Fit to Be Crowned : The British Royal Family Aside, Monarchies Around the World Are Doing Just Fine, Thank You

Here’s a little quiz to test your knowledge on the world of monarchies. See if you can match the royal figures listed below with the statements about them:

1. Prince Charles, United Kingdom

2. King Mswati III, Swaziland

3. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thailand

A. He killed a lion to prove his manhood, ascended to the throne at 18 and maintains strict secrecy over how many wives he has.

B. While lacking official powers, he is revered as a demigod by his subjects and has influence so vast that an expression of his displeasure can change the course of entire governments.

C. Tens of thousands of his subjects have dialed a special dollar-a-minute toll line to hear a secretly recorded phone conversation between his wife, it is said, and a very close male friend who affectionately calls her “Squidgy,” asks her to blow kisses at him and professes his love for her. She, in turn, describes her marriage as “torture” and makes plans to meet the man secretly, under the guise of going for acupuncture treatment.

By the end of this story, the answers will be obvious--if they aren’t already. In the case of Prince Charles, painfully obvious.

The continuing saga of the British Royal Family is quickly turning from regal drama to bad soap opera with occasional sitcom flourishes. Lucky for them George Bush hasn’t brought the wrath of his “family values” campaign to the United Kingdom.

But although it doesn’t look like the best of times for royalty, it’s worth keeping in mind there are monarchs all over the world who seem to be getting by just fine, without having public criticism heaped on them. Sometimes it’s because they are so beloved; sometimes it’s because they have suppressed all opposition. Still, from Asia to Africa and all across Europe, the institution of monarchy remains strong.

Not necessarily in Britain, though. Earlier this year, Queen Elizabeth’s daughter, Princess Anne, saw her marriage officially dissolved; Prince Andrew separated from his wife, the former Sarah Ferguson, and a book entitled “Diana: Her True Story” purported to give an inside account of the loveless marriage that binds Princess Diana to Prince Charles, heir to the throne. (The queen’s youngest son, Prince Edward, is a bachelor and does not appear headed for the altar any time soon.)

All of this has made fantastic fodder for the media, which have generally reported the news as being somber--but thoroughly compelling. And developments of the last two weeks have transformed Buckingham Palace into a three-ring Big Top.

First, there were the topless photos of the Duchess of York, better known as Fergie, frolicking poolside with her self-proclaimed financial adviser, a Texan who had been telling the press that a reconciliation between the Duchess and Prince Andrew seemed possible. It doesn’t now.

But even that public display has been overshadowed by “Dianagate”--the secretly recorded 23-minute conversation between a woman believed to be Princess Diana and a man identified by the British tabloids as James Gilbey, a longtime friend of hers who served as a primary source for “Diana: Her True Story.”

The conversation is said to have been recorded on New Year’s Eve, 1989, by a retired bank manager who frequently eavesdropped on car-phone conversations with his radio scanner.

The Sun, a tabloid with the biggest circulation of any daily newspaper in Great Britain, published a transcript of the entire conversation earlier this week and set up a telephone hot line for anyone willing to pay the equivalent of $1 a minute to hear the tape. More than 20,000 rang up the first day.

Royal watchers say this almost comic twist to the saga of the House of Windsor could spell big trouble.

“When royalty are made to look cheap or silly, history tells us they are in great danger,” says Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke’s Peerage. “They can weather being disliked. What they can’t weather is looking silly.”

To be sure, the deepening crisis would not seem to be doing much good for public perceptions about the institution of monarchy. But while the Windsors are the best-known royal family in the world--in fact, probably the best-known family of any sort--they are, of course, far from being the world’s only royal family. Nor is their relationship with their subjects and the news media at all representative of the relationships maintained by royals elsewhere.

According to Mark Redhead, producer of a six-part British TV documentary called “The Monarchy,” Queen Elizabeth II and family opened themselves up for all sorts of problems when they decided to “relaunch” themselves at the end of the 1960s after a decline in their popularity.

By most accounts, the era of intense scrutiny began with the 1969 television film “Royal Family,” which gave the British their first glimpse of the House of Windsor’s domestic life. That film and a subsequent onslaught of royal events “opened a Pandora’s box of problems,” says Brooks-Baker. “The whole thing has backfired very, very badly.”

Once the queen had offered her family up for close examination, there was no going back. And it is not just the domestic dramas that appear to be weakening the image of the Royal Family: The real issue the queen will likely have to face, according to some observers, is taxes. Because she pays no taxes on her vast wealth, a growing chorus of voices is demanding a restructuring of the royal finances.

