During ancient times up to the present days the mesmerizing image of the King’s wife invigorated the monarchy as she represented the myth of the establishment. Her duty is formidable; she is not only required to provide a throne its next ruler but also serves as a unifying symbol of the institution. She is the role of virtue and decency that always look up by the adoring subjects.

By these reasons there’s no doubt that the mystical survival of the British throne into the modern age partly attributed to the magical image of a fairy tale Queen Consort. Arranged marriages in the past centuries among royalty proved to be helpful in preserving this magic as the consort came from the same illustrious circle and the myth is safe. Until commoners join the royal court. The disaster started to surface.

Andrew Morton was quoted in his controversial biographical book: Diana, Her true story (exposing the sordid life of the late Princess of Wales, Diana into the British establishment): “Grafting commoners into the Hanoverian tree proved to be disastrous”. These “outsiders” (royal family’s term for commoners), unfamiliar with the royal routine and the essence of duty and decorum, plunge into dilemmas and anxieties on how royals should behave, became disillusioned with their roles in the monarchy that they started messing up, slightly lifting the veil of the crown and exposing what is inside. With the exception of the marriage of King George VI to the former Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon (an aristocrat daughter of a Scottish Earl but was regarded a commoner because she did not have any independent noble title), all marriages between the commoners and the royal bloods went into drain.

Royalists are now debating whether commoners should be rightfully accepted into the royal fold or better keep themselves in the sidings. With the collapsed of some European royal houses in Europe, supplies of royal brides diminished that the British royal family since the reinvention of the House of Windsor in 1917, scampered on nobility. Nobility recruits included Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, a Scottish Earl daughter became a wife of Prince Bertie, the Duke of York later ascended as King George VI on the abdication of his older brother King Edward VIII. Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas Scott, a daughter of the 6th Duke of Beacleaugh and a descendant of King Charles II through his mistress Lucy Walter married George VI’s younger brother, Prince Henry, the Duke of Gloucester. Lady Diana Spencer, the pretty daughter of the 8th Earl of Althorp and a descendant of King Charles II through his two mistresses Barbara Palmers and Louise Lennox. The last royal blood Princess married into the British royalty was Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, granddaughter of King George I of Greece, she married the youngest son of George V, Prince George the Duke of Kent (the last royal blood Prince married into the British royalty is Marina’s first cousin Prince Philip the former Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark who was made the Duke of Edinburgh by his father-in-law King George VI on his marriage to the future Queen Elizabeth II)

Princess Diana, wearing a Spencer tiara and a blue sapphire earings during an official engagement in London, the last aristocrat to be married into the British monarchy.

So what is the ideal Future Queen Consort looks like? Ideally a royal bride should be titled, with royal or noble lineage, free from any sort of scandals, socially inexperienced, no career of her own, not a Roman Catholic, single (literally not divorce) and must be a pretty protestant without a past ( a Virgin Princess is still the best option among royalty to rightfully produced royal children). Her “job” as the Princess of Wales and eventually Queen varies as her titles and as what Princess Diana found out, “painfully tiring” and “unbearably stressful” plus the distressing reality of losing privacy.

One of the most famous Queen Consorts in British history was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI who became the Queen mother at her daughter’s accession (Queen Elizabeth II) in 1952. Her charm was legendary, fiercely protective of the royal family, she became the custodian of the royal secrets and myths. She was the model on how a royal should behave in public. She was discreet, reserved and had a high standard of moral ethics. She became the pillar of strength to his frail, nervous husband whose surprise accession in 1936 put him forcibly into the public life. The Queen consort’s duty and responsibility in the monarchy is not only the supportive better half of the ruling sovereign but as a strong willed, dignified Queen of England. The Queen Mother leads an elegant life, she performed her role with discretion, as what English writer Noel Coward puts it: She was a commoner transformed into a royalty but retained a common touch. She died at the ripe age of 102.

The Queen Mother’s favorite grandson, Prince Charles, the prince of Wales faced an agonizing decision about marriage in 1980, partly because he was already pressured by his family and countrymen to settle down. His conquest for a bride became the most favorite topic of debate in the newspaper that turn into a national past time. Unfortunately for the Prince of Wales, his stature as King-in-waiting offered him no freedom to choose for just any woman.

His favorite uncle Lord Louis Mountbatten (maternal uncle of Prince Philip and Queen Victoria’s great grandson) warned him about falling in love: Love is not an option for the man who would be King of England, it is a consideration in marriage but not a guiding force. The Earl of Burma and the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II (Mountbatten was also the responsible of clearing the deck of the union of his nephew Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II), became vigilant in Charles’s love life.

Any woman who did not fit into the standard of the royal family was out of the list. Among the woman who was strongly opposed by Mountbatten was Camilla Shand, a commoner daughter of a British Military officer. So Camilla married Andrew Parker Bowles. Not knowing that the woman would later become the attacked dog in Charles and Diana’s marriage that would forever change the course of British History.

