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These qualities are not universally admired. A trade-union leader told me he did not want "well-intentioned young men like Philip mucking about with industrial relations." At the other side of the political spectrum, the Sunday Express, Lord Beaverbrook's newspaper, tut-tutted at the Duke's interest in this field.

The reasoning behind both attitudes is obvious. Industrial relations are politics. The union movement is the Fourth Estate of the realm, and "royals" should leave them alone.

There is an obvious parallel. The Prince Consort when he died had established himself at the center of national affairs. But for his death, Lytton Strachey wrote, "such a man, grown gray in the service of the nation, virtuous, intelligent, and with the unexampled experience of a whole lifetime of government," would have achieved "an extraordinary prestige."

Disraeli saw the situation in even more positive terms. "With Prince Albert we have buried our sovereign. This German Prince has governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and energy such as none of our kings have ever shown.... If he had outlived some of our 'old stagers' he would have given us the blessings of absolute government."