TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/81/81.41

Text File | 1992-09-25 | 31KB | 552 lines

                                                                                August 3, 1981

PEOPLE

Magic in the Daylight


Prince Charles weds his Lady Diana in the century's grandest
royal match


"Charles who?" asked the singer, forgetting for the moment the
Prince's warm admiration of her top notes. Her agent hastily
explained, his client hastily accepted, and this week, Kiri Te
Kanawa, originally from New Zealand and lately of the Royal
Opera, will let her shimmering soprano loose on a three-minute
anthem by Handel. She will be accompanied by a trumpet soloist
and 95 other musicians drawn from three orchestras in which the
bridegroom has taken a particular interest.

Barring an act of God, the Irish Republican Army, the nation's
unemployed or any combination thereof, Te Kanawa's audience
will include one happy couple, 26 prominent clerics, a carefully
vetted congregation of 2,500 crowding each other for pew space
under the great painted dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, more than
75 technicians manning 21 cameras, and an estimated worldwide
television audience of 750 million. They will be tuning in the
century's greatest, grandest nuptial, the sort of love story
Hollywood doesn't make any more and the kind of spectacle it
can't even afford any more.

In plan in prospect, the marrying of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales,
32, to Lady Diana Spencer, 20, the well-born and distinctively
dishy commoner, is a fairy tale of present pomp and past glory,
a last page from the tattered book of empire with the gold leaf
still intact. It is by Rudyard Kipling out of Walter Bagehot,
a ceremony intended to refurbish and reaffirm tradition. "The
monarchy's mystery," Bagehot wrote in 1867, "is its life. We
must not let in daylight upon magic." This wedding on the cusp
of high noon, in front of a world short on ritual and parched
for romance, is in fact one grand pass of the royal wand, a
masterly and pricey piece of prestidigitation in which, at once,
the old values are upheld, the future is assured and everyone
can be queen for a day.

Some of these values and traditions have played false--indeed,
may have betrayed--those of Her Majesty's subjects who, out of
rage and frustration, have been rioting in the streets, burning
cars, looting stores and combatting the police. The month past
has seen the worst outbreak of violence in Great Britain in a
century, which has cast a long and smoky shadow over this
splendid national occasion.

It seems easier for everyone, however, to give three cheers and
subsume the flames that came from Brixton and Manchester and
Liverpool in the more congenial firelight of the wedding-eve
pyrotechnics at Hyde Park and the 101 celebratory bonfires
ignited all over the kingdom, from Scotland and Wales to the
Shetlands and the Scillys, even to the embattled north of
Ireland. "When politics are in rather a mess," remarks Lady
Elizabeth Longford, a historian and biographer, "any institution
that is above politics gets an extra dose of glamour."

That may not go far among Great Britain's almost 3 million
unemployed, but it enhances the monarchy and sustains every
monarchist in the realm. Says Robert Lacey, author of Majesty,
a study of Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor:  "The reason
the monarchy survives in the 1980s is that, through a
combination of luck and also good training, the House of Windsor
has continued to produce persons who mirror the national
virtues."  Adds Politics Professor Richard Rose of Scotland's
University of Strathclyde:  "There are those who are positive
about the monarchy, and those who are lukewarm. There aren't
many anti people."  Especially now, when the prevailing wedding
fever seems to have raised the public temperature way past
lukewarm. Indeed, a survey published last week in the liberal
Guardian showed that a resounding 76% of those polled felt the
advantages of the monarchy outweigh its costs (estimated at a
yearly rate of $25 million) and that 67% considered that the big
bundle being lavished on the wedding was money well spent.

Of course, there were all those revenues from wedding-souvenir
sales and the tourist trade to consider, although tourism
surprisingly fell a bit short of expectations, with rooms to
spare at several major London hotels. An extra $200 million for
souvenirs and $440 million more in tourism were expected to
augment the national coffers. But in the matter of budget and
expense vs. value rendered, the Windsors, who are monarchs not
only for a nation but for the international media, found
themselves up against a conventional show-business maxim: It is
only when you bomb out that you're a profligate; if you're hit,
nobody cares how much your show cost.

The Windsors are presiding over one of history's biggest
smashes, and against all odds, one of its most enduring. Anyone
who thinks for a moment that such show-business comparisons
might be crass would do well to consider that, while Britain may
not be the most flamboyant nation on earth, it is surely the
most theatrical. The pageantry, and indeed the calibrated
delirium, of the wedding celebration are the distillation not
only of national spirit but of a shared dramatic soul.

