WHEN PRINCES AND PRINCESSES PLAY AROUND, THE ESCAPADES REVERBERATE ON BOTHSIDES OF THE ATLANTIC. HOW DO THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PUBLIC PEOPLE, WHETHER CANDIDATES OR KINGS, AFFECT THE TRUE QUALITY OF LEADERSHIP? NOW,--AN INSIDER'S REVEALING REPORT

This is a morality tale about the world's most famous family--the British Royal House of Windsor. Following the proposed divorce between the Duke and Duchess of York, the press have told us that they are the classic "dysfunctional" family. Yet if indeed they are dysfunctional, the press itself is not only a symptom of the malaise, but also probably its cause.

The press claims they have the right to dissect the British Royal Family because, after all, is not leadership a question of character? (They have used the same argument to justify the feeding frenzy around Governor Bill Clinton.) Yet so is gossip: it is a question of the press's character. The coverage of the royals is part of the flawed way in which the media and public today are judging the fitness of our public figures to rule us.

Day after day, in tabloids such as the Sun and the Daily Mirror and serious broadsheets such as the Times and the Daily telegraph, even the slightest detail of the divorce is given full front-page coverage. Other papers followed the scoop, covering everything from what Fergie's children were wearing to school to the whereabouts of her alleged Texas lover, Steve Wyatt.

Americans are often (understandably) confused about the British attitude toward the Royal Family. What do the Royal Family actually do? my American friends ask me. Are the British shocked by the divorce of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York? (As if there had never been any scandals before.) Is this end of the monarchy? Is society in uproar? Were the British sorry to see the end of the Duchess of York, known to her friends as "Fergie"?

The British have traditionally looked to their Royal Family for entertainment, rather like watching television. Lately, however, the entertainment has not been a pretty sight, even for us British, who have relished royal scandal ever since King Alfred burnt his cakes. The British--overwhelmingly diehard royalists--are worried about the Queen's family and the future of the monarchy.

One of world's few true generalizations is that all nations, including the British and the Americans, fight the boredom of everyday life by admiring and despising the flaws and glamour of their dynasties. Thus the royals and the Kennedys fulfill the public's psychological lust for fantasy and tragedy. But should we really be worried about our royals? If we come down to basics, is not all this simply the public agony of a privately dysfunctional family, just like any other?

This is the sad part of the story: How can we expect our princes to have ordinary marriages (in an era of universal divorce) in an overheated environment that does not allow them to live like ordinary people? In many ways, the royals are indeed the ultimate dysfunctional family.

Certainly, communication is not the Windsors' strong suit. Does that mean they need to see a psychiatrist for family therapy? No matter--it is unlikely they would go: Most Britons consider a visit to the Psychiatrist either the luxury of a rich man or the necessity of a mad one.

The press's feverish pursuit of even the slightest detail of royal life is to blame for their dysfunctional family unit. To be fair to Fergie, the tabloids were so vilely unpleasant about her--whether it was because she was too fat or too thin--that, in the end, she may have come to hate them so much that she no longer cared.

Finally, the Windsors are very rich and very famous, neither of which is the formula for a happy family. Yet, for a typically British family, formal and disciplined, the Windsors are surprisingly close. The British sense the family behind the dynasty--and I love them for it.

The unfair expectation that royal family life should be perfect is a crime daily committed by both the tabloids and the moral middle class, whom I call the Blue Rinses. The affair gives us a fascinating insight not only into the British mind and culture, but also into the way the United States selects its Presidents. From Buckingham Palace to Arkansas, this was the season of adultery.

A HISTORY OF SCANDAL

Here is a story of Victorian politics: In a general election in the 1860s, Benjamin Disraeli was running against the incorrigible womanizer Lord Palmerston, who was still Prime Minister well into his 80s. Octogenarian Casanova that he was, Palmerston had fathered an illegitimate child with a "low-born" woman in his constituency. Disraeli's campaign manager urged him to reveal Palmerston's shocking debauchery to the electorate (an early example of the "negative campaign"). Disraeli refused categorically. "If we do," he answered, "the old man will win a landslide!"

