Fans of Pope John Paul II are begining to gather in Rome to celebrate the beatification of the late pope on Sunday. But while souvenirs bearing his image have become an instant hit, some pilgrims wonder if the commercialization is too much? NBC’s Claudio Lavanga reports from Rome.
Guy Ritchie, David Beckham and Mr. Bean were all invited to the wedding. But why not two former prime ministers?
By Ian Johnston
The crown prince of troubled Bahrain, David Beckham, Madonna’s ex-husband and even the actor who played the comic character “Mr Bean” all received a much-coveted invitation to Britain’s royal wedding.
But, in what one commentator described Wednesday as “a snub of historic proportions,” two rather conspicuous figures did not: the U.K.’s last two prime ministers, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
That might be bad enough, but it gets worse.
For while these two former leaders — both members of the traditionally left-leaning Labour Party — were not asked to Prince William and Kate Middleton’s marriage, former Conservative Party prime ministers Sir John Major and Baronness Thatcher did receive invitations.
Speculation about the reasons and accusations of political bias were growing Wednesday with even columnists in normally Conservative-supporting newspapers suggesting a mistake had been made.
According to Buckingham Palace, there was no reason to invite Blair and Brown.
This wedding, unlike that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, is not a state occasion because William is not first in line to the throne and “so there is no protocol reason to invite former Prime Ministers,” Nick Loughran, a spokesman for Prince William, said in a statement emailed to msnbc.com.
So it’s simply the marriage of two young people in love, in front of 1,900 family and friends. Oh and the Zimbabwean ambassador to London. And Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and King Mswati III of Swaziland.
Slideshow: Who’s invited to the royal wedding?
The invitations to Thatcher, who declined for health reasons, and Major were made as they are both members of what is essentially a club for royalty and their friends dating back to the 14th Century.
“Sir John Major and Baroness Thatcher were invited as they are both Knights of the Garter, along with Prince William,” Loughran said. “Furthermore, Sir John Major has a personal connection to Prince William, as he was appointed Guardian to Prince William and Prince Harry following the death of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.”
When contacted, Hugh Peskett, editor-in-chief of Burke’s Peerage and Gentry, which describes itself as “the definitive guide to the genealogical history of the royal families of Europe,” began listing the reasons why Blair and Brown didn’t have to be there.
“It’s his (William’s) personal choice, it’s not a state wedding, not a state occasion because he is the grandson of a monarch, not the son of a monarch,” Peskett said.
But then he admitted “it’s all sort of a bit airy fairy … they’ve invited all the ambassadors and things. There is a contradiction I can see in this.”
“I think I’d have said ‘hmm, it might have been tactful to invite them,’” Peskett added when asked what he would have said if he had been asked for advice.
A Labour Party lawmaker, Denis MacShane, has tabled a formal question in parliament to ask what role Conservative government’s officials played in selecting the guests, BBC News reported Wednesday.
“If you look at the guest list, it’s huge, and it’s just slightly odd that two men who’ve occupied the highest office of the land aren’t on it,” MacShane told the BBC, adding that “denigrating Tony Blair and Gordon Brown seems to be an obsession” of the current prime minister, David Cameron.
An emerging theory is that William dislikes Blair because of his handling of Princess Diana’s death.
Click here for a slideshow of Prince William through the years
Blair, as prime minister when William’s mother died in a traffic accident in Paris, christened her the “People’s Princess.” Some felt he captured the national mood of mourning. Others felt he took the chance to score political points.
“He certainly did,” Peskett told msnbc.com. “He was never one to miss an opportunity like that. It must have been dreadful time for Prince William and Prince Harry as well. This man (Blair) was trying to make political capital out of it.”
Damian Thompson, writing a blog on the Telegraph newspaper’s website, said William simply “cannot stand Tony Blair.”
“The Prince has a long memory and a capacity for cold fury,” he wrote. “We catch a glimpse of it in the section of Blair’s memoirs relating to the week after Diana’s death: ‘I had also spoken to William who was not only still grieving but angry. He knew, rationally, why the week between Diana’s death and the funeral had to be as it had been. But he felt acutely the conflict between public position and private emotion.’”