Look at London, a city dressed like a vast stage, buses painted
with bows, and parks blooming with Charles' royal crest outlined
in precisely planted blossoms, 4,500 pots of flowers lining the
wedding route. Remember all the designers working in secrecy:
the milliners blocking straw and trimming it with quills; dress
designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel, holed up in their Mayfair
workshop like a couple of atomic scientists, working on Lady
Diana's wedding gown, plus two or three backup designs in case
of a breach in security; the Worshipful Company of Gardeners,
one of London's ancient guilds (founded in 1345, thank you),
which was given the task of assigning one of its members to
concoct the wedding bouquet. Think about Major Julien T.
Henwood, 36, of the Mounted Military Police, who, along with
four other mounted officers, will lead Lady Diana in her Glass
Coach from Clarence House to St. Paul's and who admits that the
whole thing "is a fairly daunting prospect. It would be wrong
to say we're not feeling the old butterflies."  Or about
designer Bruce Oldfield, turning out dresses for several
prominent guests, who dithers:  "It's a nightmare. It's great.
It's fantastic."  Or Kiri Te Kanawa, who says simply that she
is "terrified."  The frantic pace, the giddy nerves, the
spiraling expectation that threatens to run away and never quite
does; all of it comes down to one thing. It is an
understandable preopening stage fright for what will be, for one
day and one day only, the greatest show on earth.

Like all great extravaganzas, the royal wedding requires a
producer (the Lord Chamberlain) and a director (Lieut. Colonel
John F.D. Johnston, who recently received a knighthood for his
organizational skills). It also, of course, has a supporting
cast of thousands. Along with the home-grown aristocrats, there
are all the invited guest:  political (Nancy Reagan); monarchial
(Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, the King and Queen of Sweden,
the Duke and Duchess of Liechtenstein); social (Sabrina
Guinness, Sir Hugh Casson); and sentimental (Flo Moore, who kept
Charles' Cambridge rooms in order; Henry and Cora Sands, who
provided Charles with some homemade bread during holidays in
Eleuthera; Patrick and Nancy Robertson, an American whose son
Lady Diana played nanny to in 1979 and 1980). Inevitably there
are also a few conspicuous by their absence, like King Juan
Carlos of Spain, who was miffed that the Prince and Princess of
Wales chose to embark on their honeymoon cruise from Gibraltar,
a British colony that the Spanish consider their own.

But these are cameos; faces in the crowd. The supporting
roles--the backbone of the British repertory system, and one of
the many small glories of the British cinema--give flesh, size
and human dimension to the sometimes overwhelming scale of the
spectacle. Among them: Chief Petty Officer David Avery, 38, of
the Royal Navy; brisk, authoritative and more than a little
wary. Avery baked the official wedding cake to be served up
to 120 guests at the Buckingham Palace wedding "breakfast" (noon
to 4 p.m.). The  recipe, he says, "is all in my head. It isn't
written down anywhere, you understand. No, I will not give you
a single detail."  Avery and an assistant, Training Officer
Lieutenant Motley, journeyed to the palace six weeks ago to give
the bride-to-be an approving peek at their design. The batter
had gone into the oven a month earlier. "The longer a cake
matures, the more it relaxes," Avery says. "If we'd known last
year that he was going to get married, we would have baked it
last year."  Avery handpicked every cashew, cherry, walnut and
currant for the cake in a two-day session code-named "Operation
Sultana."  He added a little Navy rum ("Just for flavor. You
don't want people to get paralytic") and baked the largest layer
for 8 1/2 hours. The result, which was stashed behind a locked
door at the Royal Navy Cookery School, measured out at 4 1/2 ft.
and 224 lbs.; 49 of which go for marzipan and ivory white icing.

Robert Gooden, 41, owner of Worldwide Butterflies Ltd. and
Lullingstone Silk Farm, who projects the somewhat abstract
intensity of a man on a perpetual hunt for the perfect specimen.
Lullingstone provided the silk for Lady Diana's wedding dress.
Nestled in the rolling hills of Dorset, hard by Gooden's
mansion, it is the only silk farm in England. Its worms, which
dine on mulberry leaves, have provided silk for the wedding
dress of Queen Elizabeth and for the cloak Charles wore when he
was invested as Prince of Wales. Started by Lady Hart Dyke in
the 1930s with encouragement from Queen Mary, Lullingstone
almost went under when its founder died in 1975. It was then
that Gooden, who had been doing rather well with his butterfly
company and who had reeled and woven silk as a boy, stepped in.
"My wife and I wanted Lullingstone not only because of our
past interest, but because of the royal tradition," he explains.
"The royal family set an example of gentility, a way of life
none of us could normally aspire to. They have a steadying
influence."

