Jonathan Keates

Music & Monarchy, by David Starkey – review

Music has always been integral to the image and power of monarchy. Our present Royal family should take note, says <em>Jonathan Keate</em>

Queen Elizabeth I playing the lute by Nicholas Hilliard - Getty Images | Shutterstock | iStock | Alamy 
issue 06 July 2013

British royalty, considered from a purely mechanistic angle, cannot function adequately without music. Deprived of marching bands, trumpeters and choristers or even of those ever so well-mannered regimental ensembles which dispense selections from favourite musicals at an investiture or a garden party, the royal performance would lose much of its authenticity.

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