Americans seemed, for the most part, delighted by the oh-so-English pomp and circumstance of the royal wedding, but Anomaly UK, a Brit, notes that pageantry is something Britain does exceptionally little of:
In the USA, every high school has a marching band, and public celebrations on the scale of a Royal Wedding are fixtures in the calendar, taking months of preparation every year. The New Year Tournament of Roses typically draws a live attendance of a million; the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade gets an annual TV audience not much smaller than the population of England. Attempts in Britain to hold comparable events are tiny, amateurish, and attract only bemusement from spectators.
English conservative Peter Hitchens was notably unimpressed with the whole thing:
Friday’s Royal parade was a dying gasp for the Monarchy, not a new beginning. This isn’t wishful thinking. I want the Crown to survive. But I do not think it can do so in a modern Britain that has turned its back on the ideas and habits that make a Monarchy possible.
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On the way back, the Life Guards (trained killers to a man) for some reason had to be escorted down the road by mounted police. Even Majesty must now be governed and pestered by the twin menaces of ‘security’ and ‘health and safety’.The police, for once looking like servants of the people in their tunics and helmets, only reminded us how many of them there are and how rarely we see them, and also that on all other days of the year they slouch about in flat caps and stab vests.
The Edwardian braid and sashes worn by Princes and Dukes emphasised that our Armed Forces are shrunken remnants — lots of big hats, not many planes, ships or soldiers. Never have they looked so laughably Ruritanian.
Inside the Abbey, it was obvious that most of those present, though they are our educated elite, feel awkward in church and do not know the words of what were once familiar hymns. And even on the 400th anniversary of the majestic, poetic and powerful King James Bible, we had to endure a lesson (sorry, a reading) from some flabby modern version.
The marriage service was, as it almost always is, tamed to remove the really dangerous, subversive bits. What? A wife obey her husband? He’ll be calling her ‘dear’ next.