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sovereigns; those who have married into it have also made immensecontributions to its success. Queen Mary, wife of George V, was a minor princess who became the most regal of queens – but confessed at the end of her life that she would have loved to have had some ordinary experiences. Her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, was the strong-willed wife of George VI. She put her formidable energies to work in supporting her shy and diffident husband and in preparing her daughter to rule. Her superb ability to relate to people in all circumstances, particularly amid the hardships of war, made the monarchy more accessible and more universally well regarded than it had previously been. It was this Queen Elizabeth who, more than anyone else, created the concept of royalty that is familiar to us today.
    Prince Philip, scion of a minor and unstable royal house, was seen as alien and unsuitable when he married the heir to the British throne. Yet he brought to the role of consort enormous energy and intelligence, and – through his interest in technology, sports and conservation – succeeded in making the monarchy more modern and relevant. His outspokenness has entertained – or horrified – his wife’s subjects for over sixty years.
    Another charismatic young woman, who turned out to share Queen Elizabeth’s innate ability with people, married into the family in 1981. Diana Spencer brought to royalty a glamour that was at first very welcome. The tragedy of her subsequent life was to provide the monarchy’s greatest challenge since the abdication crisis, yet she created for her sons a legacy of public sympathy and goodwill that bodes well for the future. Kate Middleton, a genuinely ordinary member of the British upper-middle class, has already demonstrated a personal charisma that is winning her more and more admirers and has shown that an ancient institution can still successfully absorb outsiders.
    And what of the younger generations of Windsors? The queen’s children grew up at a time when royals were having to compete on equal terms with their subjects, in education,in sports, in the armed forces and in employment. Some of these new experiences were decidedly painful, for them and for the country, yet lessons were learned and the adjustment has in general been a happy one. In the space of a single generation of royal youth it has come to seem unremarkable that they attend school (albeit private ones), go on to a provincial university, plan a career, have exposure to – and make friends with – people of all backgrounds. This has been standard practice for decades among other European monarchies, whose children have long been educated locally. The process has surely now gone as far as it can – there must be some distance left between royalty and everyone else, because they must remain an abstract national symbol, and one that reflects the nation’s better qualities. This is guaranteed by the homes in which they live, the vehicles in which they travel, the possessions and collections at their family’s disposal, the duties they perform and the deference of those who surround them. Informality and ordinariness have probably gone as far as they can go without letting too much ‘daylight in on magic’ (to quote Walter Bagehot’s famous phrase). The result is, perhaps, a royal family that is better adjusted, more comfortable with its people, and more genuinely popular with them, than ever before.

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GEORGE V, 1910–36
    ‘I am only a very ordinary sort of fellow.’
    George V, on the occasion of his Silver Jubilee, 1935
    Like his son and namesake after him, George V had never expected to be king. He was a second son, and his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, was the one who received the training for kingship, at least to a relative degree. The boys were born less than a year and a half apart, Albert Victor (at Queen Victoria’s request he was named after both his grandparents, but was known to the family as