After three years of theatrical um-ing and ah-ing, the Prince and Princess of Wales have seemingly acceded to the obvious: Prince George is apparently going to Eton. Despite their perennial posturing at being a ‘modern’ royal family (is there such a thing?) there was really only one option. Eton is after all – somewhat paradoxically – the only place capable of offering any semblance of a normal adolescence for George, as well as mentally preparing him for kingship.
To an outsider, this sounds ridiculous. How can prancing around in tailcoats while speaking unique slang (teachers are ‘beaks’; Year 9 is ‘F Block’) have any bearing on normalcy? Yet normal is relative. One of the first things you realise at Eton is that the exceptional is unexceptional. You may have been the best batsman or mathematician at your prep school, but you’ve now got to settle for the C team or second set maths.
Even a sovereign wealth fund can’t help you on a muddy Field Game pitch (an Eton sport crossed between rugby and football where you have to keep running to stay onside) – house sport being the best means of proving your worth. Indeed, what’s a crown compared to getting to wear a natty waistcoat if you’re in Pop (the group of school prefects – see how many words you need to learn)? I’ve never encountered a purer meritocracy where reputation is determined solely by deeds rather than accident of birth. I’m sure George will relish this – a setting in which all your value derives from your own abilities and character. It can hurt at first – no one likes feeling second-rate at their top skills but it’s the best ego-killer going.
Indeed, woe betide anyone who thinks they have intrinsic value by their background. The school is peppered with aristocrats but the only bearing someone’s title has on them is the inconvenience of changing their nickname after it becomes redundant on a relation’s death (moving them up a title and changing their surname). Any arrogance is quickly stamped out. Likewise, treating anyone differently because of their title (or lack thereof) would immediately invite cringe and revulsion, given the tabula rasa attitude all boys share. This can’t be said for sports matches – after all, who wouldn’t want to say they’d launched a crunching tackle on the future king?
The Prince of Wales will also have a much needed break from teaching George about noblesse oblige
The Prince of Wales will also have a much needed break from teaching George about noblesse oblige. They’d never explicitly use such a phrase (they tend to prefer the euphemistic pairing of ‘exceptionally fortunate’ and ‘giving back’) but the sentiment is everywhere at Eton. Each time George goes to college chapel, he’ll walk past boards naming the thousands of Old Etonian soldiers who have died in battle. Duty and sacrifice are baked into the architecture – even passing the statue of Eton’s founder Henry VI you walk on the right-hand side so as to keep your sword hand free. I remember one stalwart English teacher (whose father had been a housemaster there) telling me that if a grenade were thrown through the window in a terrorist attack, it was my assigned duty to jump on it to save everyone else. I think he was only half-joking.
You can’t help but be inculcated with an immense sense of destiny, while remaining humbled by the history. It doesn’t mean you have to be straight-laced – the dome of the School Library for example also has the initials of Ranulph Fiennes and Bear Grylls, carved after clandestine nighttime ascents. Yet there is the overwhelming pressure to do something and be someone. George will therefore not be alone in the feeling of having to live up to one’s predecessors.
There also remain the vestiges of hierarchy – though the current headmaster has done his damnedest to root them out, even ostentatiously (and expensively) abandoning the traditional headmaster’s office for a modern central spot (much akin to Pope Francis’s pricey decision to live in a hostel). Not the fagging and bullying of old, but a benign unspoken system derived from the idea of earning your way up. This is no bad thing for a young prince – everyone needs to experience the bottom rung at least once.
Once in a while, a commentator will yap on about how Eton is an outdated choice, spouting some nonsense about the perils of single-sex education and elitism. Yet hereditary monarchy is itself an outdated and elitist concept, so you have to work with that assumption, not in spite of it. Co-education too is great until every girl in your class begins to daydream about becoming the future queen or a Snapchat video of you in class goes viral. Eton is one of the few schools that can curate an existence where this won’t happen. For all the approbation, it is also a far more modern school than its critics would think. George should have an excellent time there while remaining grounded, and I should hope he follows in the footsteps of one of his relations, who when offered a congratulatory high five by the headmaster, replied: ‘I’m sorry sir but I’d prefer to shake your hand’.
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