The perils of public grief

There is no greater tabula rasa in the public imagination than grief.  Prince Philip’s four children – no strangers to the glare of public interest – now find themselves the target not of global ire, but rather unusually, of collective sympathy. For public figures, the warm light of communal compassion imbues recognition and significance on the lives of lost loved ones; their grief is one that is shared, which must be a consolation. But in today’s 24/7 news cycle public grief of this kind comes with its own pressures and expectations.

In the annals of Royal public relations, this should be a relatively straightforward chapter. Approval for the Royal family soars amid a public outpouring of hagiography, and all is well. When the Queen Mother died in 2002, the statements that followed were fond and fair: Prince Charles spoke of his ‘darling grandmother’ who had served ‘this ancient land with panache, style and unswerving dignity’ while the Queen spoke of her ‘beloved mother’, eliding mother and country gracefully together.