Of course, it’s marvellous news that the Princess of Wales has come to an end of chemotherapy treatment and is well on the way to recovery. Which of us did not feel for her in her last, sombre announcement that she had cancer? It is also the best of news that she will be returning to public duties; she was missed. The prayers of the nation have been answered.
But forgive me...was it necessary to share this news with the nation in an utterly grisly video? If she were advertising Herbal Essences (Tropical Showers) shampoo, it would have been just the thing. The shots of her walking in slow motion through a sunlit meadow, her long hair moving in the breeze, her slender figure shown to advantage in her simple cotton frock, why, it made one feel emotionally manipulated, squeezed like a lemon for the last drop of sympathy. So, she’s feeling well? One is glad; one doesn’t need the point rubbed home with a gruesome image of her releasing a little yellow butterfly from her hand.
As for the shots of her and William lying on the grass, shoulder to shoulder, or her head lying his shoulder, it was in the first place a ghastly piece of emotional exhibitionism and in the second, a hostage to fortune. The time may come when their marriage may come under strain — these things happen to the happiest couples — and they won’t wish to have these images reproduced.
All one can say, really, is that the late queen would have died early rather than subject herself to this extraordinary display of trite sentiment (“Out of darkness, can come light, so let that light shine bright”). Or at any rate, she would have expressed her feelings of gratitude soberly in the light of her Christian faith. Kate’s is the stuff of every contemporary self-help book to do with living in the moment and being grateful for the small stuff.
Is emotional reticence now over in the Royal family? One fears so, though it still, thank God, has a place with the redoubtable Princess Anne. But it comes at a cost. By turning the Royals into exhibits of emotional wellness, it diminishes their value as parts of a national institution in which dignity is the main thing. Kate has lost that.
