Introduction
1.1 Royalty deserves more attention than it receives from social
scientists trying to understand modern western European democracies. With the
exception of some discussion by constitutional historians (e.g. Bogdanor 1995;
Prochaska 1995) and Billig's analysis of popular discourse about the British
monarchy (Billig 1992), the only other significant literature concerns the ‘Diana
effect’ (e.g. Davies 2001; Frazer 2000; McGuigan 2000; Walter 1999; Watson, 1997).
It is as if monarchy, much like religion, is seen as irrelevant in a modern,
secular, democratic world. However, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway,
Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom are all constitutional monarchies. Given the
significance of their kings and queens in public life - witness the present Golden
Jubilee in the United Kingdom and the pomp and circumstance of the Queen Mother's
death - this lack of attention is not justified. Something important is being
overlooked.
1.2 In this paper I will draw on ethnography from Denmark to shed some
comparative light on the British monarchy. Between September 1996 and July 1997 I
carried out field research in Skive, a small town in mid- Jutland, Denmark. I was
interested in identity: in the everyday uses of national symbolism, in how Danes
understand and draw upon history, and in their orientation to the European Union
(Jenkins 1998, 1999, 2000). Even without these foci I would have become interested
in Danish royalty: their salience in the media and in everyday conversation means
that they would have been impossible to ignore.
A Royal Visit
3.1 Queen Margrethe and her husband, Prince Henrik, visited Skive two
years before my fieldwork, in September 1994, the town's first official visit by a
reigning monarch since 1949. A film produced by the kommune
provides a window on the day: although it is an ‘official view’ it is nonetheless
revealing. That a municipal documentary was commissioned at all suggests that this
was an extraordinary event for the town (as does the fact that the video had sold
out by the time I tried to buy a copy
[1]
).
3.2 The film opens with the preparations: everything from street
cleaning, to the municipal steering group handling the visit, to the distribution of
paper flags to the children excused school for the day. The mayor, a Social
Democrat, is interviewed. The visit proper starts with the artillery saluting the
arrival of the royal yacht Dannebrog, with all flags flying,
accompanied by a naval escort and local sailing boats. The quayside is jammed with a
sea of faces and red-and-white flags.
3.3 As the royal couple step ashore to the sound of a brass band playing
King Christian, the royal national anthem,
hurras are called for, nine in all. They get ten, the last a
little ragged (the local children obviously don't know the rules). The Mayor,
surrounded by television crews, makes a speech of welcome, before Queen Margrethe
unveils a memorial stone commemorating the visit, the 125th anniversary of the
harbour's original foundation, and the official opening of the new port facilities.
She dutifully passes along a row of the local great and good: some bow their head,
there is the occasional hint of a curtsey. All shake hands, many look their Queen
straight in the eye. Following a flag salute by the representatives of local
associations drawn up on the quayside, the royal party returns on board briefly, to
change clothes. Prince Henrik exchanges his admiral's uniform for a grey suit, then
it is on to an exhibition in the harbour buildings.
3.4 Here the film offers a revealing moment, after the Prince has been
given with a presentation box of bitters and the local Hancock beer. It is decorated
with freshly-picked bog myrtle, and Queen Margrethe leans over, very casually, rubs
the leaves between her fingers and then smells them. Her pleasure in the herb's
texture and smell is as palpable as her spontaneity and lack of reserve.
3.5 The film becomes a collage of all the places the royal couple
visited that day: the Museum, the Theatre, a walk down Frederiksgade - where a
flower shop is selling ‘Queen Bouquets’ - to Adelgade, The Square and the Town Hall.
A row of national flags fly overhead and everywhere is a mass of waving red and
white. The local girls’ band is drawn up entertaining the waiting crowd. People in
wheelchairs are in the front row. The accessibility of the Queen as she walks
through the town is, to my eyes, remarkable. People can and do reach out and touch
her. Security is present, and obvious, but it is light and unobtrusive.
3.6 Council members and senior municipal employees are waiting at the
Town Hall and there are more presentations. Here my non-Danish eyes see another
revealing moment. Queen Margrethe unwraps the ribbon on the present which the Mayor
has just given her, a small sculpture in a presentation box. At the same time she is
leaning over, curious to see what her husband has been given. Before handing the
gift to her lady-in-waiting, the Queen re-ties the ribbon herself. It is literally
unthinkable that the British Queen would have even looked at
this present, never mind re-tying the ribbon herself. Afterwards, the royal couple,
standing up now, thank their hosts for their presents and a toast is drunk.
