TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/86/86capmil.2

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 10.2 KB | 205 lines

                                                                                August 4, 1986

PEOPLE

From the Windsors, a Down-Home Royal Bash


Wedding high spirits and high style, Prince Andrew and Sarah
Ferguson say "I will"


Listen! The London air is sweet with jubilation. Few cars this
day, and no Klaxons in the central part of town. Just bells
pealing gaily and the sound of horses prancing in unison along
the Mall. A great fanfare of trumpets arises from Westminster
Abbey, and the stirring chords of Elgar resound through the
vaulted nave. Then a hush. Through the breath-held stillness,
two voices ring out. "I will." "I will." And then a great roar
from outside, and rising above the spellbound listeners,
beautiful and light, an aria by Mozart, and then another.

Later, an antiphony. Tens of thousands gather in the streets
and break into a good-humored chorus of "Why are we waiting?"
though some have waited for two nights or more and would not
think of quitting now. A handsome couple appear on a balcony
above. "Give us a kiss!" calls out the crowd, and the playful
pair cup hands to ears if they do not follow. Then, obligingly,
they kiss. That morning the toothy young lieutenant and the
bonny redheaded publishing assistant awakened as Prince Andrew,
second son of Queen Elizabeth II, and Sarah Margaret Ferguson.
That night the two 26-year-olds went to sleep as husband and
wife and, thanks to a wedding-gift title from Her Majesty, Duke
and Duchess of York.

Five years ago, when Prince Charles took Lady Diana Spencer for
his wife, the occasion was rich with fairy-tale solemnity. As
the heir to the throne exchanged troths with a bashful girl just
past her teens, it seemed that Prince Charming rode with
Sleeping Beauty in a coach of glass. When Charles' younger
brother and Diana's fourth cousin wed last week, it was a
jollier occasion, a larkish high- society romance scripted by
P.G. Wodehouse. No foreign heads of state were present, and no
national holiday was declared. Instead, the abbey was full of
family and friends, there to celebrate Queen and country and
witness the perfect match of two frolicsome young people. The
royal family are royals, and that is the secret of their magic;
but they are also a family, and that is the essence of their
charm.

The pageantry was, in a sense, just business as usual. But
last week's peerless one-acter also marked a new spirit in the
productions of the Windsors, the royal repertory company that
takes the country as its national theater and itself as its
subject. Horseplay was on show as much as horsemanship, and
high spirits sometimes got the better of high style. Here was
the first great spectacle graced with the trendified
traditionalism of the second generation, the young royals. Even
the Queen forsook her trademark bucket-size handbag for a small
clutch that could have been borrowed from Daughter-in-Law Di.
The royals know how to follow trends, it seems, as well as how
to set them.

Final preparations for the sovereign display began before dawn,
as crack marksmen took up their positions on the rooftops and
security men disguised themselves as bewigged footmen. By 10
a.m. the first of the 1,800 guests began taking their seats in
the abbey. First Lady Nancy Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher were in attendance, along with Opposition Leaders Neil
Kinnock, David Owen and David Steel. So too were Actor Michael
Caine, TV Host David Frost and Singer Elton John, sporting
purple glasses and a ponytail.

As some 250,000 well-wishers waved their greetings, a parade of
five carriages traveled to the abbey. Inside were familiar
veterans of the traveling company: Prince Edward, his brother's
"supporter" (best man, in common parlance), and the Queen
Mother, Prince Philip, Princess Anne and little Prince William.
After the country's first family took its place on the high
altar, across from "Fergie's" glamorous mother Susan and her
second husband, the Argentine polo ace Hector Barrantes, the
final carriage in the procession, the gold- black-and-burgundy
Glass Coach, pulled up outside. As trumpets sounded and
thousands roared, out stepped the Titian-haired bride, royal in
her carriage and radiant in her flowing ivory satin gown and 17
1/2-foot train. By her side stood her proud father, "Major
Ron," Prince Charles' polo manager.

For all the splendor of the pageantry, however, the ceremony
never lost a sense of down-home majesty, best caught perhaps by
the four tine bridesmaids dressed like floral sylphs and the
four small pages clad in naval costumes. The eldest, Princess
Anne's son Peter Phillips, 8, did a game job of managing both
his troops and the bride's train, but the show stealer was
Prince William, 4. During the 45-minute ceremony, he played on
the cord of his hat like a fakir' apprentice, wrapping the
string around his nose and chewing it like a licorice stick.
Undaunted by baleful stared from his mother and grandmother, he
pulled out his miniature ceremonial dagger and began poking
holes in the dress of Diana's niece Laura Fellowes, 6. When his
victim wagged a finger of rebuke, the second in line to the
British throne trumped her with a silent, but definitive Bronx
cheer.

