For all who witnessed it there was the inescapable sense that here was a matchless act of high theatre, resonant with history, tradition and the inescapable feeling of the institution of the monarchy being reshaped before our eyes.
Catherine Middleton was the first untitled woman to marry a prince in close proximity to the throne in more than 350 years, since Anne Hyde wed the Duke of York, later James II, in 1660. In an illustration of unparalleled social mobility, having walked up the aisle as Kate, a history of arts graduate from Berkshire, whose ancestors include, on her mother’s side Durham miners and on her father’s, five generations of stolid middle-class solicitors, the new bride walked down it the Duchess of Cambridge, and the future Queen Catherine, the sixth to bear that title.
We were told that this would be a relatively modest wedding. Relatively, an occasion geared to the imperative to strike a balance between a consideration for the austerity of the times, and yet the need to mount a spectacle that would do justice to both the occasion and the expectations of those watching.
The cost, including policing and security is expected to have exceeded £20 million. The benefit to the spirit of the nation, in an age of increasing cynicism, when Britain’s sense of national self-hood has never been more fragile, is incalculable. For here was a vivid testament to the strange hold which the monarchy continues to exercise over the British people – and over the world.
But if this was an occasion of high majesty, it was tempered by a delightful sense of informality.
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