Disraeli was right: the British combine primness with a love of titillating scandal and bawdiness that goes back to Chaucer's outrageous farting and fornicating poetry. The British have always taken a sincere delight in chronicling the wicked ways of their rulers. This is quite different from the usual American view of the British as thin-lipped, pale people who cannot have fun.

On the contrary, the tabloid press in Britain is the rudest, most bumptious--and most powerful--in the world. The Sun, for example, sells five million copies every day, more than any other single U.S. newspaper. The tabloids actually have the power to dictate to Buckingham Palace. So the British expect the impossible of their monarchy: Drim public service on one hand, entertainment on the other. What went wrong in Fergie's case?

The British were at first refreshed, then shocked and finally disgusted by her. Unlike Americans--who treat the royals like gods whenever they visit these shores--the British love the institution of the monarchy but have never shown much reverence for it. This could not be more different from the exaggerated deference shown to U.S. Presidents.

Indeed, the British revel in their irreverence. Edward II was killed by his barons, who inserted a red-hot poker into his anus. Charles I was beheaded. The irreverence became less physical--and more witty--before it sank into the sleazy sewers of today's tabloids. Charles II (Rowley) was publicly satirized by his best friend, the poet Lord Rochester, who, in between accompanying the King on expeditions to bordellos and sharing his royal mistresses, published the following verses:

"Restless he rolls about from whore to whore A merry monarch, scandalous and poor Nor are his high desires above his strength His sceptre and his . . . are of a length.

So well, alas! the fatal bait is known Which Rowley does so greedily take down; And howe'er weak and slender be the string, Bait it with a whore and it will hold a king."

BRITISH TASTE

The Royal Family was never held in greater contempt than under the hated Hanoverian kings--the four Georges--whose carriages were stoned by a mob whenever they appeared in London's streets. George I's hideous pair of German mistresses were nicknamed Elephant and Castle, after the famed pub in Chelsea. George IV, best known as the Prince Regent, was so hated that when he divorced his wife, Queen Caroline, Londoners actually unleashed the horses from her carriage and pulled it themselves to show her their support. Queen Caroline became the heroine of the opposition. The British cared more about George IV's ill treatment of his wife than about George III's loss of America. But Fergie is no Queen Caroline--and Londoners are certainly not lining up to pull her carriage.

Even under Victoria's "We are not amused" regime, the public were disrespectful enough to believe that one of the Queen's sons was in fact the notorious murderer of prostitutes, Jack the Ripper. Let me make one thing clear: we British expect scandal from our monarchy--but scandal in good taste and at the right time. In the past, many royal scandals have made the monarchy far more popular. Henry VIII's elephantine sexual appetites, myriad divorces, and liberal beheadings asserted British independence from the Pope and delighted the public. It befitted a King. Charles II was so popular for his well-endowed debauchery that he won the fond nickname of Old Rowley, after his favorite racehorse. (Thus was born the modern meaning of the word 'stud.') And Edward VII, Victoria's plump, hedonistic son, lived for racing and racy women.

The people's admiration for these lusty exploits was very healthy. But the rule seems to be that the less power the monarch has, the better his behavior should be. The problems started when Queen Victoria's clever German husband, Prince Albert, allied the monarchy with the prosperous but prim middle class, who demanded that the royals set an example. It worked. The royals became loved really for their ordinariness. So, given Britain's history of riotous disrespect for our kings, why are Britons worried today?

BRITISH STYLE

Napoleon was right when he called us "a nation of shopkeepers." We like plain-spoken and industrious royals who know how to behave. The royals are still immensely popular. Thus the Queen Mother, the Queen herself, and Princess Anne are the favorites of every class. The intelligent Prince Charles, heir to the throne, and his glamourous Princess Diana are rightly popular because he is the first royal intellectual; she the first to look like an angel. Morality in itself is not so important. Appearances are everything: "You can do anything," the Edwardians used to say, "providing you don't scare the horses." The British are not offended by Charles's cool marriage; if they lead separate lives, it is their business.

