantry had not been deployed, though that may well have changed by the time you read this. By Friday, rumour and counter-rumour concerning the precise stage of the Duchess's natal advance had reached such fever pitch that sections of the world's media already appeared to have breathed deeply of the gas and air. As high camp royal tenterhooks go, this one is on a par with speculation as to who had survived Dynasty's legendary "Moldavian Massacre".
Considering all the undoubted, if faintly oddball, excitement about the arrival of a stranger's baby, you would have to be the most hardhearted of things not to feel the slightest sympathy for the duchess. The revelation that Clarence House will actually announce when she has gone into labour feels like the sort of pressure you need like a hole in the head, when you're performing what I like to think of as the least magical of human activities, even with all the drugs you can get your veins on. It'll certainly prevent her turning on the telly in the delivery room – I expect she can't think of a more lethal antidote to the birth hormone oxytocin than watching us, watching her.Considering all the undoubted, if faintly oddball, excitement about the arrival of a stranger's baby, you would have to be the most hardhearted of things not to feel the slightest sympathy for the duchess. The revelation that Clarence House will actually announce when she has gone into labour feels like the sort of pressure you need like a hole in the head, when you're performing what I like to think of as the least magical of human activities, even with all the drugs you can get your veins on. It'll certainly prevent her turning on the telly in the delivery room – I expect she can't think of a more lethal antidote to the birth hormone oxytocin than watching us, watching her.
The assumption is that she will be spirited into the private wing of the hospital via some back door or laundry chute, because one glimpse of the serried ranks of photographers' ladders outside the front entrance would stop contractions at 50 paces. What a sight it is. Talking to the various hacks and broadcasters frantically interviewing each other about the imminence of "Baby Cambridge" uncovers a sort of preparedness arms race: I'm told that when one US news network discovers another has got a permanently booked hotel room in the immediate vicinity of St Mary's hospital, they promptly escalate their own arsenal of resources to match this, if not exceed it. Many days ago now, it apparently reached the stage where some networks began paying black cabs round the clock to sit in parking spaces, to ensure a pitch for their satellite truck when the moment comes.The assumption is that she will be spirited into the private wing of the hospital via some back door or laundry chute, because one glimpse of the serried ranks of photographers' ladders outside the front entrance would stop contractions at 50 paces. What a sight it is. Talking to the various hacks and broadcasters frantically interviewing each other about the imminence of "Baby Cambridge" uncovers a sort of preparedness arms race: I'm told that when one US news network discovers another has got a permanently booked hotel room in the immediate vicinity of St Mary's hospital, they promptly escalate their own arsenal of resources to match this, if not exceed it. Many days ago now, it apparently reached the stage where some networks began paying black cabs round the clock to sit in parking spaces, to ensure a pitch for their satellite truck when the moment comes.
To survey it all is to be reminded of Hilary Mantel's thoughtful and wilfully misunderstood comments about the nature of Kate's role earlier this year, in which the multi-award-winning author lamented, inter alia, the reduction of the future queen consort to "a mother-to-be, draped in another set of threadbare attributions … [T]his young woman's life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth."To survey it all is to be reminded of Hilary Mantel's thoughtful and wilfully misunderstood comments about the nature of Kate's role earlier this year, in which the multi-award-winning author lamented, inter alia, the reduction of the future queen consort to "a mother-to-be, draped in another set of threadbare attributions … [T]his young woman's life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth."
The announcement of labour, the motorcade ferrying gynaecologists' signatures, the quiet triumphalism of that easel – it's not quite the waving aloft of bloodied bedsheets to prove a marital deflowering, but feels like such a close cousin of that practice that even the more vertically family-tree'd royal families would prevent the two concepts marrying.The announcement of labour, the motorcade ferrying gynaecologists' signatures, the quiet triumphalism of that easel – it's not quite the waving aloft of bloodied bedsheets to prove a marital deflowering, but feels like such a close cousin of that practice that even the more vertically family-tree'd royal families would prevent the two concepts marrying.
This, of course, is the paradox of the modern monarchy, always most visible during one of these set-piece rites of passage. Its primary purpose remains its perpetuation, as it ever has been; it affects to be about other, warmer things only after the fashion of the times. If you doubt that the version of royal parenthood likely to be afforded to Baby Cambridge has only been with us a generation, you need only behold that picture of the Queen returning home after a six-month tour of duty and stiffly shaking the hand of her tiny heir, Prince Charles, to realise that the House of Windsor has traditionally only been a nuclear family in the Chernobyl sense.This, of course, is the paradox of the modern monarchy, always most visible during one of these set-piece rites of passage. Its primary purpose remains its perpetuation, as it ever has been; it affects to be about other, warmer things only after the fashion of the times. If you doubt that the version of royal parenthood likely to be afforded to Baby Cambridge has only been with us a generation, you need only behold that picture of the Queen returning home after a six-month tour of duty and stiffly shaking the hand of her tiny heir, Prince Charles, to realise that the House of Windsor has traditionally only been a nuclear family in the Chernobyl sense.
Then again, perhaps our hero or heroine-in-waiting will eventually escape the cliched gilded cage. I never remember whether alchemy is one of the alternative things Prince Charles believes in, but once he has worked his special magic on the institution of the monarchy, the crown might have oxidised so rapidly that Baby Cambridge will in fact be the second Windsor not to inherit it.Then again, perhaps our hero or heroine-in-waiting will eventually escape the cliched gilded cage. I never remember whether alchemy is one of the alternative things Prince Charles believes in, but once he has worked his special magic on the institution of the monarchy, the crown might have oxidised so rapidly that Baby Cambridge will in fact be the second Windsor not to inherit it.
In the meantime, of course, the prevailing narrative is that most optimistically timeworn of ones. Babies always strengthen relationships – right? – and it is written that Baby Cambridge will totally complete Britain's relationship with itself. So tonight, let the whole country have a pineapple, or a phaal, or sex, or all three. If the show must go on, it's our subjectly duty to get it started.In the meantime, of course, the prevailing narrative is that most optimistically timeworn of ones. Babies always strengthen relationships – right? – and it is written that Baby Cambridge will totally complete Britain's relationship with itself. So tonight, let the whole country have a pineapple, or a phaal, or sex, or all three. If the show must go on, it's our subjectly duty to get it started.
Twitter: @MarinaHydeTwitter: @MarinaHyde
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