The role of the Monarchy in today's society is one that has been deeply debated for a number of years. In Britain, support for the institution appears as healthy as ever, with a recent poll done by the Guardian reveals that only 26% of those asked wanting to get rid of the Monarchy whilst 63% argued that they should be kept. Indeed, the recent wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton appeared to unite the country with even those not particularly animated by the Monarchy at least excited by the Bank Holiday to celebrate the occasion.
This very same debate is currently being conducted in Sweden, where the current reigning monarch Carl XVI Gustaf has got himself into hot water concerning allegations made in Tove Meyer's, Deanne Rauscher's and Thomas Sjöberg's book Carl XVI Gustaf: den Motvillige Monarken. In it Sjöberg details the private life which included wild parties with both models and friends, and various connections to the underworld. The book also talks about an affair between the King and Camilla Henemark in the late 1990s, apparently with the full knowledge of Queen Silvia.
Reactions to the book have from what I can tell been extremely mixed, with many arguing that it is simply not the remit of the press to reveal such things about even a public figure and others pointing out that the book was just incredibly badly written. The backlash even included one of the author's, Meyer, being fired from her day job as a researcher on Swedish radio. The book also received a great deal of criticism for it's use of anonymous sources, a factor which one of the other author's Sjöberg finds hard to understand as all these sources have a right to their privacy. In a recent interview he also pointed out that these kind of rumours would not be accepted about the prime minister Frederik Reinfeldt and should therefore not be accepted from the King.
Love or hate the book it seems now that the opinion is now overwhelmingly in favour of the 64 year old King, on the throne since 1973, should now hand over the reins to his daughter Victoria within the next five to ten years. This and in other respects the Swedish Monarchy has in common with it's British counterpart. Whilst there have been no calls for Elizabeth II to relinquish the throne, the same article seems to indicate that those asked wanted the throne to be given to William rather than to Charles, Charles himself not being completely unfamiliar with the rumour mill. This, along with the news today that at the tender age of ninety Prince Philip was to withdraw from public duties may indicate that change may be ushered in sooner rather than later.
It occurs to me that whilst historically the monarchy were to some extent at the behest of their public, one remembers what happened to Charles I or to the French monarchy in 1789, but certainly in the case of Sweden and the UK they are going evolving in an entirely more democratic way. It has become increasingly clear that whilst they are still valued as an institution a greater emphasis is now being placed on the moral leadership that these provide. Whilst republicanism in these two countries is still far in the distant future, evolution is not so far away at all.
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