Maris Cole, a primary-school teacher from Great Somerford and
her husband Hector, 41, who teaches ironworking at a local
secondary school. The Coles were chosen to craft the
20-ft.-long hand-wrought iron gates that will stretch across the
entrance to Highgrove, the 18th century Georgian mansion of
mellow brick near Tetbury, where Charles and Diana will set up
housekeeping. Maris--"the artist in the family," according to
Hector--sketched the classic design, which is to be executed by
her husband. "We toiled for many hours in our study,"  Maris
admits. "Our biggest problem was trying to decide what Prince
Charles would like. We finally decided that in our humble
opinion something fairly simple would be O.K."  Tetbury
residents are paying the $5,000 cost of the gates by taking up
a collection and selling a commemorative envelope of the wedding
day, a scheme launched by a local insurance man, Jeremy Gahagan,
"The business is booming," he reports. "Often when they come
in, they also ask me for a quote on car or life insurance."

Major Michael Parker, 33, an antiques dealer and reserve
officer, who says lightly:  "I like burning things. I am a
pyromaniac."  Parker is the man directly in charge of what he
says will be "the largest firework display in 250 years," a
figure that roughly but deliberately recalls the pyrotechnic
extravagance that celebrated the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in
1749. It was for that occasion that Handel composed his Music
for the Royal Fireworks, which will also accompany the meteor
shower of bombshells, flash reports, bombettes, pirouettes.
Catherine wheels, saucissons, serpents and good old-fashioned
detonations over Hyde Park on the wedding eve this week.
Parker's field lieutenant is an intense 29-year veteran of
Paines Fireworks Co., Roly Harrison, who admits that, when the
time comes for ignition, the entire display is "essentially a
one-man show."  He leaves little doubt who that man is. "Roly
is like an actor who goes onstage," explains John Deeker of
Paines. "He's the one who presses the buttons. If Roly isn't
feeling up to snuff, he'll put on a lousy fireworks display.
It's a fine art. You have to have an artistic flair for
entertaining."

With all that flare in the air, and all the strong support on
the ground, it is little wonder that the stars of the show
seemed, especially during all the weeks of feverish preparation,
to have been virtually swept off the stage. Charles still
pressed on with his ceremonial schedule, even taking a side trip
to Dartmoor Prison, whose inmates presented him with a
ball-and-chain paperweight. Lady Diana showed up in the stands
at Wimbledon, looking fetching and diverting spectator attention
from the antics of John McEnroe on Centre Court. The two also
appeared together in public--at a wedding and a film
premiere--and managed to seem at ease, both with themselves and
their adoring subjects. Lady Diana's youthful radiance stole
the show last week at the Queen's garden party. Allowing an
elderly blind guest to feel her engagement ring, she joked:
"I'd better not lose this before Wednesday or they won't know
who I am."  Her outright sensual allure has smartened up her
fiance considerably. Charles, who had previously projected a
kind of steady, Urquhart-plaid personality, seemed to pick up
some more dash, as if he were beginning to realize rather
belatedly what his sporting friends would happily have told him:
that he had made a damned lucky catch.

Charles did not always appear to think so; not at first anyway.
When he and Diana posed on the back terrace of Buckingham
Palace on their engagement day, he acted as if he had made a
wise choice, a becoming choice, but perhaps not a compelling
one. "Are you in love?" asked a reporter. His fiance beamed,
blushed and said yes. The Prince's answer:  "Whatever love
means"--a remark of rather too much objectivity, hinting at even
a touch of weariness.

"My impression was that they had scarcely spent very much time
together," remarks Anthony Holden, whose biography of the
couple, Their Royal Highnesses:  The Prince and Princess of
Wales, was published last month. "They hadn't spent as much
time as any of us might have done with the person we were going
to marry."  Off on a five-week tour of Australia and New
Zealand, Venezuela and the U.S., the Prince saw his Lady's face
on newsstands and TV screens all around him and spoke to her
frequently by phone. "It was the ultimate case of 'absence
makes the heart grow fonder,'" insists Holden. "He was falling
in love with her from a distance, and I think it is quite clear
this thing is going to become a genuine love match."

