So the Dutch royals celebrated two World Cup victories in a single day, and the British monarchy, in a gesture of baffling camaraderie, extended its congratulations. How quaint. How utterly, irredeemably quaint. One can almost hear the collective yawn from the British public, whose own monarchy has long since ceased to be a symbol of national vigour and has instead become a museum piece, a tribute to the very decadence that Rome itself would have envied.
Let us examine the facts. On Sunday, the Netherlands won both the men’s and women’s field hockey World Cups. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, in a display of genuine joy (one assumes, for the cameras), celebrated with the teams. Meanwhile, from across the North Sea, King Charles III, a man whose reign has thus far been defined by a scandalous biography and the lingering ghost of his late mother, issued a stiff, formal statement. The contrast could not be more stark, and it is a contrast that should worry every Briton who still clings to the idea that our own monarchy is anything but a hollowed-out ornament.
Field hockey, you see, is a sport of grace, strategy, and collective effort. It is not a sport of individual glory, of overpaid prima donnas rolling in the mud after a golden boot. It is a sport that the Dutch, a nation of pragmatists and engineers, have perfected. And their royals, unlike ours, actually seem to enjoy it. They are not merely figureheads; they are participants in the national life. They sweat, they cheer, they possibly even drink a beer with the lads. Our own royals, by contrast, shuffle through charity galas and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, their faces frozen in a rictus of duty. They are the intellectual descendants of the late Roman emperors, more concerned with the cut of their togas than the state of the aqueducts.
And this is where the historical parallel becomes irresistible. The fall of Rome was not a single event; it was a slow, agonizing collapse. The Romans, for all their grandeur, lost the ability to inspire. Their emperors became irrelevant, their armies mercenary, their culture a parody of itself. The British monarchy has long ago crossed this Rubicon. Consider: a nation that once ruled a quarter of the globe now finds its most potent symbol in an aging man whose primary concern appears to be his own press coverage. Meanwhile, the Dutch, a tiny sliver of a country, produce not only world-class athletes but also a royal family that appears, for all the world, to be…relatable. The horror.
This is not merely a matter of opinion; it is a question of national identity. A monarchy that cannot connect with the people is not a monarchy at all. It is a tax-funded soap opera. And the Dutch, with their two World Cup wins, have inadvertently exposed the brittleness of our own crown. The British monarchy’s congratulations are the equivalent of a pat on the head from a fading aristocrat to a rising tradesman. They are well-meaning but utterly unnecessary. The Dutch do not need our approval. They are busy winning.
And what of the British public? We are left to wonder when our own royals will do something more than wave from a balcony. Perhaps King Charles could take up a sport. Tennis? Polo? Even competitive darts would be a start. But I suspect such robustness is beneath the dignity of the modern crown. No, we shall continue to watch as the Dutch, and the Spanish, and the Scandinavians outshine us in every field that matters: sport, democracy, and even the simple art of being happy.
The lesson of the Dutch World Cup wins is a bitter one for the British. It is that monarchy, like any institution, must earn its keep. The House of Orange-Nassau has done so. The House of Windsor has not. And in the long arc of history, irrelevance is the first step toward extinction. The Roman senators laughed at the barbarians, too, until they found their own aqueducts running dry.