That spirit of grand informality could not be kept down. After
the 240-lb., five-decker cake had been cut at the palace, the
couple went out again into the streets, riding through the
brilliant afternoon in an open landau. As the irrepressible
Prince William ran toward the carriage, an unusually
fleet-footed Queen hurried to retrieve him. Meanwhile, on their
joyride, the couple's unlikely chaperon was a gift from the
royal family, a four-foot-tall teddy bear. At the back of their
carriage, under a home made replica of a satellite dish, was a
message that advised, PHONE HOME.

That almost bumptious sense of lese majeste had been established
at the outset of the courtship. Though the couple first met on
a polo field when both of them were four, their romance was
sparked not by a sudden glance or even a heartfelt declaration
but, well, by a profiterole actually. The cupid's confection
came into play at Ascot last year, when a boisterous Andrew put
his arm around Fergie and tried to stuff the cream-filled cake
into her mouth. The girl who last week vowed to obey him winged
the pastry back at his royal person.

Thus the japery continued. A week before the wedding Fergie and
her close friend and matchmaker, Diana, dressed themselves up
as policewomen. Then they stole into Annabel's, a favorite
haunt of London's young rich, and giggled at their secret over
champagne before vanishing into the night. Not exactly Henry
V slipping into disguise to mingle with the troops on the eve
of the Battle of Agincourt, but when it comes to rallying
spirits, it seemed just as good.

Andrew has always been the imp perverse of the royal household,
placing whoopee cushions around "Buck House" and once, the story
has it, sprinkling itching powder in his mother's bed. The
"Randy Andy" of the tabloids cavorted with beauty queens,
topless lovelies and such unsuitable consorts as Koo Stark, the
American soft-porn star. Beneath all the headlines, however, was
a boyish loner who sometimes seemed a little lost. After three
months of hard combat in the Falklands war in 1982, the young
prince spoke movingly of the fear he felt while crouching on the
wet carrier deck as missiles screamed overhead. An amateur
photographer, Andrew once described the theme of his work as
"loneliness."

What he really needed, many friends thought, was a god
common-sense girl. Enter Fergie. Though a commoner, the
bouncy, Rubenesque young lady hails from the thoroughbred set
so close to the court that it seems like almost part of the
family. Like many of her class, the duchess went from a
fashionable boarding school to secretarial and cooking schools
where most of the skills taught are social. But unlike the shy
and sheltered Diana, Fergie has seen something of the world,
including liaisons with a self-described "ski bum" and a playboy
motor-racing consultant 22 years her senior. Still, as last
week's TV coverage displayed, she has genuine poise and a
bubbly, pleased-to-meet-you good nature that will serve her well
in her role in Windsor Inc. ("We're not a family," King George
VI once remarked, "we're a firm.")

Indeed, in its new junior partner,the multinational firm has
once again revealed its skill at recruiting fresh female talent.
The blushing Lady Diana of five years ago is now a global
symbol of glamour. The new Duchess of York, a feisty young lady
sure of her own resources. After enduring months of barbs in
the press for her jerry-built wardrobe and ample hips, she
silenced critics with a wedding dress that was properly grand
and frankly flattering to her figure.

Soon enough, her public mettle will be tried anew. When the
honeymooners return from a five-day cruise through the Azores,
including an overnight stay near the island of Pico, they will
eventually move into Buckingham Palace. Within a few months,
Andrew is scheduled to start teaching courses in helicopter
warfare to navy personnel. Sarah hopes to continue working at
a graphic-arts firm, where she is just completing a coffee-table
book on the Houses of Parliament. But both may have to give
more time to the family business.

That is a job that still inspires resentment as well as
reverie. PARASITE MARRIES SCROUNGER, shouted a 1 1/2-inch
headline in the Socialist Worker. Even the august Times
lamented on its front page "an unavoidable flavor of schmaltz."
When the special day arrived, however, such complaints seemed
beside the point. As the sun broke through the clouds on cue,
and as the air was silvered with tintinnabulation, it seemed
more fitting to recall the lovely raptures of Edmund Spenser in
his own Epithalamion, or wedding song, written in the age of
another Queen Elizabeth:

Let no lamenting cries,
nor doleful tears,
Be heard all night
within nor yet without.
Ne let false whispers,
breeding hidden fears,
Break gentle sleep, with
misconceived doubt.

He might have added:

Let all bells peal
In honor of one
fantasy that's real.

--By Pico Iyer. Reported by Mary Cronin/London.