Lord Mountbatten was assassinated in August 1979 by the Irish Republican Army. Charles lost someone who had been his protector. The devastating incident further gave him room to rush into the altar. In July 1980 at last, he found her fairy tale Princess. The fresh and lovely Lady Diana Spencer who was working at the time as pre-school assistant at the All Kindergarten school at the Pimlico District of London, accomplished all the requirements of an ideal royal match. She is the aristocrat daughter of a wealthy nobleman, Johnny Spencer the 8th Earl of Althorp, who had been a Courtier to Charles’s grand father King George VI and his mother Queen Elizabeth II. Her mother, The Honorable Frances Burke-Roche also boasted a noble lineage (daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy). Charles and Diana had known quiet well as they both came from Britain’s upper class.

Diana’s father was a direct descendant of King Charles II through his two illegitimate sons, the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of Richmond. Diana’s grandparents on both sides served as Equerry, courtiers and Ladies in Waiting in the British Royal court for many generations. She was also a childhood playmate of Charles’s two younger brothers Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. Furthermore, she was an aristocrat without a past. Her being lacked of education (where she was a high school dropped out and studied for a while in an exclusive finishing school for girls in Switzerland) did not matter. With her purity, innocence, beauty and royal pedigree, Lady Diana was pronounced as the most suitable Future Queen Consort of England.

Prince Charles and Lady Diana were married on July 29, 1981 at the glittering ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, where it was hailed as the wedding of the 20th century with an estimated 700 million viewers worldwide. Nothing was so important that day than the world’s anticipation for “a happy ending”, but destiny decreed otherwise.

After giving birth to two adoring boys, Prince William and Prince Harry, Diana, whose primary mission in life (she later realized) is to help the world’s downtrodden, devoted herself in various charity campaign-a crusade that made her famous even after death. Soon she became the most beloved figure in the Kingdom, outshining her husband. But she paid a high prize for being the most glamorous woman in the world and the most photographed. On the early morning of August 31, 1997, one year after her very public divorce battle with Prince Charles, she met a tragic death in a car crash in down town Paris, when the black mercedez benz she was riding with her new lover, chased by paparazzi, rebounded on the concrete wall of the Pont’de Alma tunnel.

The world mourned her passing, convulsed with grief people, across the globe who are deeply touch by her kindness and genuine compassion, offered sympathy. Her sudden death made a terrible blow to the Kingdom, they had lost their brightest star and the public, who adored the Princess of Wales, did not seem care with other members of the royal family, whom they regarded as impostors, wearing sparkling jewels and crowns yet they behaved worse than ordinary commoners.

The disenchantment of the public is attributed to the fact that the throne will no longer have a Queen Consort in the years to come. Prince Charles remarried in April 2005 to his mistress, but Camilla, who took the title Duchess of Cornwall (taken from Charles’s second title Duke of Cornwall), would not be crowned as Queen Consort when the Prince of Wales ascended the throne, she was divorced and the British constitution prohibited it.

There was no precedent in this case, but this was the most comfortable recourse in 2005 made by the Palace Courtiers in order for Prince Charles to marry Camilla without sacrificing the throne. That case already cost King Edward VIII’s Kingship (Charles’s great uncle) in December 1936. After the brewing issue of divorce and morality, Edward, who was known to his family as David, made an unforgettable voluntary abdication to marry Wallis Simpson, the twice divorce American woman who was dismissively called by the King’s mother Queen Mary as “Edward’s unholy lover”.

Divorce in the royal circle was such a sacrilege during those times that no divorce people allowed to join the royal court. Mrs. Simpson did not accomplish all the requirements of an ideal Queen Consort. According to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin: “For a Kingdom who valued mystique and tradition, it is unthinkable to call a woman, who has two living husbands, a “fairy tale Queen”. Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor King George VI and forced to live in exile with Mrs. Simpson in the US (later in France where he died in 1972 from throat cancer). They were ostracized from the British court forever.

Camilla and Wallis provided the saga of disenchantments, pushing the throne down to the mud when they created controversies as mistresses of the potential Kings. The scandalous relationship eroded public fascinations about royals. Now, the British monarchy needed somebody who could rescue the throne from sinking, somebody who could revitalize the crown and bring back the luster they’d lost. Prince William can fulfill this. The eldest son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana seems got all what a fairytale is looking for: a dashing appeal and a magnet to the public. The magic of his mother unfolded to him like a giant halo. The only precautions he would take is to avoid the marriage disaster his parents gone through.

But can William really save the throne? He is currently involved to Kate Middleton, a commoner with no aristocratic background and with no specific direction in life where she is heading other than tailing Prince William and waiting when he will be available. Her family background did not even suit well in the class system of the British society, unheard for any Future Queen Consort. She lacked all the requirements of a potential royal bride. Her only legacy so far is to splash herself into the public eye either heavily drunk or had just gone into a wild night out, which is inconceivable for a Queen Consort. But whether she will be accepted into the Royal household remains a mystery. Some reports had it that Buckingham Palace at the moment did not think Ms. Middleton as William’s potential bride.

The question left now is: Will the future Prince of Wales follows the standard of the royal family in selecting a wife? or by his own heart?…

Prince William’s story has just began.