With all this baying at the doors of the castle, it would seem that the royal establishment itself was in danger. But in fact, that is hardly the case. Sure, the Brits seem to be in for a rough patch. Around the world, however, monarchies seem to be doing as well as--if not better than ever.

Across Europe, says Brooks-Baker, “the attitude toward the throne is more secure and favorable than at any time in history.” A staunch pro-royalist, he believes royal families have remained strong by maintaining a certain distance from the people and not revealing their private lives.

In many European countries, the local news media report mostly fawning stories about their own monarchs and shy away from anything that might damage the royal image. Notably, in most of these countries, the British Royal Family serve as surrogates, and their problems and scandals are covered with tremendous gusto.

It is worth noting that the royal families of Europe are all closely related, with the exception of the Albanians, who are related but not closely. Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, are related in 24 different ways and are second, third, fourth and fifth cousins.)

In Spain, for example, King Juan Carlos is immensely popular with the people and the press. When the Spanish magazine Tiempo suggested that the king was perhaps taking too many vacations, the rest of the press corps rushed to his defense. Shortly afterward, Tiempo published a highly flattering article about the king.

Denmark is home to widely popular monarch, Queen Margrethe II, who is regarded highly not just for setting an exemplary moral tone, but also for her artistic pursuits. She has illustrated books, designed costumes for stage and television productions, and translated Simone de Beauvoir into Danish.

When it comes to creating sensational stories for the tabloids, it seems only Monaco is in the same league as Great Britain. Princess Stephanie is a tabloid-story machine. But the need for publicity goes hand in hand with the principality’s image as a playground for the wealthy.

“Monaco is absurd,” says producer Redhead. “It serves no purpose other than to satisfy the French public. It gives them a monarchy without having to have one in Paris.”

In contrast, royal families in Asia still command deep respect--for the most part. And the notion of a Fergie or Princess Stephanie equivalent appearing topless in a local publication ranges from far-fetched to impossible.

It is unimaginable that semi-nude photos of frolicking royals would ever find their way into a pulp magazine in Japan, for example--not only because the decorous first family, led by Emperor Akihito, would never frolic in such a state, but also because press coverage is rigorously controlled by the Imperial Household Agency.

Not long ago, a mild photograph of Princess Kiko smiling fondly and brushing a stray lock of hair from the brow of her husband, Prince Akishino, incurred such official wrath from the Chrysanthemum Throne that the Household Agency banished the photographer from its grounds. Most newspapers ignored the agency’s dictum not to use the picture, however, and published it anyway, calling it “heartwarming” and suitable for a modern imperial family.

Overall, the Japanese press continues to show a respect and self-restraint that Buckingham Palace can only dream of. Earlier this year, Japanese major newspapers and broadcasters agreed to a news blackout regarding Crown Prince Naruhito. The point was to give the bachelor prince enough privacy to court and win the hand of a future empress.

In Thailand, the Royal Family is revered and vastly influential. The family has no official powers, but the prestige of King Bhumibol was clearly seen in May, after pro-democracy demonstrations against then-Prime Minister Suchinda Kraprayoon led to clashes with security forces and at least 50 deaths. The king called together Suchinda and the leader of the pro-democracy forces, Chamlong Srimuang, for a meeting at the royal palace. On national television, he proceeded to scold both men for putting the future of the country at risk; within hours, the demonstrations had stopped, prisoners were released and Suchinda had resigned.

If there is any criticism of the Thai Royal Family, it is never aired publicly, so newspaper coverage of them borders on the adulatory.

Less sacrosanct are the royal families of Malaysia, holdovers from pre-independence days, when nine of the country’s states were ruled by sultans. When independence transferred government to a federal system in Kuala Lumpur, the sultans were left as figureheads for Islam.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed’s government has forced through Parliament a code of conduct to govern the country’s royals, who normally are exempt from criminal prosecution. But so far, only six of the nine sultans have agreed to live by the code.

No such regulations restrict 24-year-old King Mswati III, who runs the show to a disco beat in Africa’s Swaziland, a small, independent country bordering South Africa and Mozambique.

The king was formerly Prince Makhosetive, one of the estimated 500 sons of King Sobhuza II, who ruled for 61 years until he died at age 83. King Mswati III was crowned on April 25, 1986, at age 18. At the time of his coronation, he was the world’s youngest monarch.

Mswati is the 24th monarch in Swaziland and can trace his ancestry back in an unbroken line for 400 years--and his regal titles include “Sire of the Land” and, more importantly, “Ngwenyama, Lion of the Nation.” In establishing his fitness for the throne, he had to prove his manhood by many diverse acts, one of which was killing a lion. At the time he was chosen king, he was studying at an exclusive British school.

