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BBC MUNDO RADIO
she’s no different to royal brides dating back to the Middle Ages
By Jenny Johnston
Last updated at 1:49 AM on 24th April 2011
Kate Middleton has found a fan in the historian David Starkey. It shouldn’t be hard to become one of his favourite princesses of all time, given his hilarious penchant for pointing out how many of her forerunners down the centuries were extremely ugly or had bad teeth, but he certainly thinks she’s the right girl for the job.
Interestingly, his analysis comes as much from his own experience of ‘girls like Catherine’ as from historical documents. ‘I’m a historian, not a marriage guidance counsellor, but I’m optimistic about this one,’ says the man who will commentate on the Royal Wedding for America’s CBS network.
‘When you compare this marriage to that of Charles and Diana, you can’t fail to be more positive. Diana was a frightened rabbit of a 19-year-old who had no experience of the world, or men, or anything.
Common entrance: Historian David Starkey says that Kate Middleton is no different to others such as Elizabeth Woodville who in 1464, became the first commoner to marry a reigning sovereign
‘With Kate, you know she is at least as bright as he is. She is elegant. She is confident. If you have been a girl at Marlborough, blieve me, you’ve been managing spotty schoolboys since you were about 14. I speak at these public schools, and the girls are a different breed to the boys.
The boys are these awful beer-ridden, spotty, unformed creatures, and the girls of the same age are charming and beautifully dressed, and will put you down, or put you at ease, effortlessly. Kate’s like that. She’s a perfectly formed girl.’
Is her entry into the royal family as historically significant as we might assume? Surprisingly not. While we might think it cataclysmic that a girl from a relatively modest background can marry into the royal family, Starkey is unfazed.
‘Kate Middleton does represent something new – but people are getting hung up on the wrong things. I don’t think the fact that her great-grandparents were Durham miners, or her mother was an air hostess, are historically significant. People from such backgrounds have married into noble circles before. Ever since the 19th century, public schools have been a gateway to gentility.’
So fascinating are the parallels that he has made a programme about it entitled William And Kate: Romance And The Royals. He takes us on a fascinating journey from the Middle Ages to the present, pointing out all the young brides who truly were doing something ground-breaking. And jaw-dropping stuff it is too.
Full circle: Starkey compares Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn to William and Kate, as shared educational and cultural experiences sealed the deal
He focuses on Elizabeth Woodville, who, in May 1464, became the first commoner to marry a reigning sovereign. A widow, and mother of two boys, she married the young Edward IV of York after an incident that would have today’s tabloid press in apoplexy, when Edward held a dagger to Elizabeth’s throat and tried to force her to have sex with him. Elizabeth, Starkey says, ‘responded with magnificent coolness, telling him that he could kill her, but she would only sleep with him if he married her. So he did.’ And they went on to have ten children together.
Starkey points to similarities between the romance of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and William and Kate, as both unions came about because of ‘shared educational and cultural experiences’. While Kate might want to run screaming from the palace if faced with that parallel, Starkey is more upbeat. He argues that we should celebrate a return to the sort of royal ‘love matches’ that did exist as far back as the 14th century – and which allowed for social mobility – but which were eradicated in more recent times.
The possibility of royal love matches ended, Starkey claims, with the extinction of the Tudor house on Queen Elizabeth I’s death in 1603. The Stuarts, who followed, he says, were more concerned with marrying for religion than love. Then came the House of Hanover in 1714 and the rigidity of German custom. ‘In the German tradition, prince had to marry princess. Although these rules were never incorporated directly into English law, they came in by the back door.’
Love was very much lacking in royal palaces in these times. Starkey talks about George IV, when Prince of Wales, having to give up his English Catholic love Mrs Fitzherbert for a German princess, Caroline of Brunswick. ‘It was loathing at first sight,’ explains Starkey. ‘The bride was ugly and stank. The groom drank himself to oblivion and was found with his head in the hearth. They never spent another night together.’
The marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840 was both a political union and a true love match. But Starkey argues that it wasn’t until World War I, when King George V ‘made the British monarchy British’ by changing the family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, that marriage customs changed.
Full picture: Dr David Starkey hopes that people will remember the Royal Wedding 'isn't just froth. It is much more interesting than that'
‘George declared that his children would be able to marry Englishmen and Englishwomen. He wrote in his diary, “It was an historic day”, and it was. The seed of everything that has followed – right up to the marriage of William and Kate, is there.’
As a nation, though, we can be forgiven a certain cynicism. The marriage of Charles and Diana was supposed to be a love match, and look what happened there. Yet Starkey is again optimistic. ‘The most positive thing of all is that William and Catherine are equals, which really is the new thing.’
His personal hope is that this sense of an equal partnership will one day result in a joint coronation. ‘I’m a great sentimentalist here. It would be wonderful to see the Queen’s consort crown again – it’s actually the most beautiful crown in the Royal collection.
‘I think it’s important for people to remember that this wedding isn’t just froth. It is much more interesting than that. Monarchy is about family, about succession, therefore marriage is absolutely essential.’ And love? ‘Ah. Well, that’s not essential, as we have seen. But it’s rather nice when it happens, isn’t it?’
Jenny Johnston William And Kate: Romance And The Royals is on Wednesday at 9pm on Channel 4.
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