Will, Kate, and Cannadine.

In the epilogue to his 2001 work Ornamentalism David Cannadine notes that the 'hierarchical-cum-imperial world' characterised by mid-Victorian empire and monarchy had come, in his own lifetime, to an end. Few would disagree with these sentiments. Yet few I suspect would entirely comfortable with the slight caveat Cannadine adds to these thoughts – that though the 'entire interactive system' of empire had ended, some vestiges of her imperial legacy still lingered in Britain at the turn of the third millennium. Cannadine writes: 'The British Empire may have vanished from the map, but it has not entirely vanished from the mind: in Buckingham Palace, and elsewhere too, its hierarchical sentiments, and some of its structures, still endure'.

 

On April 29^th William and Kate became the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. In the United Kingdom millions watched. A million lined the streets of London. Many communities held street parties. Some tried to ignore the whole pantomime altogether. The Australian reaction seems particularly pertinent to Cannadine's thesis. There recent referendums have only narrowly decided in favour of keeping the Queen as head of state, yet , Cannadine writes, 'while the traditionalists may have triumphed in the short run, the general feeling seemed to be a recognition that the monarchy would eventually go'. Without wishing to categorise (to caricature) the whole Australian nation, there seemed little sign of this in the concerns of their press. Monarchy (or at least the Will-Kate-Queen axis) is, it appears, enjoying a resurgence.

This of course does not render Cannadine's thesis incorrect. Although his predictions of monarchical decline may seem on 30^th April 2011 a little premature, #RW2011 is surely little more than a sticking plaster. Of greater importance perhaps, 'the wedding' alerts us to the trouble historians can run into (though Cannadine carefully litters his thesis with caveats) when predicting the future. Moreover it reminds us of the intoxicating power such public displays of 'ornamentalism' can still have on the 'public imagination'. For as an expression of everything 'ornamentlism' is, the wedding was also everything the Queen cherishes - as Cannadine writes 'medals, uniforms, decorations, investitures and ceremonial'. Combine that with a Clarence House administration more technologically savvy than most commentators give them credit for (see The Royal Channel), and suddenly we have a powerful 'ornamentalism' operating with an unprecedented communicative pervasiveness.