“The benefits of a good monarch are almost invaluable,” the journalist Walter Bagehot wrote in 1867, “but the evils of a bad monarch are almost irreparable.” While he was a widely admired constitutional expert, that seems hyperbolic. The long history of the monarchy demonstrates above all the capacity of the people to endure an abysmal King or Queen.
Tracy Borman has written extensively on the monarchy and serves as the chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces. An unashamed lover of the royal family, she believes that it “reinforces the self-esteem of the nation” and is “the living embodiment of the nation’s history”. In Crown & Sceptre she examines every monarch from 1066 to the present. While she doesn’t ignore the institution’s darker aspects, she’s nevertheless in thrall to its “other-worldliness” — its magic and mystery.
