Long life | 23 April 2015

There are already people camping outside St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, to await the birth shortly of another royal baby, the second child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. It is hardly a very exciting event. Babies are born all the time, and there are already quite enough descendants of the Queen to ensure the survival of the Windsor dynasty on the throne of the United Kingdom for a long time to come. Yet there are many people in this country for whom this commonplace event will be more thrilling than the forthcoming general election, even though it could presage the dismemberment of the country itself. The British monarchy continues to enjoy enormous popularity. There may be doubts about the suitability of Prince Charles to succeed to the throne, but latest polls also show that about 70 per cent of the people of Britain still support the institution itself. No other British institution comes close to it in public esteem.

This seems rather weird and juvenile to the citizens of many foreign republics, in particular to those of the United States, a country founded on rejection of the dynastic principle. George Washington was so wary of seeming to be like a king that he wore a plain brown broadcloth suit for his first inauguration in 1789 and quashed an early proposal that his official title should be ‘His Highness, the President of the United States of America and Protector of Their Liberties’.

But even from its birth the United States, the land of equal opportunity for all, showed itself susceptible to the appeal of dynasties. It elected a father and son — John Adams and John Quincy Adams — as its second and sixth presidents; and in more recent times the names Roosevelt and Kennedy have ensured political prominence for members of those families.