As we were unwinding after a very agreeable Easter dinner, Kathleen posed the most amusing parlor-game question: what will Kate call her daughter? I’ll cut right to my vote: Princess Matilda of Lancaster.

People my age tend to regard “Matilda” as both archaic and awkward — who’d want to be saddled with such a moniker? Then we remember to think of Tilda Swinton, neither archaic nor awkward, but not the girl next door, either. Now there’s that  big show about a little girl who bears the name bravely. One envisions an impending flock of Matildas floating from birthing centers. So Matilda is cool. It is also very rooted in history. Henry I (r 1100-1135) married one Matilda of Scotland, and their daughter (and Henry’s only survivor), married for a while to the Holy Roman Emperor, was known ever thereafter, notwithstanding her subsequent marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet, as “Empress Matilda.” This Matilda never got to be queen of England, but her son, Henry II did, and he was certainly one of England’s top-ten monarchs. And he got to the throne as the result of deal made by his mother, who spent the previous reign battling with her cousin, the incumbent. A warrior queen! But who knows this anymore? It has been so long that “Matilda” has been put to use by the royals that associations, unpleasant or otherwise, no longer trail it.

“Elizabeth” seems a very, very bad choice. I could spend the rest of the day musing why, but I’ll keep it simple. Neither of the queens who have borne that name was plainly destined for the throne at birth, and Kate’s daughter will be. (Even if she has ten younger brothers, the only way to avoid following her father in line will be death or serious organic illness.) That Elizabeth I survived to succeed is semi-miraculous, given the Machiavellian temper of the times. And it was not foreclosed, when Her Majesty was born, that her uncle might not marry appropriately, with the usual results. Also: who wants to invite comparisons with Elizabeth II, especially with that other Elizabeth, the late Queen Mum, standing so clearly behind her?

Victoria and Alexandra and even Charlotte, lovely names on most people, are really too fon-fon for a modern monarch. Also too Continental, don’t you think? Anne and Mary are not only plain, but their associations are more negative than not. Bloody Mary (Tudor), for example. Sisters Mary and Anne Stuart were much more popular, but Mary couldn’t have children, while Anne couldn’t have any who lived.

Whatever her name, she will be a Princess at birth: that has been declared by Buckingham Palace in a revision of the 1917 Letters Patent. (Without the change, she would simply be “Lady,” as her great-grandmother was.) There will be no need, for the first few years, to attach anything to this title, but eventually she will have to be Princess of Something. And she ought to be princess of something that has never had a prince. That consideration, and the hope that her own mother will bear the title, rules out England’s one existing principality, Wales. The Duchy of Lancaster, however, might easily be upgraded, since it has belonged to the Crown since 1399, which is when the last duke usurped, ahem, his cousin claim. (Long story!) Training to be an able CEO of this diverse and remunerative property would be a grand training for life in the world ahead (and so superior to military training).

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Don’t even think about not reading The Dinner, Herman Koch’s smashing sixth novel (translated by Sam Garrrett). Everyone you know is going to read it and urge you to do likewise. Yield, because The Dinner is something new and thought-provoking. I call it an “ethical thriller,” because the thrills consist in the subtle, usually horrific ways in which the narrator’s situation changes as he tells you more about himself and his family. Rather than write up The Dinner now, without having a second read, I’d like to quote an entry in today’s “Metropolitan Diary.”

Walking along the crowded lunch-hour sidewalk on Madison Avenue in January, I felt something unexpected on the top of my right foot. I looked down at a “wheelie” rolling off my shoe, being pulled along briskly by a well-dressed woman, eyes straight ahead, oblivious of where her suitcase had just been.

Like hit-and-run drivers who don’t notice the bump of the person they ran over, she hadn’t noticed the interference in her bag’s progress.

She rushed along. I walked at a slower pace, limping a little, but a block later we were next to each other at the traffic light. I turned and said pleasantly: “You might want to keep closer track of your suitcase. It ran over my foot.”

I expected, as she saw my gray hair and the evidence that I had about 30 years on her: “Oh, I’m so sorry. Were you hurt?” Silly me.

What I got was this stern reproof: “You need to watch where you’re walking!” Barely taking a breath, she asked, “Were you behind me or in front of me?” “Behind.” (I had been next to her until she elbowed her way in front.) “Well,” she said, clinching her case, “you need to be more careful. I don’t have eyes in the back of my head!”

“You’re very good at not taking responsibility,” I said, and was amused when, taking this as a compliment, she said, “Thank you.” And the light changed.

When the young man next to us raised an eyebrow in her direction, then rolled his eyes and grinned at me, I enjoyed sharing this moment with a stranger and was reminded why I love New York.

This exchange confirmed an impression that I’d gotten from The Dinner: we need protection not only from guns but from Ayn Rand’s praise of selfishness, both of which, in the hands of the weak-minded who are so disproportionately drawn to them, conduce to make the world a much worse place.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Monday, April 1st, 2013 at 1:06 pm.