Thomas Mallon offers advice to Prince Charles:
What, one wants to whisper into his still endearingly jug ears, have you got to lose? If you insist on waiting it out, why not kick over the table once the jackpot is finally yours? If Charles I gave the British regicide, and Charles II gave it restoration, why shouldn’t you, at the moment of coronation, give it at long last a republic? Why not take the crown from the archbishop’s hands—not to set it on your own head, à la Napoleon—but merely to set it aside, a simple and grand refusal? And why not do some advance colluding with your eldest son, who by all accounts quite genuinely loves you, so that, when everyone’s eyes turn in his direction, he simply shakes his head and refuses it, too? At that point, the whole flyblown confection of monarchy will collapse.
The Scots may by then have disappeared over the Highlands, into independence, depriving the United Kingdom of its adjective. Charles could take the king out of the kingdom, the scepter from the isle. He could smash the strongest pillar of his people’s magical thinking and subconscious self-hatred. Then, if he really seeks to restore the greenness of his green and pleasant land, he could—enhanced rather than diminished—jolt the country into taking desperate measures.
I post this secular blasphemy for purely provocative reasons.
(Photo: The Most Reverend Justin Welby speaks with Prince Charles and Camilla after his enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral on March 21, 2013 in Canterbury, England. By Chris Ison – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
The Dish 