Not tonight but, maybe someday soon, the United Kingdom is gonna party like it's 1689.
As a small-r republican and a capital-A American down to my marrow, I don't have much use for the British Royal Family. I don't usually see anything about them aside from headlines in the Daily Mail during my morning scroll through lingerie-clad celebrities.
It's also true that I don't understand much how these royal lineages work. I get that the first-born royal becomes the Prince or Princess of Wales on their way to ascending the throne. Do I remember correctly that Philip could only be a prince because Queen Elizabeth was a woman, but that Camilla gets to be Queen because King Charles is a dude? I'm pretty sure, but by the time you get any further down — the Seventh Duke of Cumbersome, Lord Sumsuch of Thingy — I can't make myself care any longer. So if I get any of the details wrong, please don't explain them.
I also know that it's impossible to know anything for sure because since parliamentary supremacy was established more than three centuries ago, an Act of Parliament could change everything. Parliament could decide tomorrow that the next King-Queen must be a non-binary demitheist of color, and suddenly countless royals would be jockeying for position by undergoing surgeries and injections.
I'm not so ignorant that I can't smell when something fishy is going on.
Let's look at the facts involving the more immediate — and unfortunately present — members of the Royal Family.
There's King Charles III, who assumed the throne already elderly just 18 months ago and who was diagnosed this week with an undisclosed form of cancer. His wife, Queen Camilla, appears to enjoy all the common people's affection as a mild heat rash.
The less said about one semi-former royal and his American wife, the better, but I must say at least a little something. Prince Harry used to seem like such a stand-up bloke — are we supposed to use the word "bloke" about royals? — before his star-crossed marriage to Meghan Markle. He attended Eton and then the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst before dutifully serving combat tours in Afghanistan — under a pseudonym, so as not to endanger his mates. Can I say "mates" about Harry's fellow cavalrymen in his recon troop?
Anyway, then Markle helped release Harry's inner douchebag — I know I can use that word — and the two remain in virtual exile in California.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York, some number in line to the throne, has been on an unsuccessful apology tour for time spent flying in the accompany of minors on Jeffrey Epstein's Lolita Express. He's brought enough shame on the Windors to discredit the notion of having royalty at all and will almost certainly not kill himself.
That brings us to the dashing figure of William, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne, and seemingly standing above all the chaos. Convenient, yes? Maybe a little too convenient...
Britain's troubles aren't limited to the Windsor family. The National Health Service is in decline, London has lost its charm to random stabbings and other imported crimes, Parliament seems dysfunctional (maybe not by American standards, but still...), and the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force are barely shadows of their former glory — while World War III looms on the Continent.
Maybe what Britain needs is a strong king... a king by divine right... the kind of king Britain hasn't had since before the 1689 Bill of Rights established parliamentary superiority. Maybe William is behind some of his family's misfortunes. Maybe he's just a patient schemer. Maybe, someday soon, Britons will again crave a powerful monarch to set right their leaking ship of state and rebuild Britain's air and surface fleets. Maybe, as King William V, he'll even reinstate prima nocta.
I know I would.
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