ROYALTY The Allure Endures

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dowdy or debonair, starchy or outspoken, they radiate an extraordinary aura of power and hieratic authority. They are walking Gainsboroughs, Goyas on the go. Ulster M.P. Enoch Powell said of Elizabeth: "Our monarch is not a crowned President. She is anointed. She represents a supernatural element in the nation." Though it has been 300 years since Britain disavowed the divine right of Kings, an opinion poll indicated that one-third of all the Queen's subjects believe she was chosen by God. In socialist Scandinavia, where Kings and Queens shop for bargains and drive their own cars, talk of dismantling the monarchy is greeted with derision. The restoration in Spain may be the practical answer to that nation's deep divisions.

Europe's Kings and Queens are the Houdinis of history. They have survived the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars and the socialist governments that rule some of their nations. Endogamous and interrelated (five are descended from Queen Victoria), all ten monarchs are disciplined and devoted. Their ranks, including those who no longer occupy thrones (see box), do not include a single wastrel, tosspot, cretin or voluptuary — or even a certified eccentric. In wartime, they almost gratefully revert to King Harry or Boadicea. In peace, they are diligent public servants and accomplished sportsmen and devote their surplus energies to such causes as the environment and conservation (bearing in mind, perhaps, that they also may be an endangered species). Above all, they are adaptable.

POMP AND PRAGMATISM The world's super-royals are, of course, the British. Queen Elizabeth II, the 42nd monarch since William the Conqueror, is surrounded by almost medieval pageantry. She is supported at the pinnacle of society by a solicitous court, a titled aristocracy and the full panoply of the Church of England. She is head of the Commonwealth and formally commands the British armed forces and the civil service. Tradition, her titles and a status-conscious middle class help maintain the myth that the Queen actually rules her realm.

When she celebrated her 50th birthday with a late-night ball for 500 guests at Windsor Castle last week, Prime Minister James Callaghan's failure to attend stirred an uproar. Though Callaghan is a teetotaler and abhors such festivities, his absence was interpreted by many as virtually an act of insubordination.

Chided the conservative Daily Mail: "An invitation from the palace, whether for a state occasion or for a private party, has always been regarded as a command that is just not turned down." The illusion of a potent sovereign was borne out earlier in the month when Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had "sent for" Callaghan and "requested him to form a new administration"—though, all Britain knew, he had been elected Prime Minister by his own Labor Party. Why the folderol?

In a way, the pomp is part of the circumstance, inseparable from royalty's arcane role as the symbol of national unity and continuity in a pluralistic democracy. No one has ever satisfactorily explained this arbitrary, totemic yet pragmatic arrangement. Even the actual powers of the monarchy defy precise definition.

In Bagehot's classic phrase—which applies generally to all European royalty—the British monarch has three influential rights: