Commoners

The headline caught my eye, mostly because it was on a true-blue, American, capital D/small d democratic website – www.boston.com. Here, in the very part of the country that’s been shouting “Brits Out!” since George Washington drove the snakes British out of Boston on St. Patrick’s Day in 1776, as surely as the good saint drove the snakes, if not the Brits, out of Ireland.

This is Boston. We don’t do royals here. (Other than, some might argue, the Kennedys, whose royal-ish blood seems to be thinning out even more rapidly than that of The Royals. Case in point: I was in a place of business the other day when Joe Kennedy, son of Bobby Kennedy came in.  The look on his face when he realized that the twenty-somethings working there hadn’t a clue as to who he was was absolutely priceless.)

Here’s the headline that caught my distinctly unaristocratic eye:

Prince William, Commoner to Wed.

Commoner.

What an odd choice of words for an American newspaper (of the left) to use without putting “it” in quotes.

Commoner.

Kate Middleton, the bride-to-be, is apparently better educated, from a wealthier family, and better looking than most Brits – including, as far as I can tell, most of The Royals. (If I dare say.) Not to mention most Americans.

In that sense, she is rather uncommon.

But the notion of a “commoner” continues to prevail in Jolly Old. And I’m sure some conversational variation on The peasants are revolting. Yes, they certainly are. has been occurring in at least a couple of places where two or more jut-jawed nobs are gathered.

After all, Kate’s parents are nouveau riche, parvenus, in trade.

Her mother was an airline attendant, of all things.  And then Kate’s parents founded and built a quite successful online party gear company. And became millionaires. And live in a pricey community. And sent their daughter to tony schools.

Apparently, that’s not quite enough.

Kate’s mother said “toilet” rather than “loo” or “lavatory.”  And “pleased to meet you”, rather than “how d’you do?”  Both are dead class giveaways. So Kate, by proxy, is scorned.

Not that we don’t have our own snobbism and pretention here. (Hey, I live in New England, remember, where even the lowest of the low says “ahhnt” not “ant.”)  But our ability to look down our noses at others seems to ebb and flow a bit more easily than it does in England. 

Or does it?

By most accounts, our class structure is not quite as permeable as it once was, when Europe kept heaving up waves of immigrants to take care of the “build out” of the United States, and when the GI Bill and the lucky-us post-WW II boom helped create an extraordinarily broad middle class. Perhaps today’s class structure’s not as sclerotic as the uncrossable British chasm between the aristocracy and everyone else, which has some Brits preferring that William marry an unaccomplished, undereducated twit from the “right”  background – the great, great, great, great, great, great granddaughter of the bastard son of the Duke of Earl. But there is a sense that, in today’s America, the drawbridge over the moat that separates the elite from the wannabes is being raised by those on the inside.  And that the elites are sharpening their arrows, and heating up kettles of pitch to pour on the heads of those who manage to cross the alligator filled moat and start scrambling up the castle walls. That we’ll end up with a thin upper crust of plutocrats, an artisan and professional class that supports their high-end needs, and the great unwashed who scrub their toilets, mow their lawns, and wax their bikini lines.

Hope it doesn’t happen (but some days it sure looks like it’s heading that way).

Meanwhile, if Queen Elizabeth ever dies; if King Charles takes over, and if he ever dies; and if the Brits don’t decide to overthrow the calcified institution of “the monarchy”; there’ll be a King William. And a Queen Catherine the commoner.

Good on them.