Outside the royal household, the exact number of Mswati’s wives is not known; affairs of the Royal Family, unlike those of the British, are not regarded as public property. (He is thought, though, to have nine wives.) In 1988, the king, who has been described as a “stern young man,” commissioned an extravagant new palace, saying it would be an “African Versailles.” He included a disco in the palace and is said to like the music of Michael Jackson. His mother is the titular head of state and is known as “Ndlovukazi, the Great She-Elephant.”

Political discontent has long been simmering beneath the surface in Swaziland. There have been calls for multi-party politics from the middle class Human Rights Assn. of Swaziland, founded in 1991. Public debate, however, is limited in the state-controlled media.

While opposing views are tolerated in Swaziland, the Middle East allows no public criticism of its royal rulers. In ancient days the pharaohs of Egypt took on god-like trappings, while the kings of the Hebrews, as depicted in the Bible, had human qualities that could make them models for characters on TV soaps. And for long centuries, the ruling monarchs in the area were the sultans of the Ottoman Empire, a bloody line of autocrats who spent a good deal of time knocking off potential rivals within their families.

The Ottomans were still ruling at the turn of the century, and the collapse of their empire after World War I gave the Middle East a new royal panoply. Britain, which with France divided the Middle East into spheres of interest, reached into present-day Saudi Arabia and made instant kings of members of the influential Hashemite tribe, which claims direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed. Hashemites were put on thrones in Trans-Jordan (now Jordan), Syria and Iraq, and King Hussein of Jordan is the grandson of the original Hashemite there.

Meanwhile, the fierce warrior Ibn Saud created his own monarchy, Saudi Arabia, by force of arms, a typical tribal accession that was also seen among the sheiks who rule along the Persian Gulf.

Few, if any, of the colonially implanted kings were popular with the people they ruled. Faisal II of Iraq was murdered in the revolution that brought Saddam Hussein’s clique to power. Jordan’s Hussein, whose Hashemite grandfather was assassinated in Jerusalem, is popular among his country’s Bedouin but viewed largely as a political convenience by the Palestinian majority in the kingdom. His current wife, the American Lisa Halaby, known in Jordan as Queen Noor, has had an often chilly reception from her subjects.

Editors across much of the Middle East are forbidden from criticizing their heads of state in any form. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the Royal Family owns a substantial portion of the news media, with more than 30 newspapers inside the kingdom and at least 12 international Arabic-language publications. And while these newspapers and magazines print only servile stories about their own royalty, they gleefully publish articles about the scandals and problems of the British.

The Windsors, it would seem, appear destined to be the top-rated soap opera in the world.

So, figured out the answers to the quiz yet?

Staff writers Scott Kraft in Johannesburg, Charles A. Wallace in Singapore, Teresa Watanabe in Tokyo, and Nick B. Williams Jr. in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

The Ruling Class C ountries with monarchies: * Antigua and Barbuda: Constitutional monarchy with British-style parliament. Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II. * Denmark: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: Queen Margrethe II. * Jamaica: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II. * Jordan: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: King Hussein. * Kuwait: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: Emir Shaikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir as-Sabah. * Luxembourg: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: Grand Duke Jean. * Monaco: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: Prince Rainier III. * Morocco: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: King Hassan II. * Spain: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: King Juan Carlos I de Borbon y Borbon. * Sweden: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: King Carl XVI Gustaf. * Tonga: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: King Taufa’ahau Topou IV. * United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Constitutional monarchy. Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II. * Belgium: Parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch. Head of State: King Baudouin. * Netherlands: Parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch. Head of state: Queen Beatrix. * Malaysia: Federal parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch. Head of state: Paramount Ruler Sultan Azlan Shah. * Lesotho: Military regime and constitutional monarchy. Head of state: King Letsie II. * Liechtenstein: Hereditary constitutional monarchy. Head of State: Prince Hans Adam. * Norway: Hereditary constitutional monarchy. Head of state: King Harald V. * Bahrain: Traditional monarchy. Head of state: Amir Isa bin Sulman al-Khalifa. * Bhutan: Monarchy. Head of state: King Jigme Singye Wang-chuck. * Swaziland: Monarchy. Head of state: King Mswati III. * Oman: Absolute monarchy. Head of state: Sultan Qabus bin Said. * Saudi Arabia: Monarchy with council of ministers. Head of state and head of government: King Fahd. * Thailand: Military. Head of state: King Bhumibol Adulyadej. * Brunei: Independent sultanate. Head of government: Sultan Sir Muda Hassanai Bolkiah Mu’izzadin Wadaulah.