Where does the monarchy go after its second Elizabethan age?

One way to assess where the monarchy might be going in the next reign is to look back on where it came from in the reign now ended.

On April 21, 1926, The Times carried a very small announcement on page 14, between a report on ructions in the German cabinet and another on the progress of the economy bill: “The Duchess of York was safely delivered of a Princess at 2.40 this morning. Both mother and daughter are doing well.”

The baby would go on to become Queen Elizabeth II.

The newspaper that day reflected a secure, stratified society, a Britain that was still imperial and colonial (many column inches were devoted to a raging debate over the existence, or otherwise, of a four-tusked