Royal Watch

Our collective appetite for royal gossip has spawned a global industry of royal watching. While we may truly want democracy and equality there is that part in all of us that clings to childhood visions of wise kings, benevolent queens, handsome princes and beautiful princesses.

Even those of us with no national monarchic traditions–tribal or regional royalties like datus and sultans aren’t quite the same–are captivated by the personages of royalty. Maybe it is precisely our lack of royalty–and how disappointing our "common" leaders are–that makes royalty so fascinating for us.

Vanity Fair’s 20th anniversary issue is, for this very reason, such a good read. As the cover blurb proclaims, there are "57 pages of princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses". From the British House of Windsor–the royal-est of royals–to the once-upon-a-thrones of France, Italy and Austria, to "heirs without thrones" from Bulgaria, Prussia, Hanover, Baden-baden, Montenegro and Bourbon-Two Sicilies (bet you never knew there was such an entity) to the "princes and princesses at large"–the "spares" like Britain’s Prince Harry–it is page after page of blue bloods. And yes, they are all dashing and beautiful–very royal indeed.

But medals, royal sashes (sorry, no crowns) and splendid estates aside, there is a juicy piece on "The Future King" Prince William (by Christopher Andersen), newly 21 and everybody’s darling. There are accounts of his life at St. Andrews University in Scotland, where he is studying art history and geography. He shares a Victorian house with three other undergraduates, likes southern fried chicken, orders Chinese take out, plays chess and pushes his own shopping cart at the local supermarket. He plays polo and hunts, probably with the $32,000 gold-inlaid hunting rifle that his father gave him after completing his first year at St. Andrews with a B-plus average.

The women who have been linked to Prince William are many, from fellow student and housemate Kate Middle-ton to US President George Bush‘s niece Lauren, from fellow art history major Mili D’Erlanger to Amanda "Tig" Bush (no relation this time to Dubya) who works at the Beaufort Polo Club where Prince William plays, to Jessica Craig, who lives in Kenya and is said to be part of the reason the prince is learning Swahili and why the theme of his 21st birthday party (which Jessica attended) was "Out of Africa".

The six-foot-three prince–variously known as "Will Wales", "Dreamboat Willie" and "Wombat"–is, it is said, very much his mother’s son (he is reported to have told his mother when he was seven, "Mummy, when I grow up I want to be a policeman and look after you"), in character and certainly in looks. As a member of the British Conservative Party rightly observed, "Do you honestly think people would care half as much about William if he was the image of his father instead of his mother?"

Even juicier is the piece on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, based in large part on government papers concerning his abdication that were made public only last January, after the death of the Queen Mother, whose husband became King George VI when Edward VIII married the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson. "The papers show conclusively that the Queen Mother, along with her mother-in-law Queen Mary, was the prime mover in making sure that the Windsors never returned to England and that Wallis was never given the title Her Royal Highness, for which the Windsors bitterly maneuvered," writes James Fox in his article "The Oddest Couple".

The article deals with many scandals attached to the couple. The recently released papers contain reports of her having had a lover (a man named Guy Trundle) even while her affair with the Duke was going on. She also had a homosexual lover (Woolworth heir Jimmy Donahue).

There are lingering questions about her gender, that she was "well known" as a hermaphrodite. Even her lawyer and butler were supposed to have expressed "doubt about where the Duchess stood in the genetic order of things", and that "relations between them (the Duke and Duchess) didn’t include intercourse". The Duke was also rumored to have been gay.

For the royal acceptance she never received, the Duchess strived to be queen in other ways. "For compensation," writes Fox, "the Duchess would outshine the world in the perfection of her clothes, her houses, her food, and the glamour and cachet she gave the Duke. Status was the eternally touchy subject. It lay behind her drive to be the perennially best-dressed woman in the world and to dominate cafe society... It worked, certainly, as revenge."

The Duke’s funeral in 1972 "caused no noticeable recon-ciliation between the British royals and the Duchess," although she was spotted talking to the Queen Mother. When asked by a friend what they talked about in that historic encounter, she replied, "Oh, it’s always the same. Servants. We were just talking about the servant situation and how ghastly it is." There is also an article by Leslie Bennetts about Jordan’s "100-percent supermodel-gorgeous" Queen Rania, wife of King Abdullah II, who was made king (instead of his uncle, Crown Prince Hassan) when his father King Hussein changed the line of succession on his deathbed.

The 32-year-old queen, who worked for Citibank and Apple Computer before marrying Abdullah in 1993, says that "‘queen’ is not something that I am; it’s something that I do". A Palestinian born in Kuwait and educated at the American University in Cairo, she often drives herself, picks up her kids from school and spends two hours a night with her son doing homework.

She is largely seen as being a "full partner" with the king, sharing "the same vision of a modern, truly representative, truly democratc Jordan". Championing the cause against child abuse and promoting microfinance for women in impoverished areas, Queen Rania has reached a celebrity status all her own. And her king seems "equally dazzled by the emergence of his wife’s high-voltage celebrity," writes Bennetts.

"He’s definitely very, very confident of himself," says the queen. "He"s not intimidated by anybody, and he’s not a chauvinist in any way." There is one piece that might almost be a footnote for many of us, on the King of Bulgaria, Simeon II, who also happens to be the country’s prime minister, elected two years ago after half a century in exile. As a young boy, Simeon II served as "boy king" for three years, after his father King Boris III died when Simeon was six.

While Bulgaria has not officially restored the monarchy, Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is also still king (probably the only man in history to be both the freely elected and royally descended head of state)–and a very hard-working one, putting in 16-hour workdays and pouring over state papers at his country retreat outside the capital Sofia well after that.

The monarchy isn’t really out of place in the 21st century after all. Long live the kings!