3.7 All the while, the children waiting outside the Town Hall are
shouting: ‘Dronning, Dronning, kom nu frem, ellers gå vi aldrig
hjem…’ (Queen, Queen, come out now, otherwise we are never going
home…). Once again, the little ones make their own protocol. The Queen emerges, to
walk with the Mayor and the rest of the party along Adelgade towards Post Office
Square, where separate cars wait. Prince Henrik, in a convertible with the top down,
is off to the local abattoir and meat plant The Queen, in her limousine, makes the
short journey to the Church of Our Lady with the Mayor. Her interest in the medieval
murals seems genuine, as one might expect of someone with an archaeological
education who is also an artist in her own right.
3.8 Then the royal party is off again, driving between a long avenue of
flags to their lunch date at a hotel where the Post Band wait to play them in, and
there are yet more flags and banners. In the meantime, Prince Henrik has clearly
been back to the ship to change. He is uniform again, this time the Army. If you
were on the guest list for that lunch, you were really someone in
Skive.
3.9 In the afternoon the royal couple visit the garrison. The North
Jutland Artillery Regiment is celebrating 25 years in Skive. Although it is raining,
the only royal concession to the weather is a multi- coloured raincoat. The troops
give three cheers, the Colonel salutes the regimental colours with his sword, and
King Christian is played again. Indoors there is a reception,
with some officers in everyday field uniform, some in full dress uniform, and lots
of civilians. People are smoking. Her Majesty unveils a painting of a regimental
United Nations post in the former Yugoslavia, a reminder of the local garrison's
peace-keeping assignments.
3.10 At the end of the film, and the day, the Mayor thanks the royal
couple at the quayside. They chat to one or two people before being piped back
aboard. There are fewer flags in the crowd now, but still lots of people. As
Dannebrog swings gently away from her mooring and makes her way
back out into the fjord, a trad jazz band is getting into the swing on the
quayside.
Hierarchy and Equality
4.1 Rules specify the respect that the monarch should receive in public
life: no-one should sit down before her, there should be nine
hurras, and there is an appropriate number of guns for a full
royal salute. Otherwise, protocol was be most obvious during this royal visit in the
spoken word. ‘Your Majesty’ is how the Queen must be addressed, ‘Your Royal
Highness’ is appropriate for other members of the royal family, including Prince
Henrik. These conventions of public address were strictly adhered
to. However, when conversation was captured on film - at the
harbour exhibition, for example - it was more relaxed and informal.
4.2 This was the full extent of ceremonial: the formalities required by
ordinary politeness and a tight schedule were observed but there was little other
visible ritual. This combination of formality and informality summarises a complex
performative balance between hierarchy and equality, distance and proximity, the
untouchable and the touchable. The residual regal sway (or not) over the bodies of
subjects is alluded to in a range of ways: from the short bow - rare now, even in
the older generation - to the unadorned democratic hand shake. In modern Denmark it
is possible to stand upright and look the sovereign in the eye, and many people do.
It may even be obligatory to look a Prince in the eye.
4.3 That day Queen Margrethe met and talked to members of various local
élites. Even so, the overall impression is of relative openness,
informality, and closeness between royalty and ordinary citizens. Talking to those
who were there, several years later, this is recalled again and again. Images of the
Queen walking along streets she could easily have been driven through, accessible,
on the same level and occupying the same space as everyone else, provide food for
thought. As does the sight and sound of the children outside the Town Hall,
unrestrained by their adults, raucously and good-naturedly demanding the royal
presence.
4.4 Nor was it, apparently, strictly necessary to dress formally when in
the royal presence. In the Council Chamber, one man, conspicuously, did not wear a
suit and tie. A Councillor representing the Socialist People's Party, he was
exercising his democratic right to wear a cardigan and an open-necked shirt. Whether
he was standing on political principle or making a sartorial point, it could not be
ignored. But, crucially, it wasn't an affront either.
4.5 In this respect, the Mayor's interview is worth a second look. She
stressed that to her personally the visit didn't actually mean so
much: its real importance was to put Skive on the map as a port - with a new harbour
that had cost about 31 million kroner - in the middle of Jutland. Municipal ulterior
motives are, of course, often the ‘real’ point of royal visits, and supporting such
enterprises is one of royalty's modern functions. What may be a little unusual,
however, is the Mayor's frankness in emphasising it so publicly. It seems to me that
it isn't accidental that the video is as much, if not more, about the
kommune - and, perhaps, the Mayor - as it is about Queen
Margrethe.
