But I’ve always thought it was an insightful description of how the royal family generally, and its female members particularly, are treated as objects for public consumption rather than human beings.
Hilary Mantel got a lot of pushback about this 2013 essay in the London Review of Books, which people willfully misread as an attack on Kate Middleton, then the Duchess of Cambridge, rather than on the monarchy.
Maybe she just liked the red coat! Why was I even thinking about this? Then I felt bad, as I nearly always do when beholding the Princess of Wales, because the monarchy in this country seems like a cruel institution to the people caught up in it, and Kate’s clothing has always seemed symbolic of the ways her marriage has restricted her life. I found myself instinctively parsing their outfits, which made them look as if they had dressed for slightly different events: William was tieless and open-collared, the princely equivalent of going out in a t-shirt and jeans, while Kate, in a long red coat accessorized with white stiletto pumps and a white-leather frame handbag, looked like she was headed to a daytime wedding. It turned out to be security for a pre-coronation appearance by William and Kate, respectively the Prince and Princess of Wales, who dropped by a pub for a carefully orchestrated and highly secure “casual” photo op. Yesterday, a friend messaged me to ask if I knew why so many helicopters were circling noisily around the neighborhood where the Times has its London bureau. The streets and stations in the center of town are full of signs passive-aggressively warning people that “a major event” will cause traffic jams and road closures, which seems like an oddly if-you-know-you-know way to describe a literal national holiday. Things already feel a little overwrought in London.
Though it marks a transition that has already occurred - Charles automatically became king when his mother died last year - people still get excited about the public event. Tomorrow is the coronation of King Charles III, which I’ve come to understand as a sort of regnal equivalent of a bar mitzvah ceremony.
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