While the queen, in the rooms of Windsor now more lonely than ever without her Philip, faces the pain, she wonders why the disease first and then the disappearance of the prince and yesterday’s funeral in Windsor – minimal but flawless – caught the attention . Aroused nostalgia for a man, a witness of the twentieth century and a person who over time became almost a family, who left. Excluding the meager Republican frond in the United Kingdom.
A family on the throne
Perhaps the explanation lies in the secret of Victoria’s success then, as of Elizabeth II today. Di Vittoria with the prince consort Albert, as of Elisabetta with prince Philip. Having been able to create, and keep innovating it, the myth of a family on the throne. With basically popular and everyday passions. Something extremely effective – as the most influential journalist of the Victorian era, Walter Bagehot wrote – also politically.
Soft power
Historian David Cannadine explained the extraordinary attraction we feel for the family affairs of the monarchy, and our interest in the personal affairs of Philip and his queen, rather than in matters of state, with the fact that the constitutional monarchy, as are the European monarchies today, what remains when the crown is deprived of those historical powers that it has always had: from the divine to that of ruler and commander in chief. Inevitably, the emphasis is then placed on the family, and the soft power. An immaterial but decidedly strong power, especially in a media society like ours.
Emotion
Why do monarchies work? Why are the British addicted to their queen? The answer perhaps is that monarchies do not work according to a logic. If they conquer, they capture the attention, as Jeremy Paxman, writer and political signature of the BBC also wrote, because they appeal to history, emotion, imagination, even a certain mythology of the Crown. Is there really an impalpable – imponderable magic? – of the Crown to contribute to its success. And Filippo, of this representation that speaks the language of history, imagination, emotion and even myth, was a leading actor. Never a slave to the role, always creative in its interpretation.
April 18, 2021 (change April 18, 2021 | 18:09)
© Time.News