Inside the most anachronistic private club on the planet

When it comes to megawatt,all-encompassing celebrity in the 21st Century,the past fortnight has proven once again - and to the bane of Australian republicans - the British monarchy remains the undisputed headline act.

From the forensic tabloid analysis of Meghan,Duchess of Sussex’s headline-making tear,to furious Twitter speculation on the whereabouts of our very own Princess Mary (reportedly bumped from the guest list when only two members of each royal family - Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II and Crown Prince Frederick - could be accommodated at Westminster Abbey),the enduring fascination with all things royal has fuelled endless hours and pages of both mainstream and social media commentary.

Around one in five Australians tuned in to watch the funeral telecast while magazine publishers have flooded the market with royal tribute issues.

So,with interest in his family at an all-time high,the freshly minted King Charles III would no doubt agree,when it comes to the celebrity stakes,it’s good to be King in 2022. But let’s not forget the,ahem,hard-working chorus of “minor” royalty.

The state funeral also provided us commoners a rare glimpse of 21st Century monarchy from across the globe,a sneak peek into a world of extraordinary privilege,the most elite and yet most anachronistic private club on the planet,to which membership has been determined for millennia through breeding,beheadings,coups and marriage.

And what a fascinating smorgasbord it was,with enough titillating backstories going on inside the Abbey to fill a century’s worth ofHello! magazines.

At present,there are 26 monarchies around the world,12 of which are in Europe,but as we well know in Australia,many of them command realms - albeit mostly symbolically - far beyond. More than half a billion people live in countries with a reigning monarch.

Indeed,there hasn’t been quite such a collection Kings,Queens,Princes,Princesses,Dukes and Duchesses like what we witnessed on Monday under one roof in living memory.

And unlike their forebears in centuries past,the proliferation of modern mass media and the digital age now means we know more about these once obscure aristocrats than ever before.

While the tabloids were waxing lyrical about the glamorous arrival of Spain’s Queen Letizia and King Felipe VI,the real story was the deliberately separate arrival of the disgraced formerSpanish King Juan Carlos at the Abbey,despite the Spanish government reportedly asking him not to attend.

The former monarch,84,ended up sitting next to his son,but currently lives in self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi. He abdicated in 2014 amid multiple scandals,including alleged embezzlement,harassing a former lover and a controversial elephant hunting trip.

The Spanish royals are distant cousins of the Queen and King Felipe VI referred to Her Majesty as “dear Aunt Lilibet” in a personal tribute following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Then there was Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia,another couple of bluebloods who have weathered their fair share of scandals,including explosive revelations in a tell-all biography about the King’s penchant for wild sex parties and strip clubs. They made Fergie’s toe-sucking encounter look very mild.

The troubled Monegasque royals Charlene,Princess of Monaco and Prince Albert also travelled to London for the funeral and have bathed in flashbulbs ever since the one-time Hollywood siren Grace Kelly married into their ranks.

Belgium’s Queen Mathilde and King Philippe - the Queen’s third cousin - had attended their niece’s royal wedding only a week before backing up at the royal funeral.

They sat near Brunei’s controversial hardline Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and his son,Prince Abdul Mateen.

Jordan’s Queen Rania and King Abdullah II - recently embarrassed over revelations of secret Swiss bank accounts where he’d stashed hundreds of millions of dollars - also turned up,so too the Queen’s second cousin and Norway’s King Harald V (on crutches) and his wife Queen Sonja,who had their own crisis a few years back when their son Crown Prince Haakon started dating,then married,Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby,a commoner,single mother and former waitress who had lived a “wild” past.

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Living in exile after a military coup half a century ago deposed Greece’s royal family,Queen Anne-Marie,Crown Prince Pavlos,and Crown Princess Marie-Chantal took up the back seats in the royal enclosure near Margareta,Custodian of the Crown of Romania,and Prince Consort Radu,Lesotho’s King Letsie III,Abdullah of Pahang,the current Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia,and Queen Tunku Hajah Azizah,Tonga’s King Tupou VI,Liechtenstein’s Prince Alois and Princess Sophie,Grand Duchess Maria Teresa and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and,despite having never met the queen,Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Queen Jetsun Pema.

Arguably one of the most fascinating and newsworthy appearances was of the “runaway princess”:Dubai’s Princess Haya bint Hussein,the daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan and half-sister of King Abdullah,who escaped from her estranged husband Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. She was among those invited to the committal service at St George’s Chapel in Windsor,held a day after her ex-husband met with King Charles in Buckingham Palace.

In March 2020,a British family court judge a released a 34-page judgment in Haya’s child-custody petition that revealed Haya had conducted an affair with a male bodyguard in 2017 or 2018 that enraged her husband. She found a gun on her bed with its muzzle pointed toward the door and the safety lock off. She also received anonymous notes warning her that “your life is over”.

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