来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年3月13日
Hereditary monarchy is always an accident waiting to happen. A wise monarch reduces the risk of accident. Britain’s Queen has been wise beyond endurance over her long reign in obeying the sole obligation of a non-political head of state, which is to avoid controversy. But she made one big mistake.
世袭君主制总是会发生意外。明智的君主会降低发生意外的风险。英国女王在其长期统治期间，在遵守非政治性国家元首的唯一义务，即避免争议方面表现出了超乎忍耐的智慧。但她犯了一个大错误。
Back in 1969, the Queen gave in to pressure from her husband, Prince Philip, to modernise the monarchy. The decision was made to validate hereditary monarchy as a “royal family”, and present it as such to the world. Cameras were invited into royal residences, to attend royal barbecues and see the teenage royals as “ordinary”. They would gradually take on public duties. Monarchy was to become a collective enterprise.
1969年，女王屈服于丈夫菲利普亲王的压力，让君主制现代化。这个决定是为了让世袭君主制成为一个“王室家族”，并将其呈现给世界。摄影师们被邀请到王室住所，参加王室烧烤，并将年轻的王室成员视为“普通人”。他们将逐渐承担起公共职责。君主制将成为一个集体事业。
Of course the royals were not ordinary, but from then on their slightest doings became the subject of national and international attention. No other European royal family took Britain’s monarchical route to A-list celebrity. This path was not only unnecessary, it was high-risk. The sleeping dogs of republicanism are best left to lie undisturbed. A photograph, a gossip, a nudge or kiss is now instant front-page news.
当然，王室成员并不普通，但从那时起，他们的一举一动就成为了全国乃至全世界关注的焦点。没有其他的欧洲王室家族像英国王室一样成为一线名人。这条路不仅没有必要，而且风险很大。共和制这条沉睡的狗最好让它安静地躺着。一张照片，一条小道消息，一次轻推或一吻，现在都是即时的头版新闻。
None of this had anything to do with the roles and duties of the monarch, let along with government – though try telling that to Americans, for whom the British monarch is like a president. To be fourth, fifth or sixth in line to the throne is a meaningless job. Yet the policy was to harness the influence of celebrity to enhance the constitutional status of monarchy. The policy was a bad mistake.
这一切都与君主的角色和职责无关，更别提政府的职责了——尽管你要试着告诉美国人，对他们来说，英国君主就像总统。成为王位的第四、第五或第六顺位继承人是一项毫无意义的工作。然而，这项政策是利用名人的影响力来提高君主的宪法地位。这项政策是一个严重的错误。
As the 19th-century journalist and writer Walter Bagehot famously pointed out, Britain is in reality a republic pretending as a monarchy. Hereditary succession makes sense in a democracy only by retaining public support. The British crown has been unsteady when a monarch has appeared to step out of line with public opinion, as when James II took the throne as a Catholic, or when George IV disappeared from view or Edward VIII planned to marry a divorcee.
正如19世纪记者兼作家沃尔特•白芝浩所指出的著名观点，英国实际上是一个伪装成君主制的共和国。世袭制只有在保持公众支持的情况下才有意义。当一位君主似乎与公众舆论脱节时，比如詹姆斯二世以天主教徒的身份登上王位，或者乔治四世从公众视野中消失，或者爱德华八世计划与一位离异女子结婚，英国君主的王位就会变得不稳定。
To force an entire cohort of “minor royals” to this cause was always going to be unfair to the point of cruelty. Most European monarchs seem desperate to help their children live normal lives. They do not force them – and pay them – to be daily in the public eye as colonel of this regiment and patron of that charity. British royals are like Louis XIV’s aristocrats, locked up in Versailles, enduring an exquisite form of torture.
强迫一群“小王室成员”参与这项事业总是不公平的，甚至到了残忍的地步。大多数欧洲君主似乎非常想帮助他们的孩子过上正常的生活。他们并没有强迫他们——也没有付钱给他们——每天以这个团的上校和那个慈善机构的赞助人的身份出现在公众的视线中。英国王室成员就像路易十四的贵族一样，被关在凡尔赛宫，忍受着精致的折磨。
Prince Charles is known to want a “slimmed down” royal family. That is insufficient. He should dispense with it altogether. He should dismantle it as an official entity of state. He should guard his son and heir and tell the rest that, after a painful transition, they are on their own. They can do anything they like. If monarchy is to survive at all, as an unobjectionable symbol of statehood, it should concentrate all its efforts on one goal: being boring.
众所周知，查尔斯王储想要一个“瘦身”的王室。但这还不够。他应该完全放弃王室。他应该将其作为国家的官方实体予以解散。他应该保护他的儿子和继承人，并告诉其他王室成员，在痛苦的过渡之后，他们只能靠自己了。他们可以做任何他们喜欢的事。如果君主制作为国家地位的一个无可非议的象征要生存下去，它就应该把所有的努力都集中在一个目标上：变得无聊。