4.6 I do not know whether the Mayor was just doing her job and
emphasising local priorities, making an old-fashioned Social Democrat point, or
expressing a fundamental theme of Danish culture, that no-one is better than anyone
else. She may have intended none of these things. Either way, it could have been
worse. In 1928, when King Christian X and Queen Alexandrine visited Skive, the
mayor, Carl Hansen of the Radical Party, and legendary long-time editor of the
Party's local newspaper, reported sick and the royal party was formally welcomed in
his stead by Deputy Mayor Andersen, a Conservative. Much political capital was made
out of this episode by a rival right-wing paper: reporting a sighting of Hansen and
his wife out walking in Torvegade that same day, it accused the Mayor of boycotting
the royal visit in protest against the King's dismissal of Zahle's Radical
government, eight years earlier. For the same reason, Social Democrat members of the
council also stayed away on that occasion.
4.7 Whatever the Mayor's personal sentiments may have been in 1994, she
was not being disrespectful. Not only would that have negated the whole point of the
visit, it would have been unthinkable: this Queen is genuinely well-regarded by her
people. The enthusiasm of the thousands who turned out that day is too authentic to
mistake. Although I have heard some criticism of one or two members of the Danish
royal family, I can hardly find any even mildly critical comments
in my fieldnotes about Queen Margrethe. Even from those on the far left. She is
respected and cherished. Loved may be too strong a word - let a Dane decide that -
but she is certainly widely liked.
The Ambiguity of Legitimacy
5.1 The nature and role of our constitutional monarchy is a lively and
unresolved topic in Britain. A succession of scandals, the trauma of Princess
Diana's death and the out-of-step royal response to it, an increasing social and
cultural distance between royalty and people, and the ongoing transformation of the
political unity of the Kingdom, have produced an uncomfortable political vacuum
where there should be a measure of agreement. Whether the celebrations and mourning
of 2002 have made a difference is as yet unclear. The British may not actually be
against the monarchy - not yet, at least - but it is telling
that awkward questions are being asked, really for the first time.
5.2 There seems to be no such problem in modern, egalitarian, social
democratic Denmark. Why? The answer is not as simple as, for example, the absence of
scandal. Several times I had conversations with Danes along the following lines.
First, I was asked my opinion of the British royal family, and we agreed that they
were an embarrassment, except perhaps Diana (the research, remember, was during her
lifetime). A few indelicate stories might have been told at this point. This was
followed - somewhat contrarily perhaps - by condemnation of the way that the British
press writes about our royalty. Danish newspapers, by contrast, would, of
course, never do such a thing. ‘Everybody’ might know this, that, or
the other story - about this, that, or the other member of the Danish royal house -
but it is not the business of the press to print them (which, of course, offered
just the right opportunity to re-tell those stories).
5.3 The point is that kings and queens, princes and princesses, do not
necessarily have to behave better than the rest of us. A degree of transgression may
actually be part of the royal job description (and there is historical precedent for
this on both sides of the North Sea). In a modern democracy - and this is also true
for a presidency - the head of state's job is to symbolise the nation, to provide a
point of collective identification that is to some extent above partisan political
divisions.
5.4 Far from demanding exemplary private morals, what may be needed -
and this was central to Diana's appeal - is an intriguing combination: sufficient
mutually-recognisable experience and human frailty to allow for a degree of
identification, and sufficient other-ness to serve as a focus for our more noble
aspirations and desires. The same as us, but very different too. This is at the
heart of the modern regal function. While the House of Windsor is finding it
increasingly impossible to achieve, their Danish cousins in the House of Glücksborg
seem to be doing nicely. Once again, why?
The Sacred and the Profane
6.1 The power of symbols to move and inspire comes from the many
meanings which have been invested in them over time, and are still condensed within
them, waiting to be conjured up. Shared symbols can thus mean different things to
different people (Cohen 1985). A measure of contradiction is at their heart. Because
symbols are often abstract and arbitrary, the range of meanings they can convey is
not limited to the concrete representation of what they ‘stand for’. The Christian
cross, for example, evokes much more than the Crucifixion. Thus symbols, in that
they are abstract and arbitrary, allow men and women to come
together under their enchantment without having to explore their differences from
each other in destructive detail. They allow us to imagine that have something in
common despite everything that divides us (Jenkins 1996: 104-118).
6.2 Heredity is among the most arbitrary of principles, blind and
fickle. The identity of the monarch is individually the unearned result of an
accident of birth, and in terms of lineage of usurpation in some distant past.
