Prince Philip and the dynasty factor

THE MODERN world was built on the graves of royal dynasties. The grave-diggers started their work with the American and French revolutions in the second half of the 18th century, paused for a while in the 19th, as Europe recoiled from the excesses of Madame Guillotine and the Emperor Napoleon, and then resumed with gusto in the 20th. The first world war and its aftermath saw the destruction of such great names as Russia’s Romanovs, Germany’s Hohenzollerns and Austria-Hungary’s Habsburgs. Today there are just 26 monarchies left.

The explanation is not hard to grasp. Dynasts inherit their positions regardless of ability. James VI was 13 months old when he became king of Scotland. Edward VI was a sickly child when he succeeded Henry VIII. George III was mad. Dynasty is based on the union of the public and private in the monarch’s person. The death of a king could plunge the country into decades of conflict, as with the Wars of the Roses. A royal marriage could reshape international alliances. Hilary Mantel describes the politics of Henry VIII’s reign as “graphically gynaecological” because it was dominated by the king’s desire to produce a son. Modernity is built on the negation of all of this.