In the 1950s, Egypt's King Farouk, on the verge of losing his throne, famously predicted that only five royal houses would survive the 20th century: Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Windsor. His pessimism was understandable. Eastern Europe lay imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain, swaths of Western Europe were infatuated with socialism, fascism held sway in Spain under Franco and, while some of Europe's monarchies continued to bask in the residual popularity they had earned as symbols of national resistance during World War II, their modern relevance seemed increasingly dubious.
The Windsors, to be sure, remained paragons of popularity. At the very least they managed to keep busy, with even junior members of the family trekking off to distant reaches of the globe to represent the Queen. But not every monarch had a growing Commonwealth over which to preside and, with Europe increasingly focused on integration and supranational cooperation, the long-term prognosis for a hereditary institution rooted in feudal society did not seem good. Were he to set foot in Europe today, Farouk would be astounded by the robustness of the institution whose very survival he doubted. Europe has 10 reigning monarchs — a clutch of Kings, Queens, Princes and a Grand Duke. Failed marriages and relentless tabloid scrutiny have eroded popular regard for the British royal family, but according to a recent MORI poll, 70% of Britons still prefer a monarchy to a republic. Europe's two other female sovereigns command even higher approval ratings: around 80% for the Netherlands' Beatrix and her family and above 90% for Denmark's Margrethe II. As Elizabeth marks the golden anniversary of her reign, there may be decidedly less enthusiasm for British royalty than 50 years ago, when the accession of the glamorous young Queen was heralded as the harbinger of a new Elizabethan Age. But the important fact is that both monarch and monarchy have endured.
In the Netherlands, the marriage in February of the heir to the throne, Willem-Alexander, and his Argentinian girlfriend Máxima Zorreguieta prompted a frenzy reminiscent of the excitement that surrounded the 1981 wedding of Elizabeth's son Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. Last week's wedding of Norway's Princess Märtha Louise, though less grand than her brother Crown Prince Haakon's nuptials last August, generated almost as much coverage. Even Europe's smallest monarchy, Monaco, whose scandal-prone royals are also among the most high-profile, has taken steps to guarantee its reigning family's future. An April 2 change to the constitution clarifies that the throne can pass from a reigning prince who dies without children to his siblings. This ensures that if 78-year-old Prince Rainier III's bachelor son Albert, 44, remains childless the Grimaldi clan will retain the throne through Albert's sisters, Caroline and Stephanie, and their seven children.
Even in countries that long ago relinquished royalty, the institution of monarchy is enjoying something of a comeback, and once-banished royals are flocking home. Last year ex-King Simeon of Bulgaria became Prime Minister of the country he had reigned over as a child, and the son of the last King of Yugoslavia returned to Belgrade to take up residence in the royal palace. Earlier this month the Italian Senate voted to overturn a constitutional provision barring male members of that country's exiled royal family, who fled in 1943 as the Mussolini regime they had supported was crumbling, from setting foot on Italian soil. The Savoys' chances of reclaiming their throne are remote, but given that Italy is one of the few European countries that actually have monarchist political parties, anything is possible.
At the start of the 21st century, monarchs consistently outscore their nations' politicians in popularity polls and a new generation of photogenic young royals has come of age and is primed for the spotlight. The institution of monarchy, far from being an anachronistic relic, is finding new justifications: as a unifying force for increasingly diverse populations and as a national symbol at a time when other representations of identity — like border controls and currencies — are being subsumed in the larger concept of Europe. In many ways the Continent is in the midst of a royal revival. But the fundamental question that prompted Farouk's morose musings remains: In a republican age, can monarchy survive?
Even as Europe has assumed some of the characteristics of a giant federal state — the euro has displaced the currencies of Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain, although the royal profile continues to be embossed on each country's version of the euro coin — the national monarchies have taken on an enhanced significance. "In step with economic and political integration and giving up passports, we Europeans will become more conscious about our origin and national characteristics," says University of Copenhagen historian Claus Bjorn. "In this context the monarchies are prime symbols."
British constitutional historian David Starkey believes that in an increasingly integrated Europe the concept of national identity assumes greater importance. "On the one hand there's this realization that you're disappearing into a rather weak Franco-German bouillabaisse called Europe, and on the other hand passionate senses of local differences and identity remain." And, says Starkey, the very concept of national identity is itself in flux. "There's been a redefinition of nationhood, away from political self-assertion and conquest, toward a form of cultural and historical nationalism." As West European nationalism is reconceived as a nonbellicose, benign amalgam of history and culture, what better institution to serve as the incarnation of national identity than a symbolically powerful, substantively emasculated monarchy?
