The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Wednesday 5 May 2004

A Royal Duty - A Historical Appraisal

By now, probably, everyone has read this book. All the uproar about its revelations has pretty much died down. Doubtless someone else will come along soon and publish yet another insider's view of life with the royal family, either above or below stairs. And it will be a bestseller, it may be banned in Britain, its author will rake in millions, and he or she will be publicly vilified. So goes the royal publishing mill: every few years someone has to grind some fresh grist to sell, to feed the clamouring public maw.

What makes this book different, and worth reading? Several things. One, the fact that Diana, Princess of Wales, is still very much in the news today, nearly seven years after her tragic death. The current British inquest into it (which perhaps Paul Burrell can take some credit for precipitating), the recent controversial American TV shows exploring her life, the upcoming second Andrew Morton book, the dedication of the memorial fountain to her in London, all point to her resurgence as a beloved public figure. Try as some in the British Establishment might, they cannot sweep her under the rug, nor pretend she did not exist. She is the most fascinating royal figure in fifty years, and so continues to influence British history, from the past, through the present, and into the future. Prince Charles' prospects of remarriage still depend a great deal on continued public feeling for Diana.

Two, the book's unique voice. Burrell was her butler. As such he was well placed to write about her, unlike some who were patently out of the palace loop and yet have done so. If no man is a hero to his valet, nonetheless Diana is something close to a saint for Burrell. He divulges no tacky secrets about her personal habits, birth control methods, or suchlike (as Wendy Berry did to a degree in her book, The Housekeeper's Diary). There are no pictures of the Toilet Where Diana Purged, or How I Smuggled Her Lover Up the Drainpipe. No, the photos in this book are family-oriented ones, of playtimes and costume parties, of Burrell and/or his family with Diana. Obviously he cherished their closeness. He calls her a "family friend" as well as the Boss. His wife Maria was a royal housemaid, and the Burrells' young boys often played with Princes William and Harry. According to Burrell, it was nothing for Diana to pop over to their quarters, both at Kensington Palace and at Highgrove, for a cup of coffee and a friendly chat.

Burrell obviously had a very good editor to shape his reminiscences. And a good memory. His narrative is polished and flows along beautifully, vis-�-vis some of the other royal servants' memoirs of the past twenty years, even those that were supposedly edited, with their ghastly choppiness and glaring typos. And it seems an accurate portrayal, a likeable and readable book, even if you dislike the reasons why he wrote it. You have the mental image of Burrell following Diana around "KP" with pen and paper, or keeping such in the butler's pantry, to jot down her every utterance and Preserve Royal History. He must have sat up late many nights, transcribing their conversations for posterity.

He did sit up late, many times. His was the shoulder Diana cried on. He admits that he neglected his wife and children for her. If she happened to phone down to him late in the night, needing a friend, up he got and off he went, no matter if he had to get up early the next morning and resume his usual duties. Maria became tired of it; there were fights. You wonder just how close he was to Diana, all alone with her, deep in the darkest night. He really doesn't say.

So the formal relationship he had with Diana blurred, more and more, into friendship. He became much more than a butler, more of a confidante/secretary. He went with her on her overseas trips as liaison, and was amused by the consternation this caused in official diplomatic circles. A mere butler? No, indeed. He must have been good at his work, to have been entrusted with the care and cares of a Princess.

Roughly the first quarter of the book details just how Burrell commenced his career, and went so high in royal service. It's a fascinating story of life below stairs at Buckingham Palace. More interesting, really, than the endless squabbles of the mismatched Waleses, because it provides profound glimpses into British history. For example, Burrell started as an under-butler serving coffee to the Queen, and wearing the "state livery," including a scarlet tailcoat over two hundred years old. It's mind-boggling to think that when such a museum artifact as Burrell proudly wore was new, around the time an English tailor was painstakingly sewing the gold trim onto it, that coat would have got him shot in Lexington or Concord or New Orleans.

Ah, historical perspective. And that is the third unique quality Burrell brings to his tale. We've had many memoirs of royal servants, from Marion Crawford (Crawfie) on. But this is a chronicle of the current monarch and her family with a late-Baby Boomer-era viewpoint. Burrell is the same age as I am, only eight days older in fact, and I mention this only because for people our age and younger, Elizabeth II is the only British monarch to reign in our lifetime, the only sovereign we have any memory of. He was brought up with a proper respect for the Queen; his reverence for her, and for the institution of the monarchy, is very evident. The Queen is for him a mother figure; he empathizes with Diana much more than Charles (not surprising since she and Burrell were much closer in age); William and Harry he often compares to his own sons. The Windsors were almost like his surrogate family, as it were. As also, probably, for millions of royal-watchers.

There's a sense of poignancy to that. As time passes, as fewer and fewer people recall seeing George VI and his wife the Queen Mother in life, as Elizabeth II's youth passes from public remembrance, an eyewitness view, a historical immediacy and connection, is being lost. Just as on the accession of Edward VII in 1901, when no one alive could remember how the court ceremonials had been conducted for Victoria in 1837, so for many people the concept of monarchy and majesty may well be lost someday because it is wholly (and perhaps completely for our time) embodied by Elizabeth II. Burrell conveys this sense of the historical moment very well, with his expositions of palace etiquette, royal protocol, ritual, and the magic and drama and significance of it all. It awed him. He felt it palpably; he says that when he put on the two-hundred-year-old tailcoat, "A huge sense of pride came over me." He seems to have truly grasped the meaning of his royal role, and respected its tradition, as few of his younger contemporaries have.

We often read of drunken footmen, pot-smoking, and orgies below stairs at the royal residences. But not from Burrell. He seemed during his tenure to identify with an older tradition of service, the seen-but-not-heard, loyal-unto-death fealty, cloak-in-the-mud, bended-knee, deaf-mute to scandal, Mr. Hudson example. Almost incomprehensible today. You can't imagine a 20-something, or an American, behaving so loyally.

But Burrell thrived at it, and soon was promoted to become the Queen's personal footman. When Charles and Diana married, he went with them to Highgrove as their butler, his can-do expertise and confidence were noted by Diana, and the rest is history. That is why I find the attacks on him baffling. It's pretty obvious he loved her dearly and was rather obsessive about her and protective of her, to a degree most other royal servants writing tell-all books probably aren't. That provides much of the reason why he kept royal personal items at his home. His squirreling away of Diana memorabilia is quite understandable. If you served a family with so much of your heart and soul, you'd surely want to keep a part of them with you forever. In the confusion after Diana's death, Burrell says he removed certain items to keep them from being thrown out. And the British Crown court decided in 2002 that he did so legally.

Yet Burrell obviously wrote the book for the money. As he readily admits, his trial cost him dearly (the last section of the book details its historic Crown proceedings). But the chance to vindicate his adored employer wasn't to be passed up, either. He slings no explicit mud, not even in paraphrasing the mysterious letter in which Diana predicted a car accident; to his credit, he merely reveals its existence, not the man she named in it � that was left to others to divulge. But he tells plenty about her good works, her many kindnesses, her charming personality. And mentions her brief, birthday reconciliation with Prince Charles. If Burrell truly has an axe to grind, why mention Charles' impromptu visit to her during the divorce proceedings, when the two laughed together and kissed, at all?

"There is no future for an unhearing, unseeing employee in a royal household," Paul Burrell says. But for the royal butler who heard and saw and wrote, there is a future, if not in royal service, then in the keeping of the flame of royal history, of Diana's in particular. How might history judge the butler who did it? I submit that, despite the fact Burrell did capitalize on her memory, and has been shunned by the Princes ever since, he just might be judged someday as one of her champions in the lists.

 

- Mel Whitney