Royal Fairy Tale Ending?

Maybe the real question Britain faces is: Is it time to ditch this creaky old monarchy altogether?

Lately, each installment of the royal drama is more like a daytime soap opera, the Windsor Sagas.

The timing is less than auspicious, what with public attitudes toward the royal family, with the notable exception of Queen Elizabeth II herself, already ranging from pity to apathy to disgust. (The last apparently returned by Charles, given his sotto voce criticism of "bloody people," when reporters had the temerity to bother him at a photo opportunity while he was out skiing with his sons in the Alps last week.)

Today's nuptials of Charles to his first love and longtime paramour, Camilla Parker Bowles, have foes of the monarchy salivating. Marked by a string of tribulations ranging from Diana's ghost (just a figurative one, although the tabloids may be able to scare up a sighting) to being double-booked with the pope's funeral, the match has been called star-crossed, a fiasco, jinxed and cursed.

Far from any real importance, critics argue, the 1,200-year-old English monarchy that emerged back when Saxons were axing Vikings is an anachronism in a democratic country. And this one, they say, exists mainly to feed the tabloids and satisfy tourists who pass before Buckingham Palace each day snapping pictures and snapping up postcards.

After 53 years of stoic devotion to her duties on the throne, the queen still enjoys esteem and affection, although most Britons might agree that the family she raised is fairly dysfunctional. (But then again, whose isn't?)

But what about the generations that follow?

"It's time to end the royal farce," says Graham Smith, coordinator for a group, Republic, that wants to scrap the monarchy and give Britain a president or another head of state for ceremonial purposes. "There is an alternative."

But Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, says, "The hard core of the British and Commonwealth populations still want a monarchy." He confesses to a little self-interest here.

For royalists, there will always be a sovereign on the throne, just as there will always be an England. Or as Shakespeare put it: "This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, this earth of majesty,