Americans really do think we all take the royals very seriously

A common refrain among expat Brits in the US is that Americans think England is so small they’ll ask, “Were you at the royal wedding?” when they meet you. My fiance swears it’s happened to him before, long ago, but I’ve never experienced it myself. We did watch the Queen’s Speech in the name of nostalgia and the Old Country on Christmas Day last year (I would never have done it at home, but it felt strangely comforting from the floor of a Brooklyn apartment), much to the delight of my flatmate’s American girlfriend, but that’s as close as I’ve ever got to flirting with royalism. Ever since I realised princesses in real life aren’t quite the same deal as in Disney movies, I’ve been a staunch republican (not that I’d ever use that specific term inside the US, lest I confuse and horrify the liberal, Democratic-voting Brooklynites I spend most of my time around.)

It was a strange thing, then, to find out that Americans really do think we all take the royals very seriously. “I’m sorry about your prince,” said a man in a local grocery store on the day Prince Philip died, when I walked in to buy some cheese and a baguette. For a second, I couldn’t even register what he meant. Then eventually, I laughed awkwardly from behind my mask (the signature British move) and said: “Oh, right. Yes. We are sad for the Queen.”

At the hair salon a couple of days later, the same sympathies were expressed. “I was sorry to hear about your prince,” said the woman lathering my hair, and again I was caught off-guard. Americans are not sarcastic types, and both times the people telling me how sorry they were had expressed themselves sincerely, wholeheartedly. They believed, I realised, that this must be a defining moment in my life, akin to losing a president or even perhaps a family member. They were extending a courtesy to me that they thought I expected in the circumstances. You can hardly respond, “Well, he should never have had access to those taxpayer funds in the first place,” in such situations, even if America did fight a war against England to remove themselves from the binds of King George.

An increased interest in The Crown has led to many more royal discussions than I envisioned, even among those aforementioned liberal Brooklynite friends. Old ground that my mum and her friends used to tread over glasses of wine after Diana’s death is now retrodden by Americans finding it all out for the first time and expressing their absolute outrage that any of it was allowed to happen. “Can you believe that happened?” they’ll say to me, wide-eyed. I’ll launch into my usual spiel about the immorality of an unequal system trapping one family in a gilded cage while siphoning funds towards them from every British taxpayer, but their eyes glaze over and they want to get back to the gossip. For them, this is pure Hollywood-style celebrity chat. They couldn’t care less (or, as they say – utterly confusingly – “could care less”) about debating republicanism any more; they want the juice and they want it now.

In an especially mind-bending twist, the Republican Party itself has taken to being affectionate about British royals in a way that would make their founders turn in their graves. American conservatives have been shouting about how “liberals” are trying to “cancel” royals over the past few months, using progressive sympathies for Meghan Markle as evidence. Suddenly, being anti-woke has become synonymous with being a monarchist. It’s a confusing situation, but contradictions are at the heart of American conservatism, where you’ll often see pickup trucks on the highway pass by with “Don’t Tread On Me” libertarian anarchist-style Gadsden bumper stickers rubbing shoulders with “Blue Lives Matter” pro-policing flags.

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Where does this leave a Brit in New York City, confronted with the well-meaning gestures of Americans who suspect I might have lingering affections for the Mountbatten-Windsors? Like most bleeding-heart lefties, I simply say it was all very sad for Charles going to Gordonstoun “Colditz with kilts” Boarding School, but I can’t forgive what he did to Lady Di and my parents would keel over if they saw him on the throne. Then I add that Princess Anne is the one we all secretly like and Prince Andrew needs to talk to the FBI and I never, ever, ever criticise the Queen (“She’s dedicated her life to public service”) – but I’ll also cheer on the day Buckingham Palace becomes a homeless shelter and the crown jewels get returned to the many colonies they were stolen from.

“I was actually just asking if you liked Kate Middleton’s shoes,” the person asking will inevitably cut in at this point. “Sorry,” I’ll reply, blithely, “I must have misheard you. You see, I really don’t have any views on the monarchy at all. Let’s get back to Matt Gaetz.”