ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 10, 1996 TAG: 9601100097
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Cal Thomas
DATELINE: LONDON
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
My English friend is attempting to explain to his American visitor how many Britons view the troubles between Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
``It isn't the adultery so much as it is the indiscretion,'' he says. It is a version of what Henry Higgins said about another people in a different context: ``The French don't care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.''
Prince Charles, says my friend, gets points for keeping his mouth shut, while Diana loses points for blabbing it all in that much-watched television interview for the BBC, which achieved a similar ratings bonanza when shown on ABC. In England, keeping a stiff upper lip remains paramount.
Now that Queen Elizabeth has officially pronounced the marriage dead by calling for a quick divorce, one question is whether Diana, in addition to the $23 million settlement she could receive, will also retain a title. But the more important question is whether Charles' quite significant other, Camilla Parker Bowles, will be able to marry the prince and, if she does, whether he can still be king and, if he can, whether she can be queen.
It all gets very sticky because the monarch is also the head of the Church of England, an institution founded by Henry VIII to make things easier for himself as he unmerrily went through wives as fast as the executioner could swing an ax.
The Church of England officially opposes divorce (but fortunately for Henry, not execution). As recently as 1936, when King Edward VIII was refused permission to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson - and chose to abdicate - the church and the prime minister held to tradition. But this being the self-indulgent '90s, Prime Minister John Major says he doesn't think there will be any impediment to Charles marrying Camilla. And the archbishop of Canterbury says he would ``bless'' Charles' remarriage.
This, however, is not the main point. Parker Bowles is quoted as saying that not only does she intend to marry Charles, but that she also intends to be his queen consort and to receive the title Her Royal Highness, allowing any children the two have to be in line for the throne. Queen Elizabeth's opinion of this is not publicly known, but it seems highly unlikely she would go along with such a scenario.
Parker Bowles reportedly thinks she has already paid a considerable price by divorcing her brigadier husband and has no intention of living the rest of her life alone. A friend of the prince's says that Charles will put duty above love and the country ahead of himself. Too bad he didn't feel as strongly about duty to his wife and children.
Diana spent the Christmas holiday in seclusion in the Caribbean, apparently plotting her own post-marital strategy. It's all very dicey, as the Brits would say, and the stuff that keeps the tabloids and television programs in business. There is talk of little else. All of the year-end reports featured ample stories on the tribulations of Charles and Diana in what must be Britain's longest-running real-life soap opera.
My English friend could not adequately explain it all to me. No one fully understands it, including the principals. But one thing is easily understood. If Charles and Diana had applied the lesson read at their 1981 wedding (especially the part about love being ``patient and kind'' and not ``self-seeking'' or keeping records of wrongs, ``it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres''), two young princes would be living in a stable family, as is their right, and the Church of England and the politicians would not be performing theological and legal acrobatics to justify things they once discouraged as not being in the best interests of people or of nations.
- Los Angeles Times Syndicate
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB