Her Majesty's Tweedy Enclave

Britain's Queen, said the young English nobleman firmly, presents to the public the personality of "a priggish schoolgirl, captain of the hockey team, a prefect, and a recent candidate for confirmation"; her manner is that of a debutante, her speaking style is "a pain in the neck"; her court is outmoded; and those who surround her "are almost without exception of the 'tweedy' sort."

Even in the freespoken atmosphere of Hyde Park such things are seldom said of a reigning monarch. Appearing last week in a respectable if small journal of opinion, the National and English Review, under the byline of its young editor Lord Altrincham, a peer of the realm and a Tory, they evoked a howl of indignant response all over the nation. "Lord Altrincham's attack is vulgar," cried Lord Beaverbrook's Tory Daily Express. "Being muddleheaded, it is destructive." "Disgraceful," complained the League of Empire Loyalists. "Altrincham ought to be shot," groused the Duke of Argyll.

Emerging Personality. In the face of this huffing, the young (33) lord, who in times past has spoken out with equal vigor against such revered national institutions as the Church of England and the House of Lords, held his ground firmly. "I meant every word, and I have no regrets," he told reporters. "Our monarchy is the kind that can be talked about like that, but if it becomes a sort of religious establishment that people cannot discuss, it will collapse."

For those who took the trouble to look beyond the headlines into the body of Lord Altrincham's article, the point was clear enough and one that has troubled the thoughts of many another Briton now recovered from the first, fine rapture of enjoying a pretty, well-mannered new Queen: What and where are a monarch's responsibilities in a democratic world? "When the Queen," wrote Altrincham, "has lost the bloom of youth, her reputation will depend far more than it does now upon her personality. She will have to say things which people can remember, and do things on her own initiative which will make people sit up and take notice. As yet there is little sign that such a personality is emerging."

Needless Errors. "It says much for the Queen that she has not been incapacitated for her job by her woefully inadequate training. But will she have the wisdom to give her children an education very different from her own? Will she above all see to it that Prince Charles is equipped with all the knowledge he can absorb without injury to his health, and that he mixes during his formative years with children who will one day be bus drivers, dockers, engineers, etc.--not merely with future landowners?

"Those of us who believe that the monarchy can survive and play an even more beneficent part . . . are not content to remain silent while needless errors go uncorrected."

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