Royal Crowns: Jeremy Paxman

IN ONE SENSE, BBC NEWS anchor Jeremy Paxman is coming to America. In another, he's already here. Paxman — revered and feared in the U.K. as a singularly tough interviewer — is slated to begin appearing on BBC America later this fall, where he's expected to host a weekly roundup of world news.

As an author, however, Paxman has been on American shelves 1982, when his first book, "A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare," was published.

Paxman's eighth book, "On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry Into Some Strangely Related Families," is an informative whirlwind tour of European royalty that also brims with wonderful deadpan humor.

While the anchor litters his text with examples from history and offers glimpses into the lives of other surviving European monarchs — the section in which the author recounts a visit to Leka, the erstwhile Crown Prince of Albania and a stubborn pretender to the throne, is particularly hilarious — "On Royalty" focuses on the 20th and 21st century British royal family.

While Britons may feel all-too-familiar with the Windsors, Americans may be surprised to learn facts such as the following: Queen Elizabeth's husband, Prince Phillip, was born into poverty and is considered a walking faux-pas; the queen has played an important role in keeping the British Commonwealth together; Prince Charles talks to trees; and, most astonishingly, that a compelling argument can be made for keeping a monarchy atop a democracy.

Express interrogated Paxman about such things.

» EXPRESS: Did your beliefs change in the course of researching your book?
» PAXMAN: I had the view — since I was about 13 and first became politically conscious — that monarchy was an antique, illogical, undemocratic and indefensible institution. I was quite comfortable with that prejudice throughout most of my adult life. When I looked into it, I found that prejudice really unsustainable. I completely changed my view.

Now I would say that, clearly, if I was devising a constitution for the 21st century, one would not come up with a hereditary head-of-state. However, where we are now, it seems to me to be preferable to most of the alternatives.

I mean, do you know the name of the president of Germany?

» EXPRESS: No.
» PAXMAN: Exactly. Does a country feel better about itself to be represented by a nonentity?

If we went to some alternative mechanism, we would either go to the sort of system that you have — an executive presidency, where the president has real power — or, more likely, we would go to the sort of system that Germany or Ireland has: where you have a person who is the technical and ceremonial embodiment of the state.

It either becomes the ultimate prize in politics — and I'm not sure that a nation feels better about itself for being represented by somebody who is there simply to gratify personal ambition, which is the sort of system that you've got — or, is there because they represent the person who will give least offense to the greatest number, which is the system you end up with under ceremonial presidencies. Neither seems to be preferable to where we are here.

» EXPRESS: Do you wish that you had been born into royalty?
» PAXMAN: Good God, no [laughs]. Good God! I was originally going to call this book "Don't Let Your Daughter Marry a Prince." I think it's an immensely difficult and rather thankless task. I'm delighted to not have had that accident of birth thrust upon me.

» EXPRESS: You write that "the English people never embraced Prince Philip with great warmth." Why is that?
» PAXMAN: Because he's seen as irascible and slightly eccentric. I don't subscribe to these views. I think he's been a tremendous good influence in a very, very difficult role.

To me, being Prince Consort seems almost impossible and I think he's pulled it off reasonably well. Along the way, he's landed himself in a fair number of embarrassments, but they all get blown out of all proportion by the press.

[The people] haven't embraced him warmly, but maybe we only have room for one person as an object of veneration, so it's easier if you venerate one part of a partnership and ridicule the other. That's certainly the case with Blair and Thatcher. There was a respect attached to the individual — their spouse was lampooned.

» EXPRESS: Is there an ideal Prince Consort? Someone Philip should model himself after?
» PAXMAN: When Prince Philip married into the royal family, he asked around. I had this conversation with him. He said, "I asked lots and lots of people what I should do," and he was referred, of course, to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband. Prince Albert was initially not very well regarded by the British people. But he was a genuine intellectual, he was a great advocate of science and technology and he did a number of very, very worthwhile things. It took time, but eventually the British people came around to him.

» EXPRESS: One of my favorite parts of "On Royalty" is Philip's lengthy tirade about Rupert Murdoch. Why does he have that animosity toward Murdoch?
» PAXMAN: I got the impression — and it's purely an impression, rather than a factual statement — that he views Rupert Murdoch as a symbol of much that, in his view, has gone wrong with our society during and since the 1960s. In that sense, it's not necessarily purely the consequence of Murdoch's actions but that Murdoch is an exemplar of much that he loathes about the modern world.

» EXPRESS: Why is Prince Charles considered eccentric by the British people?
» PAXMAN: It's not entirely fair, but he is regarded as the sort of man who spends time talking to his plants and his trees and so on. I believe he once confessed as much.

The prince is involved in all sorts of circles — [alternative] medicine and lots of rather unfashionable causes that have [subsequently] become far, far more mainstream. He was onto things like organic farming and the attack on industrial farming. He was onto the need for developing much more manageable, sustainable, coherent urban communities. He was onto all sorts of things long before mainstream policymakers were onto them.

I thought it was a very odd, unusual thing — that you should find someone who is the embodiment of such an ancient, pre-rational institution — who somehow managed to intuit these anxieties. So, I think all of those things — the fact that he was onto them very early — tended to give him a reputation as an eccentric.

» EXPRESS: Do you know which monarch from the past the British royal family admires the most?
» PAXMAN: I think in the queen's case, she seriously admires her father, George VI, who never expected to succeed to the throne, who overcame a number of personal difficulties: a crippling stammer and the rest of it — very difficult in public life. I think she admires him hugely. I think she has attempted to lead her life as well as she can follow his example. Further back than that, I suppose Victoria would be quite well regarded.

The thing about monarchy that makes it a manageable mechanism is the fact that it is an institution which is occupied by human beings, and unlike politicians who appear to promise us a mechanism for solving the world's problems — and then when they're incapable of doing so, we get disillusioned with them, because the world isn't capable of being resolved or reduced down to these simple binary choices — monarchy is purely expressed through an individual, with all the strengths and weaknesses of any individual.

So, I'm speculating entirely here, but I would be amazed if they did not look at previous occupants of the role and say, "Well, George III was a rather interesting, humane, affable figure who went mad. George IV: A very selfish, irresponsible, self-indulgent man, however, he was a genuinely cultured figure." ... So, I don't know that there's an ideal one.

» EXPRESS: You write, "Without the Queen as its champion, the Commonwealth would have almost certainly fallen apart long ago." What has been Queen Elizabeth II's role in sustaining the British Commonwealth?
» PAXMAN: There are nations that want to join the British Commonwealth, despite the fact that they were not part of the British Empire: Cameroon, Mozambique, various other places. Despite the fact that these nations find the Commonwealth attractive, it has not been considered an attractive institution by either British government or major Commonwealth governments, whether they be Canadian, Australian or wherever, because it's not a high priority. In my view, it's undoubtedly withered away and, had it not been for the advocacy of the queen, would have ceased to exist.

It's quite clear that the queen is at her happiest, socially, when talking (A) to men and (B) to preferably to leaders of Commonwealth countries, particularly from Africa. She's a real fervent believer in the institution, which I think most people in the privileged, developed countries, consider to be at best harmless and at worst an irritant. She believes in it.

Written by Express contributor Tim Follos