NEVER “MAKE A DEFENCE or an apology”, Charles I wrote to Sir Thomas Wentworth, “before you be accused”. It was advice that Wentworth, later the Earl of Strafford, plainly took to heart, offering little in the way of defence or apology even when on trial for his life, praying that the King would save him from the scaffold. Alas, Wentworth lost his head, followed by the monarch eight years later.
It was recently reported that the Prince of Wales was pondering whether — in the light of history — he might be better off being crowned George VII rather than Charles III. This is, without doubt, one of his better notions.
It is, though, worth being clear about what the Prince might be wise to defend or apologise for in the latest embarrassment to engulf him. Not, I think, for the personal letters and reflections on the Hong Kong handover and other topics that he penned to a (fairly large) collection of intimates. For a start, the opinions that have caused all the recent fuss are almost a decade old. It would be unfair to reach a conclusion about his present judgment on the basis of ink that dried back in July 1997.
Further, if the most controversial remark in the documents published by the Mail on Sunday is a description of the Chinese hierarchy as “ghastly old waxworks”, they are remarkably diplomatic. Note, too, that Charles has apparently been sending out these epistles for an eternity without one of them being sent by its recipient to a newspaper. It is, therefore, difficult to conclude that Charles has been reckless in his selection of friends.
So I respectfully dissent from Ben Macintyre, who suggested on these pages that the Prince would make a better MP than a monarch. Ben, who was a distinguished parliamentary sketchwriter himself, should have recognised that HRH’s literary style revealed the makings of one of that band (not that Ann Treneman need worry about the competition).
If I had been in the shoes of the heir to the throne I might have been more cautious where Hong Kong was concerned and not set out my thoughts in quite such detail. A postcard along the lines of “Dear All. Bloody Awful. Wish you were here. Charles” would have captured his sentiments very succinctly. But to condemn him for opting for extended, yet essentially harmless, prose seems excessive.
The same cannot be said for his quest to use the courts as an instrument of retribution after selections of his musings had been published. This was mad. No, it was barking mad. Actually, it was worse than that, it was howling mad.
It ensured that instead of part of one letter appearing in one newspaper, all of it would be laid bare in every newspaper. It provided Mark Bolland, his former deputy private secretary, with not merely the opportunity but the legal obligation to elaborate on the royal view that lay behind the manuscripts. It was mistaken in principle because the person about whom the Prince was entitled to be furious was the employee who photocopied and posted his correspondence and not the editor who printed it. It’s like being robbed and then chasing the man who handled the stolen goods and not the thief. It was insane. I cannot believe that the Prince was not counselled against this course; but he nevertheless went on regardless. This arrogant folly took place last year, not in the mid-1990s.
That is the really disturbing element of this saga. It is not necessarily one that today bothers the public. Last week one of the most eminent opinion pollsters in the land (I have to say that, he is my brother-in-law) was conducting a focus group on an entirely different matter. He “warmed up” his gathering by asking them to comment on Charles’s Chinese tribulations. He discerned that they had plenty of sympathy for his plight and believed he had a right to his opinions. Yet they also assumed, crucially, that he would behave very differently and just like his mother when he eventually succeeded her.
In a flurry of briefings to the press yesterday, a not especially chastened Clarence House offered a modest nod in this direction. It was suggested that the Prince knew that his so-called “black spider” letters to ministers would have to stop once he was the head of state and not a king-in-waiting.
This apparent step forward was, however, instantly qualified by the assertion that he would not need to knock out notes to the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs because he would have a weekly audience with the Prime Minister at which he could deliver his opinions directly and more discreetly.
This is an insight with severe implications for constitutional monarchy. The purpose of the formal conference of sovereign and Prime Minister is for the former, quite properly, to be made aware of what the head of government thinks and intends to do on matters of public policy. The monarch then has the opportunity, to be used sparingly if he is shrewd, in Walter Bagehot’s formula, “to be consulted, to encourage and to warn”. It is emphatically not designed to be a slot in the PM’s diary when he is told how to run his administration. If Tony Blair wanted that, he would abandon his official car and travel everywhere by London taxi. If the Prince of Wales thinks otherwise, then he will be a catastrophic King.
Unlike Charles I, I am in favour of pre-emptive apologies. Almost four years ago, in the aftermath of the death of the Queen Mother, I suggested (ever so politely) that it might not be such a bad outcome if the Queen contemplated an honourable abdication. On reflection, an unreserved “sorry” is due to Her Majesty. Although a republican by instinct, I would want the monarchy to end by national consensus rather than as a surreal fiasco. Elizabeth II looks healthy enough to me, but should she wish to install a top-flight fitness centre at Windsor Castle, I would be content for my taxes to subsidise it.
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