Often when I am walking past Buckingham Palace in London I tend to cringe a little inside. Day after day tourists arrive in their thousands wanting to see The Queen. The fact that The Queen is rarely in Buckingham Palace nor has she made a public appearance in decades it’s also the actual Royal Family itself that makes my curl up inside.
The UK has without any doubt one of the worlds most famous Royal families, dating back almost 1000 years the likes of Henry VIII, Queen Victoria and our current Queen Elizabeth II are known worldwide. Yet the current Queen has had to deal with more publicity and heartache than any other in history. Her children have married, cheated and divorced. The inquest into Diana’s death, the scandal of butlers stealing and blackmailing. No wonder her highness stays away from it all.
Yet today I read that the forthcoming wedding of Sweden’s Princess Madeleine and Jonas Bergstrom has been called off over his alleged affair with a 21 year old Norwegian student. Now this is not to be confused with the much larger wedding of her sister Crown Prince Victoria later this year. But again I question the value of countries monarchies. In the UK the wealth of the Royal Family, with the exception of Prince Charles, is paid for from what the British public earn (Charles income is from the revenue of Cornwall) but time after time it is just a pure embarrassment caused by the Royals that seem to damage any lasting reputation.
I know little of Sweden’s monarchy and its history but what I do know is that it is something the Swedes are proud of. With the younger Princess being cheated on it will no doubt cast a shadow over the main royal wedding later this year. But the question that I want to throw open to the readers here is “How much does Sweden care for its Monarchy?”
Tags: royal wedding, sweden
Here is part of an article about the Swedish monarcy that was published in several Swedish newspapers last week. Most Swedes’ I know are anything but proud of the Swedish monarcy, and think it’s really unnecessary to have a royal family since they (luckily) have no political power. The Swedish royal family is also paid by the peoples’ taxes, like the British, another contributing factor to the strong disapproval of the monarchy. This is also my view on the subject.
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/kungafortroende-minskar-stadigt-1.1080960
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Hi Sophie
Good to hear from you again. Hope all is good in Sweden. I have to agree with you, if they have no power it’s all a bit pointless having a monarchy. I suppose it is slightly different here in the UK as the Queen is also head of The Commonwealth too.
Thanks for the article!
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