Thursday, March 24, 2005
Queen Camilla will rule over the Commonwealth
The BBC’s Have Your Say posed a novel question today; “Should Camilla become queen?”

A question on Tuesday, in UK’s House of Commons, from a backbench MP raised the issue (again), and the Minister for Constitutional Affairs repeated his best lawyers advice: when His Royal Highness, Charles, the Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland (...take another breath, lots more to go…) and Earl of Chester, Vice-Admiral (RN), Lieutenant-General (Army) and Air Marshal (RAF) becomes His Royal Highness, King Charles VII, Head of State of Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, (....nearly there....) Head of the Commonwealth, Supreme Governor and Defender of the Faith of the Church of England, Commander-in-Chief of the UK Armed Forces and Lord of Mann, Camilla Parker-Bowles will become Queen.

When Kings are married, they make Queens. You will have read it in all those fairy tales.

Alas, ‘queen’ is not apparently to Camilla’s liking; she wishes to be named after that great, slightly sporty looking, family car from the 1970s, the “Princess Consort”.

As there is no written constitution in the UK and these things are established by convention and there is no convention here, she can really call herself anything she likes. As part of the settlement, it ought to be that we get to call her anything we like. But we can only do this in private.

Many subjects of the Commonwealth have raised objections; does Charles marital situation compromise the constitution; is Charles fit to b king; should it matter, as long as they are in love?

But of course, none of this – the BBC’s bulletin board included – matters. It doesn’t matter that Nicholas Orr from NSW posted “Is it not all too obvious to everyone that the real issue is not the marriage itself but the succession to the throne?” or that Janet Somerford from Mozambique posted “Of course if Charles becomes king she should take the place of queen at his side. The title is irrelevant as long as they are happy together.”

We do not ‘choose’ in a Monarchy. We cannot decide whether Charles stands aside for William, or whether Camilla is called queen, consort or trusty stead. A canny royal family will gauge public opinion up to a point, but that will only inform how they will break the news to the subjects (ie the ‘media strategy’) of what has been decided for us. They will have a tough job, 87% of BBCi respondents were against it.

But as a concession to the times, I do think that the monarchy should be considering new ways to relate to 21st Century subjects. If we gotta live with ‘em, but ought to be able to enjoy having them as our

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