Jersey was the place to be yesterday if you were a football fan with a headache after the Euro final.
Unlike the rest of the country, where the clamour for a public holiday had been ignored by our spoilsport rulers, the entire population had been given the day off, for a visit by King Charles and Queen Camilla.
And so, despite a very British downpour, there was a healthy turnout when the royal family arrived at St Helier’s Royal Square at the start of a two-day trip to the Channel Islands, the first visit by a monarch since that of the late Queen and Prince Philip in 2005.
As they strolled along, umbrellas in hand, everyone was smiling broadly, as if two old friends had stopped by for a chat after a long absence. And, in a way, that was exactly what was happening.
The late Queen used to say that you had to “see it to believe it”. We have had cause to remember those words in recent weeks and months, as both the King and Princess of Wales have stepped back from public life to undergo cancer treatment.
When the Princess of Wales took her seat in the royal box on Wimbledon’s Centre Court on Sunday, 15,000 people rose to their feet in unison to applaud her return.
Kate had retired from public life after her cancer diagnosis.
Watching the expectant crowds as the royals reappear after months away from our streets and screens, it’s impossible not to be impressed by the response.
Because it’s not just the King and Queen, of course.
When the Princess of Wales took her seat in the Royal Box on Wimbledon’s Centre Court on Sunday, 15,000 people rose to their feet in unison to applaud her return.
A similar story played out when Prince William appeared at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium to watch the Euro 2019 final on Sunday night, and when Princess Anne, after recovering from being kicked by one of her horses, visited the Riding for the Disabled Association near her home in Gloucestershire.
Royals have a quality that no other category of person can bring to the table. These feelings are not just sentimental. What we have been missing is something absolutely central to defining who and what we are as a nation.
Today, as the King and Queen complete the second leg of their trip to the Channel Islands in Guernsey, staff at the Palace of Westminster will be preparing for the State Opening of Parliament tomorrow.
The Princess of Wales presents the trophy to the men’s Wimbledon winner Carlos Alcaraz
The King and Queen on the first leg of their trip to the Channel Islands in Jersey yesterday
As you read these words, the esoteric choreography of such ceremonies is being rehearsed. Heralds and other characters with strange titles (such as “Herald Extraordinary of Maltravers” and “Chaser of the Red Dragon”) will rehearse their roles alongside eccentric figures, including the Black Wand, to ensure that the ceremony runs smoothly.
Yet behind all the ceremony, the beautiful costumes, and the truly bizarre names and titles of the participants, there is something deep, valuable, and embodied every time the King and Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, or Princess Anne, perform their public duties.
And we have been missing him while so many of the principal players in the royal drama have been off the stage. We value Charles not because we hero-worship him, and still less because we want him to have absolute power, but because the power he has entrusted to us is purely symbolic.
That is why the King’s Speech (written, of course, by the elected Government) is the King’s Speech and not Sir Keir’s speech or Rishi Sunak’s speech.
If you want to know the difference between our parliamentary system of power – vested in the hands of a king – and that of a dictator, ask a Russian currently living under Putin’s rule.
Ask anyone in China or North Korea, or even a Channel Islander whose grandparents lived there under Nazi occupation during the war.
Royalty is the continuous historical thread that links us to the past and reminds us of reasons to be grateful.
