Sir Cecil Worthington-Brown gives his opinion on the royal engagement

No, indeed I can’t say I approve of this impending royal marriage.

Just what is the lad thinking? Marrying a commoner? It should have been obvious to anyone who knows royal history that things would go wrong as soon as the silly boy got himself some book learning. And why go to Scotland to do it? That’s where he met that dreadfully middle class girl.

I’ve been to Scotland many a time, and I enjoy a fine malt whisky, but our Edward had the buggers thrashed well and good back in the day, and they’ve never let us forget it. Scotland’s no place to send a royal unless it’s behind the wheel of a tank.

Even if he had to study in that terrible place, surely he could have found a castle to live in and not been forced to slum it with a bunch of unwashed students with potentially radical views on such issues as the rights of women and minorities. Isn’t Scotland full of castles?

I suppose this all arose because William wanted to be “normal” and earn the respect of his peers. So someone ought to tell William that the only peers who matter are the ones who sit in the House of Lords. And of course I don’t mean the appointed ones. Imposters! He would be better off just accepting the fact that the British Royal Family are not normal. No, they are far, far better than the rest of us.

I don’t say this simply because I happen to be of royal blood (seventy-eighth in line to the throne), or out of a conceit built up from a lifetime of privilege and luxury at the expense of the working classes. It is jolly fun being richer than almost everyone else, though. No, I speak from the evidence. Just look some of the magnificent rulers we’ve had over the centuries: the two Elizabeths, Henry XIII, Edward II, George III. I could go on.

At least this awful commoner isn’t Scottish too. But couldn’t someone else have been found? Even a German would have been better, so long as she was pure of blood and had impeccable heritage. I’m rather fond of the Germans, in fact. I remember as a young lad in the 1930s when that nice fellow Ribbentrop came to visit our estate. He seemed like a no-nonsense sort of man who had the Bolsheviks pegged for the rotters they turned out to be. His leader, that rather excitable chap with the funny moustache, certainly wasn’t the sort I’d have sat down with over a rubber of bridge, but he did have some interesting political ideas that he never got to fully implement, all because of that beastly misunderstanding over Poland.

The Germans have themselves produced a few fine royals. Kaiser Wilhelm II was Victoria’s grandson, and the Windsors are themselves a branch of the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Indeed it was only after some further misunderstandings with the Germans in 1917 that they became known as the House of Windsor.

There’s another reason why William should be looking further afield for his marriage partner. Historically the French have always been devious and untrustworthy, and they remain to this day a threat to our sovereignty. A royal alliance with a solid German aristocratic family would have helped to shore up our position in central Europe and would have ensure that if the French caused us any kind of trouble they could expect to get it back from two sides. That might make the sly fellows think twice. Those Frogs have always feared Prussian power.

So all in all I don’t approve of this marriage. I blame the boy’s mother. The People’s Princess they called her. William obviously got this madness from her. Even though the Frogs finished her off too. You think he’d learn.

Someone ought to have a word with William and tell him his duty lies in marrying a good plump German girl with impeccable aristocratic connections. All the better to enable us to build a strong Anglo-Germanic power across Europe and spread terror to those goddamn Frogs!