by The Laird o’Thistle
April 21 2007
The owner and mistress of the Current Royal News website e-mailed all of us who contribute columns earlier this week asking if any of us wished to do a special column on the break-up of Prince William and Kate Middleton. As she said at the time, “Who of us saw that coming?” I certainly did not.
At first, I thought I didn’t have anything to say. But as the week’s coverage of the story has continued, I do have one observation.
I have written hopefully about Prince William and Ms. Middleton several times in this column. I felt they were an attractive, apparently comfortable and mutually supportive couple, and they showed a lot of class – in the best sense of that loaded word. I think Kate is beautiful and shows a good sense in carrying herself in public. From all signs to date, she would make a good royal.
The speculations are rampant that this separation may be only temporary. That it might even be a strategic ploy to get the press off of the young couple’s back until they are ready. If so, I hope it works.
The danger right now, though, is that history will repeat itself in the form of media attention forcing the issue, one way or the other. Part of the dynamic of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer rushing into an ill-advised marriage was the feeding frenzy of the press. And right now a similar sort of frenzy could influence these two young people to either burn their bridges prematurely (creating a future Charles and Camilla quandary) or press them back into a rush to marriage (creating a potential Charles and Diana mismatch). Either course could be disastrous for the personal lives of William and Kate.
Prince William’s life has been surrounded by cautionary tales concerning marriage both among the Windsors and the Spencers. (Dare we cite the histories of his maternal grandparents and uncle?) But he has generally shown himself to be a sensible lad. It would seem right now that he needs to be trusted and supported and to be given the privacy to discern the way ahead.
On the other hand, William has before him the positive examples of his great-grandparents – King George VI and Queen Elizabeth – and of his grandparents who celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary later this year. And he also has the example of the Wessexes, apparently the most successful marriage of this royal generation. Whatever their other misadventures in business and such, Prince Edward and Sophie kept their own best counsel in the course of their relationship and have apparently made a success of it. Hopefully, William will have the same good fortune.
I deeply believe that, more than anything else, we need our soulmates in the face of the pressures of life. And how lucky we are when we can have our soulmate as our life-partner. The debacles of the marriages of the Queen’s late sister and children have been stumbles around that simple fact. Charles and Camilla were and are soulmates, but hesitated to commit back in their younger days. Princess Diana was many things, but not – I think – ever Charles’ soulmate. Prince Andrew and Sarah Fergusson were, and seem to remain soulmates. And despite the indiscretions of the past I keep wishing that they could reunite as more mature and wiser beings. If Kate Middleton is William’s soulmate, I hope that they find a way to work things out; but if she’s not then they have acted very wisely in going their separate ways. Time will tell if they are given the time and space they need.
One of my favorite songs is from the musical Brigadoon. It is the song sung by Fiona, “Waitin’ for My Dearie.” There is a rueful bit in the song, about the consequences “if the man’s not right.” That’s the question. And, of course, the complications of the Brigadoon story are only finally resolved when the love of an outsider is powerful enough to wake the enchanted village from the sleep of a hundred years. Will that happen here? Only “Time” will tell.
That’s my tuppence.
Yours Aye,
– Ken Cuthbertson