Which royal house occupies which throne is not
completely arbitrary, however. There has to be legitimation, and history is
disproportionately significant in this respect. In Denmark the long line of royal
descent which is traced with pride, even if indirectly, between Margrethe II and
Gorm (died 958) comes into its own as a source of legitimacy. A plausible claim can
be made, despite a conventionally international European royal family tree, to a
timeless and authentic Danishness. The other claim which this lineage allows, that
the Danish is the most ancient European royal house, is the icing on the cake.
6.3 In modern Europe, however, these distinctions are not enough.
Another important characteristic of symbols is their affinity with the sacred, and
another characteristic of royalty is its claim to represent the sacred. Monarchy -
the throne and all that goes along with it - is definitively sacred, anointed with a
necessary enchantment. Which is where the present Queen comes into her own. The
Danish royal house has been so successful because it understands that the sacred
nature of kings and queens is not compromised if, in many contexts, they behave like
relatively ordinary people.
6.4 During the great rituals of state, that the monarch is the monarch
is the monarch - regardless of who the monarch actually is at the
time - is signified by symbolic trappings and regalia. The abstract institution is
in important senses independent of its successive incumbents. Almost outside time,
monarchy is consecrated in a way that monarchs are not. In other senses, however -
and no less significantly - of course it matters who kings and
queens are, and what they do as individuals. In Denmark, it is not simply that Queen
Margrethe can be confident that relaxing and enjoying herself in public, walking the
streets beside mayors and fellow citizens, even smoking in public, do not profane
her high office. The key point is, in fact, almost the complete reverse. In Denmark,
with its strongly-held post-1849 myths of homogeneity and equality among
Danes
[2]
, if she and
the other members of her family are truly to represent the nation - represent it to
itself, in the first place - then some ordinariness is actually
required. It is, and only superficially paradoxically, part of
the magic.
6.5 Why else should I be told stories of the time that so-and-so - and
needless to say it is always someone else in this particular urban myth - bumped
into the Queen while shopping in Copenhagen? Exaggerated ordinariness is an
important part of the stereotypical Danish national self- image and Queen
Margrethe's ‘ordinariness’ is part of what makes her special. The remnants of
Imperial Denmark collapsed in ignominy nearly two centuries ago - in retrospect, the
best thing that could have happened, of course - so an excess of grandeur would not
only be a delusion, but would be seen as such.
6.6 As Danish society has changed, so the monarchy has changed with it.
Much has happened within the last fifty years or so. When Christian X celebrated the
25th anniversary of his coronation in 1937, a large crowd gathered - in his absence,
needless to say - on The Square in Skive. The Town Hall was decked out with garlands
and no fewer than fifteen large national flags. This was not so different to the
town's decoration in honour of the golden wedding anniversary of King Christian IX
and Queen Louise in 1892. By contrast, Queen Margrethe's Silver Jubilee in 1997 was
marked by television programmes - including a frank press conference with the Queen
and Prince Henrik, screened on December 30th 1996 - state celebrations in Copenhagen
and Århus, and, in Skive, the sale of commemorative magazines and other souvenirs.
Times have changed.
A Modern Balance
7.1 This delicate royal balancing act between the sacred and the
everyday, the magical and the ordinary, offers no convenient lessons for the present
British royal house, however. It has evolved as a Danish solution to what was,
increasingly obviously towards the close of Christian X's reign, a Danish problem.
Since a sense of authenticity is one of its touchstones, the common touch is
difficult to feign, nor can it easily be conjured up out of unpromising material.
What works in one society - I am thinking here of differences between Britain and
Denmark with respect to their class systems, cultural hierarchies, and national and
imperial histories - will not necessarily work in another.
7.2 The issue of ‘race’ is a litmus test in this respect. Twice now,
Queen Margrethe has used her New Year's Eve address to the nation to attack popular
racism and hostility towards immigrants. Her daughter-in-law, Princess Alexandra, is
not only a commoner, but a Eurasian commoner from Hong Kong. Neither would be even
imaginable in Britain, where the Queen does not express herself politically, and her
husband has publicly-quoted opinions about the Chinese which I will not repeat.
7.3 Here is more food for thought. Every nation needs a head of state of
one sort or another, and the alternatives offered by the republican ideal are not
all as attractive as Nelson Mandela or Mary Robinson. Royalty on the present Danish
model is not the worst option (although the key question is whether the Glücksborgs
can continue to walk their tightrope in coming generations). If the Danes have the
royal house that their political culture deserves, a comparison poses uncomfortable
questions for the United Kingdom.