What the British cannot tolerate in their royals is bad taste. Britain is an austere country where even the richest families live in palaces without central heating. The Duke of Bedford used to be mistaken regularly for a gardener at his stately home, Woburn Abbey. Ostentation is not appreciated. Understatement is a synonym for class. The Queen is loved for her slightly dowdy style--but no one doubts it is style. The British do not want their Queen to look like Nancy Reagan. And if she behaved like Nancy Reagan, there would be a swift revolution.

Thus yelling and skiing, slack-jawed and cake-throwing Fergie--the very picture of careless venal vulgarity, manifesting the insensitive philistinism of the upper middle class--was everything that the Royal Family did not need in the '90s. She was the equivalent of a bare-buttocked Ted Kennedy in Palm Beach, livid-faced and slobbering drunk.

THE PRESS'S "KOO" D'ETAT

The British tabloids justify their pursuit of the royals the same way that the U.S. media justifies its pursuit of Gary Hart or Bill Clinton: the people have a right to know. But here, the press's decision is final. Like the death penalty, a misinformed judgment is extremely hard to reverse. Ask Bill Clinton. Mud sticks.

For example, Prince Andrew is the real victim of the press getting it wrong. He is very popular. As a youngster, he was the most admired and handsome of the Windsors. The Blue Rinses may have disapproved, but the upper and lower classes adored him--a modern Rowley. What is more, he was a genuine war hero in the Falklands, where he piloted naval helicopters in the heat of battle.

But the love of his life, the charming and popular Koo Stark, was crucified by the tabloids, who alleged the cultured and well-educated American was a disreputable actress in seamy movies, even though she had acted in only one vaguely erotic film, directed by the Queen's cousin, Lord Pembroke! The war hero who had fought the Argentines in mortal combat was forced to surrender Miss Stark.

Instead, he married jolly, buxom Sarah Ferguson, regarded at first by the Windsors as a "breath of fresh air." The irony is that the discreet, intelligent, and beautiful Miss Stark, now a successful photographer, would have made a fine Duchess of York. But the petty morality of the Blue Rinses won the day. The rest is history.

WHAT PRICE ROYALTY?

Britain is a bizarre cocktail: a socialist country with a hereditary monarchy. The Queen is Head of State, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces (like the President), and the head of the Anglican church. Unlike the President, she reigns but does not rule. However, she receives over 50 million pounds a year from the British people to maintain the Royal Family, who are not really as rich as they appear. Most of their supposed billions belongs to the British people. Thus the British have a constitutional right to know what the royals are up to. They want to know what they are getting for their money. Apart from thoroughly good entertainment, what do they receive?

Political stability is the most significant benefit of the monarchy's survival. There have been no real revolutions since 1688's Glorious Revolution. The Queen has more influence than power, though she is something of a statesman herself. She meets her Prime Minister weekly to discuss policy. She was taught the ropes by the titanic old Churchill, her first Prime Minister, who declared that he was in love with the young Queen and could not see her without his eyes filling with tears. Surprisingly, she gets on better with earthy Socialists, like Wilson and Callaghan, than with snooty Conservatives. She did not like Mrs. Thatcher, who was as imperial as the Queen is royal.

The monarchy is also a prestigious sales force for British power and, most importantly, commerce. They are also the apex of Britain's society--that flexible mixture of meritocracy and class. (Class in England is far more open than most Americans realize. The upper class was always open to outsiders, in fact. Each new wave of entrepreneurs was welcomed into the system as they rose--receiving titles and access to the monarch, and sending their children to Eton or Harrow. Hence, the British did not require revolutions to open up the aristocracy.)

