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“Our” Prince, and future King, Charles has mar­ried again. This time, to a divorced woman. In my books, there is noth­ing wrong with this state of affairs. Life is com­plex; a road that has many twists, speed-bumps and turns. As people, I wish them well.

His­tor­ic­ally inter­est­ing items and questions:

• The wed­ding was post­poned for 24 hours due to the funeral of the pope. The future head of the Church of Eng­land; split-off from the Cath­olic Church in the 15^th Cen­tury — with much acri­mony to the point of civil war — changed his plans for the head of the “oppos­i­tion”. This shows the changes in our world­view in recent dec­ades and is laudable.
• Mar­ried in a civil cere­mony rather than a chris­tian ser­vice — the first time since the time chris­tian­ity hit Eng­lish shores.
• The Queen did not attend­ing the civil cere­mony. Where is the fore­give­ness here? Nor did she attend the Pope’s funeral.
• After Princes Wil­liam and Harry, what is the line of suc­ces­sion now? In his­toric times, and in sim­ilar situ­ations, the second-wife would be out to have her pro­geny get into the formal order of suc­ces­sion. Research shows that Price Andrew is then next in line. Wars have been waged on these matters.
• Protocol-wise, Cam­illa is now fourth most import­ant. As a repub­lican, I can­not under­stand how a civil mar­riage by the future head of the Church of Eng­land is now the fourth most import­ant per­son in our Con­sti­tu­tional Monarchy.
• OK, I’ll give the Queen a break. If it is not a per­sonal choice to not attend but rather there is a mat­ter of pro­tocol that says that she should not attend — either way: spite or pro­tocol; this is a sad indict­ment on the sys­tem of this Eng­lish mon­archy of the Battenburg-Windors.
• The Queen’s own wed­ding was not without con­tro­versy. She was mar­ried 2 years after the end of World War II. Prince Phil­lip Battenburg’s (angli­cised to Mount­bat­ten) many Ger­man rela­tions could not attend the cere­mony as it was too soon after the war. See — everyone’s wed­dings are steeped in some sort of familial con­tro­versy and stress. Three of the Queen’s four children’s mar­riages have ended in divorce. This must weigh on her mind greatly.

To quote Den­nis from The Holy Grail: ” Listen — strange women lying in ponds dis­trib­ut­ing
swords is no basis for a sys­tem of gov­ern­ment. Supreme exec­ut­ive power derives from a man­date from the masses, not from some far­cical aquatic cere­mony.
” Recent his­tor­ical events are not aquatic, but strikes me as meta­phor­ic­ally weak.

How will his­tory see the events of recent decades?