If that is true, one wonders only what took the Prince so long.
He was lagging far behind the media and the public, which
wasted no time in elevating Lady Diana into a stellar
attraction. Movie stars have become princesses before. Never,
however, has a Princess looked so much like a movie star;
certainly no Queen-to-be has ever done so much for a pair of
blue jeans. Lady Diana's seemingly paradoxical quality of
patrician funkiness has caught the spirit of a generation that
fancies itself a little more romantic than those of the '70s and
'60s and acts, at least outwardly, a good deal more
conservatively. She is already widely imitated--the hair, the
clothes, the ruffled collars--but never duplicated. Certainly
the reason is that she is unique, as thousands of desperate
Di-clones and all the merchants who minister to them have
discovered.

By the early evening of the wedding day, London's D.H. Evans
should have a copy of the bridal gown in its Oxford Street
window. The knock-off is the work of Ellis Bridals, which turns
out copies "whenever there is a royal wedding," according to
Brenda Ellis, 33, granddaughter of the firm's founders. "We
simply reproduce the dress so the public can have it. It's the
same thing now."

Well, not quite. The Ellis cutters and sewers will be making
use of new technology:  a video-tape machine with a pause
button. "When we get a good picture of Lady Di," Ellis says,
"we can freeze it."  Ellis reports that 200 copies have been
ordered so far. "Every shop in England that has a royal window
wants one."

Taking careful note of all the duplication and trend setting,
a Major Ralph Rochester of Malt Field, Devon, dispatched a
letter to the Times of London. "Sir," he wrote, "I have
observed of late numerous girls who are taking pains to look
like Lady Diana; but of boys I have observed, none is making the
least effort to look like the Prince of Wales. How should this
be?"  One reason may be that the Prince steers clear of trends.
His suits are made by Johns & Pegg, Ltd., exclusively military
tailors until World War II, which made the naval ceremonial day
coat in which the Prince will approach the altar. "We keep up
with fashion, but we don't lead fashion," says Peter Johns.
Charles' shirts come from the top-drawer Turnbill & Asser; the
palace thriftily returns them now and again to have the collars
replaced.

If the Prince has picked up a little pizazz by association with
Lady Diana, she has assumed the beginnings of a royal aspect.
Even though she chose to have "obey" deleted from the marriage
service, she has not yet dealt successfully with the problem of
monarchical chapeaux. Women of the royal family are all
encouraged and expected to wear hats for formal occasions. Lady
Diana's early efforts to comply with this code have resulted in
a couple of wowzers, including one that looked as if the mother
ship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind had made a forced
landing on her noggin. Under such circumstances, photos
sometimes catch fleeting moments when a kind of uncertainty,
even a suggestion of strain, seems to flicker across her face.
Royals do have a peculiar knack for looking out of it, and when
Charles drove off from Ascot in his dark blue Aston Martin with
Diana at his side, both had the slightly dazed look of a couple
who had just scored big on Let's Make a Deal.

It is in the realm of gifts, indeed, where the royal wedding
began to look like a wide-screen spectacular and more like the
world's most de-luxe television quiz show. Without undue
straining, the voice of a master of ceremonies comes filtering
through the imagination, asking the traditional question--
"Johnny, tell us what's in the jackpot for this wonderful
couple"--and getting, from an agitated announcer who sounds
like a tobacco auctioneer just graduated from broadcast
school, a far from conventional reply:

"Bob, we've got presents, I'm telling you, from the four corners
of the world!  From President and Mrs. Reagan in the U.S., a
Steuben glass bowl christened 'The Crusaders'!  From the village
of Doughton, bless'em all, a sheetiron weather vane for
Highgrove!  From the far-off land of Tonga, a bedspread,
presented by--I want to get this name right--King Taufa'ahau
Tupou IV and his wife, Queen Mata'aho, and hand-knitted by the
Queen herself; let's have a round of applause for them both!
From the Sedgemoor district council in Somerset--how about
this?--a ton of peat!  A nickel-silvered mousetrap in a
diamante-jeweled presentation case from West Country Councillor
Vernon Gould! One complete bedroom set from Canada!  Two
additional beds!  Three engineering apprenticeships donated by
the Greater Manchester Council! Western boots for Charles,
Western chaps for Diana, both from Texas and both from Anne
Armstrong, the former American ambassador!  A herb garden for
Highgrove from the Cranleigh Group of Women's Institutes in
Surrey!  A lace cushion from the Royal School of Needlework!
Two cases of specially blended 'C and D' malt whisky from
Macallans Distillery!  And--wait until you ladies see this--from
Geba, in Germany, kitchen furnishings for every culinary pursuit
you can imagine, valued at a grand total of $20,000!  And, if
think that's something, just take a look at what we've got
behind the curtain!"

