It now exists entirely by public consent and if that consent is removed

It now exists entirely by public consent, and if that consent is removed, down it comes. If Diana were a living “people’s princess” set up against an “unpopular” monarchy, there would be no contest. If the Queen and her heir are really judged not to deserve their subjects, then the republic begins. This weekend brings a superficial reconciliation between Palace and pavement.

But the damage done to the monarchy’s roots in public respect – that cannot be repaired.The greatest disease in the world today is people feeling unloved” (Diana). Thank you Di for loving the broken even in your brokenness.Shelley, Byron, even Rousseau would have understood another aspect of last week. Diana was being worshipped as a redeemer, but she was also being canonised as a full-blooded heroine of the Romantic. For those who wrote the cards and letters, she embodied the right to follow the law of the heart, to be spontaneous, to love without counting the consequences, to throw aside convention, to run out into the world and embrace its unhappy inhabitants as brothers and sisters.And what was on the other side? Repressed emotions, crabbed age, protocol which crushes the young and eager heart, a court fenced off from the “real world”, an Establishment that cares only for money and privilege and ignores the poor and sick…This is shameless myth-making.

Whatever the tensions in Diana’s life, they cannot be reduced to a War of the Palaces – dark, cruel Buckingham against shining, frail Kensington But this is how the message-writers want to see it. The English feel that they have been through some very bad times, worse than their rulers realise. They have been unloved by those rulers, and in turn lost the knack of loving others. Now, through the intercession of St Diana, they want to become their better selves again.. The last time I saw people power in action was in Manila in 1986 And an awesome sight it was, too. Ferdinand Marcos, the corrupt, ailing dictator of the Philippines was trying to steal the presidential election from the rightful winner, Corazon Aquino, an elfin figure of a woman pitted against the might of the military establishment The people would have none of it. They took to the streets in their millions, in a show of popular indignation that swept their beloved Cory (it means “heart”) into the presidential palace

Something of the same kind happened last week Not on the same scale, of course, but of a similar nature.