Essex Boy
Recovering JUB Addict
Queen regnant and queen consort are two different species. In terms of their position in the "firm" Camilla is the equivalent of Prince Philip. I doubt whether the monarchy itself will be under threat when Wills is king, but I do think it will look very different. Smaller, for sure—Charles I is sometimes called King Charles the Martyr; Charles II was the Merry Monarch; this one will be Charles the Downsizer. His real career was as Prince of Wales. He's an old man now. Reigning over us is his retirement project. When he had that crown on his head (the big one) he looked to me like he was reflecting on the past rather than looking to the future. Exactly like in that morose birthday portrait.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that his task is to pave the way for William to inherit a Scandinavian or Low Countries style monarchy. On yer bike! The pageantry and grand ceremonial stuff can be wonderful, and it's a major boost to tourism, but the world which it belonged to passed away with the late queen. It was the folk-memory of the Empire that kept it alive, but that's receded into history now, and the next generation might find it quaint and a bit ridiculous, and just plain irrelevant.
The Windsors have actually been getting less royal with each generation over the last hundred years. I've been casting an eye over the family tree and it appears that Elizabeth II was the last royal to marry a royal. Compare that to the inbred Victorians. Victoria and Albert were first cousins. Albert's father divorced his first wife and married his niece. So the transformation to a bourgeois (is that still a dirty word these days?) monarchy is well advanced. By the way, here's a fun fact: Elizabeth I had a first cousin who was a blacksmith.