Lastly, as Defender of the Faith, head of the Anglican Church, the royals are supposed to set a high moral example. This was the reason that Edward VIII, in the 1936 abdication crisis, gave up his crown to marry an American divorcee, the "woman I love." The crisis was so serious that Prime Minister Baldwin's government almost fell. Churchill, that delightful romantic, supported his King--but in vain.

In the past, British taxpayers have always decided that the monarchy was cheap at the cost. The Fergie affair has not changed that, but nevertheless it has come at a very bad time. Britain is in a deep recession. The monarchy needs to show that it is worth its cost. Thus, the York divorce is unusual as far as our scandals go; it has truly damaged the mystique of the monarchy.

What is a constitutional monarchy but mystique without power? Two things are in danger of destroying this magic: the first is the tyranny of the tabloids. Secondly, if the royals keep behaving like spoiled children (Fergie gave the impression of cavorting like a brash jet-setter, oblivious of lengthening welfare lines), the people in the end will treat them accordingly. When the mystique is gone, the monarchy will be no more than a family of pathetically ordinary (divorced) people who receive vast sums of taxpayers' money to flaunt themselves in front of their poor subjects. This is a terrifying thought for most of the British, myself included: no one wants a republic. The agony of the Windsors is the agony of every Englishman.

THE EFFECT ON THE QUALITY OF LEADERSHIP

The real question is whether the private lives of public figures matter. Just because they divorce, are the Royal Family failing to perform their jobs? Clearly not. Are we getting stronger and better politicians by searching their pasts for dirt? No, just cleaner ones who lie better. In fact, it is arguable that in the last 10 years the Blue Rinses in England and the moral majority in the United States--backed by the press--have weeded out some of the strongest and most able politicians.

History shows that libertines have provided the world with some of its best rulers. Take Louis XIV or Catherine the Great. Mazarin or Potemkin. Metternich or Talleyrand. Edward VII was an admirable diplomat of tact and wisdom, who kept Europe's powderkeg at peace until his death in 1910. Today, neither Franklin Roosevelt nor David Lloyd-George (known as "the goat" for his libidinous athletics) would have likely been elected, because they had mistresses. Thus the scrutiny of Bill Clinton's "character" provokes two questions: Is such a leader unelectable under our present system of trial-by-tabloid in the name of so-called "morality?" And why are America and Britain ruled by this mania?

I believe it is the result of the division of the role of ruler between mystique and administration. In antiquity, the ruler (such as an Augustus or an Alexander) possessed the amoral mystique of a pagan god and the supreme power of an administrator. In our parlane, the King was thus a star and a minister. Later, the two were separated. In modernity, this division was the foundation of democtratic freedom. The ruler is an ordinary man in gray suit who must begave better than his subjects. The modern gods are the stars of a media, who vary from the rich, such as the Kennedys, to the demigods of sport, film, TV and music. These stars are above morality. They do not need to behave like us ordinary mortals. The combination of the two halves, stardom and politics, is the basis for the cult of personality that is mark of dictatorship. Saddam Hussein, for example, is both star and ruler, god and man.

However, this division has played into the hands of a press that cannot judge the worthiness of its public figures. Is it not at least possible that there willl only be true freedom of choice when a Gary Hart of a Bill Clinton can admit openly that they had affairs--and continue to run?

This is not to say that an immoral private life is anecessary criterion for the great ruler. On the contrary, it is incidental. The press has the awesome power to destroy, but lacks the sober responsibility to decide when the affairs of private lives warrant their hypocritical with hunts. Thus, we judge public officials on the wrong aspects of their private lives. The fact ofadultery is notin itself necessarily significant However, its circumstances may be damning, because it may reveal a flaw--weakness or bad judgment--that constitutes a valid reason not to vote for a leader. Let me give three examples in Britain and America.

Britain's 1963 Profumo scandal was arguably justified in terms of state security, because the the Minister of Defense, John Profumo, was hte lover of a call girl, Christine keeler, who was also the lover of the Soviet Air attache. And the lied about it, which confirmed his bad judgment.

