The Windsor Spencer divorce is linked to a larger break-down. Anthony Barnett analyses the crisis of the monarchy and looks at the opposing solutions that Diana and Charles offer.

If only for trying to save the countryside and normalise AIDS, both Charles and Diana have been left-wing heroes for some. Each seeks to retain the essence of the monarchy's pre-democratic authority - its special magic - and this makes them dubious candidates for hero worship. Yet both have also sought to modernise the monarchy's appeal. Seeking to renew its support, they draw in new ways upon popular non-capitalist traditions and attempt to speak to the people 'as a whole'. Each seems to try to resist the worst divisions of British society, each seeks to offer 'hope' and reaches out, respectively, to the poor and the dying of the inner cities. It is hardly surprising that many on the left and centre prick up their ears, while many on the right roll their eyes.

The divorce between the royal couple has clarified the difference between their 'strategies' for modernising the monarchy. Perhaps stratagems is a better word, as it implies approaches that are more instinctive and personal than ones based upon instrumental intelligence. An army commander might sit down with his Chiefs of Staff to assess whether a strategy of positional or fluid confrontation is better suited to a particular war. The character of monarchy today makes this kind of choice almost impossible for members of the royal family. The collapse of their surrounding institutions and the penetrating gaze of the media intensify the personal nature of their positions. Character and personality can only be inflected so far in their relations with the public. Nonetheless, they have adopted roles and fought for their claims.

The mixture of destiny and defiance, the weight of tradition and the pull of the new, gives the fate of the monarchy a fascination, one amplified by the huge waves of popular sentiment the royals are capable of generating. Some future study of the origins and fate of 'the spectacle' at the birth of the television age is bound to take the British monarchy as its centrepiece. Illusion and disillusion, belief and disenchantment, mean that a more sussed generation ceases to be 'taken in'. The British, a people 'accustomed to success', to take a phrase from the opening sentence of Will Hutton's masterpiece, now realise that they are witnessing failure through their unique symbolic institution. It was projected as being 'above them'. This was in turn offered as a humble assurance that there was something beyond politics that could hold everything together. Then the Royal family itself fell apart.

This could hardly be just a matter of individuals. The joint failure of the heir to the throne and the future mother of the next heir to stay together as a couple (or even as an institution while living apart as many Upper-class couples used to do) is not in itself a great constitutional crisis. But it is more than a little local spot of bother. The great symbol has broken open because it is part of a wider breakdown. The monarchy, we are told, represents Britain. Ironically, we salute the Royal Family for having been most faithful in this respect - well and truly representative.

In this short article I want to consider three things. First, I want to show how the breakdown of the marriage is linked to a larger breakdown. Second, I want to consider the opposing solutions that Diana and Charles offer as their ways of resolving the crisis of the monarchy - the different ways in which they think that Britain should be represented, if not ruled . The contrast brings out their shared resistance to embracing democracy. Third, I will consider how Diana has managed to fight against 'the firm's' attempt to crush her.

But first

But first, I want to start on this final aspect so as to introduce the hero of this article. This is the relationship between us and them. This relationship is our everyman. It is the chorus that accompanies contemporary British history. It influences the way we feel about events as it disparages mere politics. It is a source but also a distortion of the irony, satire, inventiveness, of the distance and the closeness, the humour and sentiment, of British culture.

The royal separation is a starting point for identifying our hero. It allows us to see in open air something of the relationship between the royal couple. And, as they argue about how to relate to us - the people - we gain a new sense of our relationship with them.

This has only been possible because of the way that Diana has argued back. Theirs is not simply the story of the collapse of a relationship. One could have imagined a Great British Sigh, a huge and maudlin regret that confirmed that our collective intentions were worthy if optimistic, as the princess retired to a separate, private life. But Diana has refused this. She will not 'go quietly'. She is in favour of a proposal for a joint announcement on television, together but separate, reassuring us that the ship of state will sail on. If she gets this it will be a triumph, as it will confirm her equality with the future monarch. If she doesn't, she has already won this status in the public eye.

It is helpful to distinguish the way in which Diana has succeeded in claiming the right to assert herself, from the content of her assertions. Her vision for the monarchy is ludicrous. But the way she has insisted that she be heard is a victory for the forces of equality. Even if it has been fought out between the silken sheets of inheritance in multi-million pound palaces and ski-resorts, Diana's refusal to be marginalised as 'a failure' is emancipating for everyone. Her defiant unwillingness to be parked in a spare palace as the inadequate wife punctured a centuries-old male ruling culture. The fact that it was already withered and weak enough to give way does not lessen the courage it took to burst it from the inside.

Diana undertook a two-part operation. The first part was to establish the legitimacy of her own voice, to secure her own authority as a national representative or 'ambassador'. In her Panorama interview she described the emotional catastrophe of her marriage of convenience into a weird and uncaring family. She spoke eloquently about her oppression as a woman. She talked frankly about her own humiliating illnesses. It was more than rehearsed. She shared with 23 million people words and events that she had talked over many a time with associates and supporters. The care taken to ensure they were effective does not mean that the words were false or dishonest. Their fairness, in any case, is not the point. Her objective was to clear away the palace's charge that she is a 'sick woman'. Apparently sympathetic, if disparaging, the charge is utterly destructive: a nineteenth century obliteration that turns opinions in symptoms. She was determined not to be stigmatised as suffering illusions best 'Her defiance punctured a centuries-old male ruling culture'

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The divorce - Soundings