Brown, he reasoned, was not invited to avoid bringing “the feud into the open” and to allow the Knights of the Garter cover story to be deployed.
But Stephen Glover, writing in the Daily Mail newspaper, said there was a serious side to all this.
“The Queen has been so adept at remaining impartial above the political fray that it is difficult to believe she vetoed the invitation of these two former leaders out of spite, dislike or political prejudice,” he wrote.
“Whatever the explanation, this is a decision that will damage the monarchy more than the feelings of Mr Blair and Mr Brown,” Glover added. “Once the Crown appears to be taking sides — and that is the impression, if not the intention — our delicate constitutional arrangements are imperilled.”
A “last-minute invitation” to both men might help repair the damage, he suggested.
MAINZ, Germany – Where did Germany’s fairytale princesses go? Well, royals actually stopped playing a political and social role in Germany back in 1918, when the country’s last emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, stepped down.
But, it certainly did not put an end to the Germans’ strong interest in all things noble. More than 10 million people in Germany alone are expected to tune into one of the six German channels that will carry the British royal wedding live on April 29.
And some Germans will even make the trip across the channel to pay tribute to the newlyweds in London.
For a group of German aficionados of British culture and history, six men, who call themselves “Friends of British Royalty Germany Section,” the upcoming royal wedding is truly special.
“We have been practicing a barber shop song for weeks, which we intend to perform in the streets of London on our upcoming trip to the British capital. This will be the highlight of the year for us,” says 50-year old Bernhard Zanders, who heads the so-called “gentlemen’s club.”
“You are the flower of my heart, sweet Catherine” is the main line of their altered version of an old tune called “Sweet Adeline,” which these die-hard fans of the British monarchy have been re-writing and rehearsing for weeks.
On the wedding day, the German travel group plans to perform the four-voice serenade and a little lullaby after the ceremony, under a window of the building, where William and Kate are believed to be spending their wedding night.
Windsors are German
To get into the mood for their journey, Zanders and his friends held a special birthday party for the queen last Wednesday – an evening ceremony in which they played the British national anthem and raised the union jack flag.
“A rite that actually required the consent of the British consulate because it is considered an official state act,” Zanders explained, who has been meeting with his group every two weeks for the past 15 years.
But why the Windsors and not King Gustav of Sweden or King Juan Carlos of Spain?
“The Windsors have a truly German background,” said Zanders, “which has always made me feel a special European connection to the British monarchy.”
As a matter of fact, Britain’s Windsors are descended from German stock.
The royal family’s bloodline reaches back to the German ducal house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In the old days, the “Coburgs” were closely related to many European princely families and furnished the sovereigns of several royal dynasties in Europe, including Belgium, Portugal and Great Britain.
Eventually, Britain’s royal family managed to shake off their German roots, but some of their German family members are still part of Europe’s glamorous present-day aristocracy. Like Prince Ernst August V, the third husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and also the head of the deposed royal House of Hanover. He is the great-grandson of the last German emperor, Wilhelm II. He was 385th in the line of succession to the British throne – until he married Princess Caroline, according to Wikipedia.
Royal expert Norbert Loh with Sweden’s Princess Victoria in 2009.
Love for royalty
Short of German kings or queens to go crazy for, people in Germany simply look beyond the borders to European countries which still have active royal households – like Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, or yes, the mother-of-all-monarchies: England.
Republicanism and democratic systems are nice, but many Germans will tell you stylish princesses, golden wedding carriages and all the other glamour that surrounds these royal dynasties are sometimes even better.
“The love for anything royal reflects the yearning for an ideal world, it is a modern-day fairy tale for many people,” says Norbert Loh, a royal expert at “die aktuelle” tabloid magazine in Munich, who has been reporting on European royals for more than 30 years.
While Loh admits that the majority of his readers are above age 50, he also says that the broad media coverage of royal celebrities makes today’s monarchies no less popular among the younger generation.
“I get many, many letters from teenagers who read my ‘royal moment’ column. For them, especially the young royals, like Prince William and Prince Harry, are real pop stars,” said Loh, who will be acting as a royal expert during German television ZDF’s six-hour coverage of the royal wedding on April 29.
For all things Royal Wedding, see msnbc.com’s Windsor Knot blog