What's behind the curtain will be revealed in due diplomatic
course--but one thing is already clear. The royal newlyweds
are coming up a little short on the practical end. "Actually,"
confessed a palace spokesman, "they have not got a thing."
There is an abundance of silver bowls and candlesticks, of
course. But Charles has joked about camping "on my orange
boxes" at Highgrove, and there are those who are taking him at
close to his word. Despite an annual income of well over $1
million, it seems that the Prince still lacks certain basics.
"Most of the presents received in the past by royalty were
never used," remarks H.B. Brooks-Baker of Debrett's Peerage
Ltd., publishers of Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage. "Contrary
to popular belief, the Prince doesn't really have anything at
all beyond museum pieces, such as signed pieces of furniture and
valuable paintings. He doesn't have breakfast china or a
toaster."

To correct this situation, Charles and Diana raised eyebrows by
registering a list of wedding gifts at the General Trading
Company, a tony London emporium with a royal warrant to supply
fancy goods. Gift givers who are bored by silver and feel that
the Germans have pretty well swept kitchen-equipment field can
drop by the store and have a look at the list of some 300
desired items, which include omelette and saute pans, salt and
pepper mills in natural wood, dishes for casseroles and
souffles. 24 champagne glasses, 18 highball tumblers, a dark
green tablecloth and two shocking-pink lamps. If something
slightly more elevated and a little less suburban is required,
one might consider the white Crown Staffordshire china cockatoos
($128 the pair). One might also consider real cockatoos, but
the palace has slapped a firm injunction on live pets.

Rear Admiral Sir High Janion is the man at the palace in charge
of the reception and cataloguing of all gifts, from chaps to
cockatoos. Each gift must also be checked out thoroughly by a
security specialist to see that it is not a surprise package,
just as each old Wren-restored inch of St. Paul's (1710) has
been gone over daily by bomb-sniffing dogs. Every foot of the
two-mile route from Buckingham Palace to the cathedral has been
secured by rooftop marksmen from Scotland Yard and
closed-circuit television cameras. Still, the royals will
remain achingly vulnerable. The horse-drawn coaches that will
conduct them to the ceremony at a stately 8 m.p.h. would be
pervious to a strong slingshot. Queen Elizabeth has been
adamant in her refusal to take any extra protective precautions,
even after an unemployed youth fired six blank shots barely 10
ft. from where she rode during the annual Trooping of the Color
in June.

Security has been tight for weeks--British Airways dispatched
40 of its top investigators with lists of "known terrorists"
supplied by Interpol to inform local police the world over.
Baggage checks at London airports have been especially
meticulous. Many of the foreign dignitaries--more than a dozen
Presidents, none members of reigning royal families, three
former sovereigns, fifteen Commonwealth heads of state, twelve
governors-general--will be arriving with their own security
agents, all of whom are required by British law to hand over
their guns. This applies also to the U.S. Secret Service, which
will be keeping an eye on Mrs. Reagan. Precautions have become
so stringent that London's bobbies, who will be spaced every 6
ft. on both sides of the processional route, have been
instructed to turn away when the royals pass, and watch the
crowd.

Despite such safeguards, the event aspires to be a spectacle by
DeMille, not a thriller by Hitchcock. There are parties
everywhere and tours for every bank account. The celebrators
at the office windows above the processional route will have paid
Heather Pickering of "Corporate Capers" $390 per person for a
prime view and a picnic hamper. They also have to clear
computerized police security and wear an ID badge. Gate
crashing will be prevented and order maintained by members of
Pickering's Kung Fu club. Near by at the Strand Palace Hotel,
arrangements are even more elaborate. The management has turned
a conference room and foyer into an indoor equivalent of an
English garden, complete with sky, grass, waterfalls and
fishpond. Guests, each of whom will be billed $500, will arrive
to blast of trumpets. After they put away a hearty breakfast,
they will be conducted to a "royal wedding box"--a room
overlooking the Strand, specially decorated and provided with
a TV set and a uniformed lackey. At the moment Lady Diana's
coach passes, the hotel promises to release a spray of red rose
petals and 1,000 doves.