Cecil Parkinson was Mrs. Thatcher's her apparent as PrimeMinister. He impregnated his mistress, Sarah Keays, a House of Commons researcher. In a nauseating display of moral outrage by the Blue Rinses, he was forced to resign. The real point is that the man who might have been the next Premier weakly promised to marry a woman when he was already married--and was not even capable of using elementary birth control. After all, if a man cannot commmit adultery properly, how can he possibly run a country?

Similarly, Governor Clinton's sin may not bethat he had an affair, but that he had an affair with a woman with as little class as Gennifer Flowers. And did he give her a job in the state bureaucracy?

THE COURAGE TO MAKE SUBTLER JUDGMENTS

What is the solution? How can we break this vicious circle of witch hunting? Regarding politicians who admit adultery and continue to run, the press should ask if it reveals defects that would affect their performance as leaders. The answer may be yes or it may be on. Thiswill take courage on the part of both press and politician, as well as on the voter, who must eventually decide.

But it takes considerably less courage on the part of the press--and yet no such courage has so far been evident. Editor's traditional answer is that their role is simply to give the people facts and make no judgment. This is didingenously modets. A glance ay any investigative report on any of the candidates in any newspaper shows this not to be true: all investigatuive stories have a slant. Is not the analysis of news precisely the job of those editors?

As far as the politician is concerned, the courage to be honest is a far more real test of the ability to govern than is lifelong fidelity or church attendance. Governor Clinton is the first amn to (almost) admit it--and still be running. This is (almost) to his credit.

The exception that proves the rule is President John F. Kennedy. At the time of his Presidency, he was regarded as the boy-king of American dreams--fresh, energetic, and good. He was not so much 'killed' as 'slain', like the knights of old. Strangely, the reveaations of his feverish fornification with Marilyn Monroe (shared with his brother), and others have not harmedhis reputation in the eyes of many people. On the contrary, these affairs seem to be celebrations of youth and vigor. He is the unique American leader who was both star and administrator, god and king. His appetites were those of special man, who lived by other rules. Just as Hegel in his day saw Napoleon riding on his horse as the World Historical Character, so today in turn we see JFK and Marilyn at a moment when all the super-potency of the greatest nation in the world was concentrated in the instinctive ritual of those twocelestial bodies. It was his due. It was Camelot.

The glory of JFK's sexual odyssey, the tradgedy of his martyrdom, and the Croesian wealth of his father have endowed the Kennedys with the mystique of a royal family, even if they have neither the history nor the class to maintain it. Thus we have come full circle: neither the Windsors nor the Kennedys have power now, but both have the mystique. Both are stars who provide the entertainment we all need. Both have lost some prestige: the Kennedys have done it to themselves through the appearance of degeneracy. The British Monarchy has a bank of mystique that will not be easily depleted, but mystique is all it has. The institution will last-we Britishare an island race of stalwart royalists

Still the British election suggested things may improve. When Paddy Ashdown, the handsome ex-Marine leader of the British Liberal Democrats, admitted that he had had an affair with the secretary, his personal-approval ratings soard. He is nowthe most popular politician in Britain. President Bush should take note--maybe he should take a mistress instead of hoping that ostentatious jogging will prove his machismo.

Is all this mere triviality? No, a scandal like the divorce of the Yorks really could contribute to the end of a thousand years of British Monarchy. Napoleon was once asked which event, more than any other, opened the door to the French Revolution and the destruction of the Bourbon Monarchy. He mentioned war, lack of money, and the will of the people. But he did not hesitate. He said that it was the inoncent misunderstanding of Marie Antonitte and the case of the stolen diamond necklace--with its implication of lax morality--that lost the crown the support of the French people.

There is a thought: one silly scandal spawned all those guillotines.

PHOTOS (COLOR): One big happy dysfunctional family?

PHOTOS (BLACK & WHITE): Rowdy "Old Rowly." Disraeli (right)

ILLUSTRATIONS

BY SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

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