Do Royals Rule When It Comes to Cover-Ups?
Nov. 19, 2002 -- The Corleones. The Sopranos. The Windsors?
No one's really suggesting that Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is presiding over some type of organized crime family. But certainly the fallout from the aborted trial of Paul Burrell, Princess Diana's former butler, has made a lot of people wonder exactly what kind of operation Her Majesty is running.
The other question may be: Are the British people witnessing a tragedy or a farce?
"Even with the serious death of the beloved princess, there's always a Shakespearean clown figure," said Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University.
The clown in this case would be Burrell, Princess Diana's erstwhile "rock."
But who's the villain of the piece?
"That's the big question," said Thompson. "I don't know yet. No one is in control as to who's writing it."
Questions of a Cover-Up?
If the royals were ever writing the script, they've definitely lost control. The unsavory episode started when the queen intervened in the trial of Burrell, who was accused of helping himself to many of Diana's personal possessions after the princess's death in a 1997 car crash.
Well into the trial, right before the former butler was expected to take the stand, the queen let it be known that she now remembered Burrell had told her back in 1997 that he was holding some of Diana's possessions for safekeeping. Ergo, the butler didn't do it.
Burrell was now off the hook, but many of her subjects wondered why Her Majesty's memory wasn't better two years earlier, when Burrell was first charged.
"Nowadays people are kind of hinting that the queen is involved in some sort of cover-up," said Michael Graham, associate professor of history at the University of Akron in Ohio.
But if the queen or her advisers thought keeping Burrell from having his say in court would zip his lips, they were destined for disappointment. The former butler made a profitable deal with a tabloid, and began spilling beans left and right. Among his juicier disclosures:
Diana once went to meet a lover wearing a fur coat, diamond and sapphire earrings and nothing else;
The princess's mum berated her over her predilection for Muslim men;
Diana kept a ring from former lover James Hewitt;
Diana had made a tape in which a valet who had worked for Prince Charles said he had been raped in 1989 by another man on Charles' staff.
It was hinted that there may have been a cover-up to prevent the alleged attack from being investigated by police.
The Gifts That Keep Giving?
Before he was cleared, it had been alleged that Burrell was selling Diana's possessions (and had even had himself photographed in some of her clothes).
Now, Prince Charles' personal assistant, Michael Fawcett (or "Fawcett the Fence," as the saucy tabloids have dubbed him), is being accused of selling unwanted gifts on behalf of the prince.
"It's about what they have been doing with gifts to the prince and others members of the royal [family]," said Graham. "These people get all sorts of gifts they don't need, so they pass them on."
Fawcett, it's been alleged, would hawk the discarded presents on the open market and pocket up to 20 percent of the proceeds as commission.
Amid the ensuing furor, Charles has ordered his private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, to conduct an inquiry into whether there was a cover-up of the alleged rape allegations; whether anyone was profiting from the sale of gifts; and whether there was any misconduct involved in the abrupt dropping of the charges against Burrell.
Although Peat has pledged there will be a thorough investigation, some suspect an internal inquiry won't be very aggressive. The pressure has become so great that the prince has consented to allow an independent lawyer (or "queen's counsel") to aid in the inquiry.
Above the Law?
While much of the media coverage of the incidents stemming from the Burrell brouhaha has been devoted to the more titillating details — Gay sex in the palace! Spencers dissed Di! Princess considered secret marriage! — some important points are being overlooked.
"It's interesting that some of the questions aren't being asked seriously," said Deborah Lynn Steinberg, a reader in the sociology department at the University of Warwick in England.
"This episode suggests that the queen and the royal family are being perceived as people who can't be interrogated seriously," she said. "If the queen says something, there's a way in which she's positioned as beyond reproach. She's not seen as someone who can be legitimately interrogated or subject to the law."
Peat doesn't plan to question the queen about why it took so long for her to recall her pivotal conversation with Burrell about Diana's possessions. Did she really not remember it before, even though the palace acknowledges she had been briefed on the case three times during the two years the butler spent with a cloud over his name? Could she have decided it would be prudent to remember something in order to spare her family further embarrassment from Burrell's testimony?
Whatever Her Majesty thought about the case, the public isn't likely to hear it any time soon, because no one is going to ask her.
"The queen could not be subpoenaed," said Gary Slapper, director of the law program at the Open University in England. "Our law courts derive their authority from the crown — they are the 'Royal Courts of Justice,' including the 'Crown Court' where Mr. Burrell was being tried."
He added: "It is an ancient principle of English law that the monarch is 'neither a compellable nor competent witness in his own court.' … The principle stems from the notion that as all the courts were the king's courts, there was no higher authority … from which an instruction to attend could be issued."
Steinberg said some people are now wondering whether the concept of a monarch who is above the law is at odds with the idea of a free nation.
"How does the idea of a monarchy fit in with a forward-looking nation? Is this reconcilable with the idea of a democracy?"
It's not unheard of for a relative of the monarch to be called to court. Queen Victoria's eldest son (the future King Edward VII, a notorious philanderer) had to testify in court after being named as corespondent in a divorce case.
During the English Civil War, King Charles I was tried by the House of Commons and found guilty of treason. Charles refused to enter a plea because he didn't recognize the legitimacy of the proceedings, which didn't help him at all: He was beheaded in January 1649.
In more recent times, Princess Anne, the queen's only daughter, has been prosecuted in a Magistrates' Court for failing to prevent her dogs from biting two children. The princess did not, however, appear herself.
"The entire justice system is conducted in the name of the crown, so it looks very bad if members of the monarchy end up appearing in a drama in the royal courts," said Slapper.
We Are Not Amused
All in all, it's highly unlikely that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor will ever discuss the Burrell matter in public. And reporters certainly won't get a chance to grill her on it.
The royals, unlike ordinary politicians or even the most glamorous of movie stars, have an infrastructure that protects them from the importuning of the vulgar.
"The ways in which microphones are shoved under people's faces — that kind of thing is not going to happen to the queen," said Steinberg.
Princess Diana was hounded by the press, but her paparazzi problems really escalated after her divorce, Steinberg said.
"She was no longer considered a member of the royal family," and she had dismissed their security agents, said Steinberg.
As for the current furor, the royals will do their best to distance themselves from it. Anything perceived as a bad decision will likely be explained away by what Graham calls "the myth of the evil advisers." Anyone seen as an embarrassment to the royal reputation will be sidelined. ("Fawcett the Fence" is now on extended leave from the prince's staff.)
Peat's investigation has already met with criticism, and "it remains to be seen whether this criticism will be extended to the queen," said Graham."She always seemed to be rather above the scandals of Charles and Diana."
And in a way, she may still be. If she indeed made a decision that the Burrell trial must be stopped, said Graham, it could be construed as a positive step taken to protect her family and the monarchy from damage — damage the queen may see as having been visited upon the royal family by one Lady Diana Spencer.
"There was a time when there was a conspiracy of silence around the royal family," said Graham. "The things that are being said now about the royal family, I think it really started with Diana and Charles and Fergie in the '80s and the lid really came off."
And now that the lid is off the proverbial Pandora's box, you can expect more evils to pop out.
"Just when you think it's as weird as it's gonna get, the other shoe drops," said Syracuse's Thompson. "It keeps dropping other shoes."