A Queenly Foot Comes Down : Elizabeth, fed up with being fed up, acts to rescue the monarchy’s image

The English essayist of more than a century ago had it about right. The magic of the monarchy, Walter Bagehot wrote, would be endangered if “light were ever let in on it.” He never imagined this modern era of not just light but kliegs and laser beams illuminating the royal family in all its frailties.

For years, the British monarchy had no peers in pomp. Now there is almost no pomp in the peers. Confessions of adultery. Charges of palace intrigue. Leaks to biographers and tabloids. Phone conversations secretly taped and revealed. And the final straw: television interviews.

The long-suffering Queen Elizabeth II has now had enough. Out of character, she has gone public with orders to Prince Charles and Princess Diana to divorce in hopes that damage to the image of the institution she loves will be repaired, that support for it will increase and that the publicity will cease.

It’s been a difficult time for the family and a nation that has long sustained the monarchy with a now-eroding pride. The collapse of a marriage is stressful and destructive for any family, and even more so when it attracts a wide audience. In this case, two famous people, wed 14 years ago amid the fascination of the world, were unable to cope with each other and the demands of their very public responsibilities.

It’s all been a poignant drama of sadness, scandal and frustration. Princess Diana, 19 years old when she began her life among the royals, produces two sons and discovers that her husband, the next king, has no clothes. He loves another and tells the world about it. Diana finds she will never be queen and also goes on TV to admit her own adultery.

And Charles is a bundle of frustration. Trained since birth to reign, he is now 47 years old with nothing very interesting to do officially except talk about architecture and the environment and wait for his mother to step aside or die. He is the Man in Waiting.

Then there is the queen, who has seen her other children go through marital troubles and demeaning public scrutiny and has remained quiet and, well, regal. But she worried, as the queen, about the monarchy, and, as a mother, about the kids, and, as a grandmother, about the grandchildren, one of whom, Prince William, is in line to succeed to the throne one day.

In London, they are giving the queen high marks for courage, for finally telling the bickering couple what they should now do. By her own confession, she had a very bad year and she did not want to sit back and have another one.

What happens now? Charles says he will agree to the divorce and tells his friends he will not remarry. Diana will begin negotiations to ensure her future and that of her children. The public in Britain will continue to debate the future of the monarchy. And the queen will continue to regret that light was ever let in.