A.N. Wilson: The Royal Family as a Soap Opera and the Public's Evolving Relationship

The Royal Family has become a ridiculous soap opera that many in Britain and beyond cannot ignore, A. N. Wilson writes in a recent Daily Mail column, noting that sympathy for Prince Harry sits side by side with dismay at Andrew and Fergie’s conduct. The piece frames the current era as one in which the royals’ flaws are not merely tolerated but consumed by a public accustomed to reality-style exposure, and where the monarch’s morale is tested by illness, missteps, and media scrutiny alike.

Wilson ties the contemporary mood to a specific broadcast moment: the Channel 4 program that aired a few weeks earlier, featuring the King speaking about his cancer treatment and urging viewers to seek checks for themselves. The moment, he says, was moving because it offered a rare glimpse of vulnerability from a figure long cast as an emblem of stability. It marked a shift from a time when royal illness was kept private until death, toward a public acknowledgment that frailty can be a facet of leadership. The result, Wilson argues, is a redefined relationship with the monarchy—less a myth to be worshipped and more a mirror that reflects a nation grappling with its own imperfections.

Wilson follows the trajectory from that broadcast to the annual Sandringham tradition—the Christmas walk to church—that he says remains a tangible ritual, even as the royal calendar is increasingly punctured by absence and scrutiny. He notes who is present in the inner circle and who is not, pointing to the quiet divisions that emerge in the wake of public revelations. The King’s insistence on preserving Sandringham’s customs—private early Communion, followed by a public Morning Prayer service—highlights, he says, a balancing act between private devotion and public duty.

The piece then pivots to a larger historical argument: the Royal Family as a political and cultural construct, not a perfect ideal but a carefully curated symbol with a purpose. Wilson cites David Dimbleby’s recent BBC documentary as a contemporary prompt for asking what the monarchy is for, and he traces that purpose back to Prince Albert. Albert’s embrace of photography in the mid-19th century created an “Ideal Family” image that could be identified with by middle-class Britons at a time of republican sentiment. Osborne House, the royal holiday villa on the Isle of Wight, became a stage for propagating an accessible image of family life—an image designed to strengthen social cohesion around a model of monogamy and loyalty. Yet Wilson stresses that Albert’s invention also laid groundwork for later concealments and hypocrisies, as the real lives of royal figures diverged from the polished stills plastered on the public gaze.

From there, Wilson delves into the long record of royal scandal and human frailty. He recounts, in his characteristic fashion, that the Prince of Wales was reputed to be sexually active in Paris brothels and that such activity, by association or rumor, complicated royal marriages. He touches on the narrative that Victoria-era unions hid tumult and discomfort beneath a surface of decorum, suggesting that the family’s history has always contained tensions that modern tabloids could not ignore. The column also mentions other ancestral strains: Princess Louise’s unhappy marriage to a gay Scottish lord, her love affair with a sculptor, and the possibility—raised by Wilson—that Victoria herself bore a child with John Brown. For Wilson, these anecdotes aren’t sensationalism for its own sake, but part of a larger question about how much the public can know about the people behind the crown and what such knowledge does to national identity.

The column then connects historical patterns to today’s headlines. Wilson points to Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew’s links to Jeffrey Epstein, and to the broader, ongoing scrutiny of their conduct, which the author argues has reshaped how the public views the entire family. He notes the serial revelations that followed the 2011 photograph of Andrew with his arm around Virginia Roberts, along with subsequent biographies and investigative reporting. In Wilson’s view, these episodes undermined any pretense of a privileged, unassailable royal class and contributed to a broader cultural shift: the press no longer treats the royals as a protected, mostly flattering subject, but as a complex, sometimes troubling institution that must answer to the same ethical standards as any public figure.

The piece also surveys a turning point in royal perception—how public intimacy with the royals has intensified in the era of Meghan, Harry, and the Oprah Winfrey interview, as well as Harry’s memoir Spare. Wilson suggests that, for many, this has produced a paradoxical effect: the more the public learns about the family’s flaws, the more connected some feel to their humanity, even as others grow disillusioned by the soap-opera texture of the narratives. He concedes that the royals would likely prefer not to be subjected to such relentless scrutiny, and that William and Kate have faced their own trials in balancing duty with personal fracture. Yet, as he writes, the public’s obsession with the couple’s challenges—whether in interviews, memoirs, or media coverage—has become part of what keeps the monarchy relevant in a modern, media-driven society.

Wilson’s argument culminates in a reflection on art, tragedy, and comedy. He invokes Shakespeare to explain how modern audiences experience tragedy and comedy in the same breath, noting that the Royal Family’s current status as a long-running dramatic arc does not diminish its social function. If anything, he suggests, the public’s willingness to witness the royals’ vulnerabilities—illness, frailty, missteps, and reconciliations—has deepened a shared sense of national identity, even as it complicates the traditional myth of a flawless, serene monarchy. The king’s efforts to keep Sandringham rituals alive, the press’s evolving practices, and the family’s ongoing trials all contribute to a contemporary drama in which reverence and critique coexist.

In the closing pages, Wilson returns to the paradox at the heart of his argument: the Royal Family’s flaws and scandals have not merely diminished their stature but have given them a different, perhaps more important, cultural role. They act as a mirror in which the nation can see its own contradictions—ambition and vulnerability, authority and fallibility, tradition and change. The result is a royal institution that remains resonant precisely because it is imperfect. Whether one views that outcome with sympathy, skepticism, or something in between, Wilson asserts, it reflects a culture that has moved beyond the era of an untouchable ideal to a public life that embraces complexity, drama, and humanity. As Shakespeare reminded audiences long ago, tragedy and comedy often exist side by side; in the modern monarchy, they are no longer strangers to one another, but partners in the ongoing story of a nation watching itself unfold.