The party of parties before the wedding will be the Queen's ball
at the palace, which has a guest list of 5,000. On the wedding
evening, with the bride and groom safely off, the Queen just
might drop in on Lady Elizabeth Shakerly's rout. Lady Elizabeth
discovered that rout is an 18th century term for what lesser
mortals might call a blast. "I don't dare do something with
caviar and lobster because I can't afford it," the Lady
explains. "I am having scrambled eggs and bacon from 7:30 on."
She is dishing it up at the ballroom of Claridge's, a location
that, unlike the menu, could not have been chosen for reasons
of economy.

Possibly a couple of the pedestrians watching Lady Elizabeth's
guests disembarking from their Rollses and Daimlers will have
wandered into Mayfair courtesy of the special gold, blue and
white all-day ticket that London Transport is providing for the
wedding day. At a cost of $4, it represents the cheapest tour
around. The most expensive seems to be the trip organized by
Mrs. Ian Routledge, who, for a fee of $5,000 (exclusive of air
fare), will ferry 70 presumptive American socialites from
London's St. James's club to stately country homes, where they
can hobnob with the elite and perhaps catch a little refracted
glory from the wedding.

Celebration plans were a good deal less rarefied out in the
country. The Oxfordshire village of Weston-on-the-Green (pop.
300) scheduled an evening barbecue, dancing and lots of games,
including at least two that not recognized by the International
Olympic Committee:  a pillow fight on a greased pole laid across
a swimming pool, and an English variation on the ancient Greek
discus throw, in which the hurled object is a rubber Wellington
boot.

In Tetbury, Master Thomas Charles Wortley, 5, will entertain
local celebrators by re-enacting the wedding with Miss Karen
Diana Welch, 9. There will be a wedding cake and toasts to both
brides and grooms. Members of the younger set are not quite so
cagey with the press as their elders, however, and a friend of
the couple confided that Master Wortley thinks Miss Welch
"soppy"; Miss Welch, in return, considers her make-believe
spouse "an awful brat."

While the Welly is hurled and the tots take the vows, Charles
and Diana should have departed the palace breakfast and started,
via British Rail, on the first stage of their honeymoon. They
will spend their first two days as husband and wife at
Broadlands, once the home of Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Ahead,
after their two-week Mediterranean cruise aboard the Britannia,
lie the more serious duties of government and the more exacting
chores of their official life together.

Squaring off with the responsibility of setting a strong example
is still one of the most important of British royal functions.
It comes with the crown; it comes with the territory. Queen
Elizabeth seems well aware of her symbolic roles, but she has
also demonstrated a keen awareness of the force of her favor,
a good working understanding of the subtle political interplay
that keeps the British monarchy bobbing just above the breaking
edge of parliamentary politics. "It is its capacity as a
political deterrent, which is not less effective for being
unused, that gives the crown, and the nation's confidence in the
person who wears it, their real importance," notes British
Constitutional Expert Ronald Butt. Unused, perhaps, but
certainly not unfelt. Just recently the Queen let Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher know about her shock and regret over
the street violence and, according to a very senior government
official, expressed her clear wish that "reconciliation" be the
objective that all races and religions should strive to achieve.

Charles is expected to continue, and perhaps even slightly
increase, his mother's stringent sense of the equilibrium of the
monarchy. A few of his subjects are even anxious for him to
give it an early start and have begun speculating on the
possibility of the Queen abdicating. As far as the Windsors and
those closest to them are concerned, such talk is pure fiction.

"Let's get one thing quite straight," the late Lord Mountbatten
said in 1978, "The Queen is not going to abdicate. Everyone
would advise her not to, beginning with the Prince of Wales."
Last week a source close to the royal family told TIME:  "It
is a fair assumption that the Queen will continue on the throne
for as long as her health permits, and she, with her family's
support, feels she has a useful job to do for the state."  One
member of the immediate family also made it quite clear that
Charles will have to wait--perhaps 20 or 25 years--before he
takes the throne.

As the eleven royal coaches toll toward St. Paul's, and an
expected 2 million spectators jam the processional route,
cheering, shouting, waving flags and banners, the princely
bridegroom might still take a fast two-step forward in time,
thinking about another occasion on which he will be in such a
procession, hearing such cheering. But he will be carrying more
years then, and a much graver weight. Better to dwell in the
present, when the shadows have been beaten back for a few
festive days, and a watching world wants to crown him and his
bride with only one wish:  Godspeed.

--By Jay Cocks. Reported by Bonnie Angelo and Mary Cronin/London