I think this is the best paragraph in Hilary's whole essay:
I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn’t have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren’t they interesting? Aren’t they nice to look at? Some people find them endearing; some pity them for their precarious situation; everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it’s still a cage.
I've thought about this a bit in the past few years and it has made me realise that I am certain I have no interest in being a member of any royal family today and I am also certain in my mind that royals shouldn't hold any power. I also hold a very low degree of interest in current royals, compared to those long gone.
The royals that I am interested in and I respect are people that died a very long time ago. They lived when the monarchy had complete sway, so while you could get the complete crazies and nasties treating people like dirt, you also got amazing, cunning, self-empowered, brilliant people who wanted to improve society and look after their people, like Elizabeth I, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Anne of Brittany, Melisende of Jerusalem, Theodora I (for the purposes of this conversation, I've chosen women because the Mantel/Kate issue has raised a lot of points about the singular, base function of many royal women).
I think in part, because of the scope of royalty has (rightfully) been so limited in modern times, you get a bunch of people on show who from the outside seem rather feckless and inoffensive, and appear even more one dimensional because of their essential uselessness in a era where utility and purpose are emphasised as paramount.
In these long gone times, because of the then-essential nature of royalty and their influence, these people had purpose and of course real, world-shattering drama in their lives, which gives them so much gravitas compared to royalty today, who are reduced to ribbon-cutters, and yes 'mannequins'. Kate's 'crime' is joining herself with a near endangered species, who are only permitted to be aesthetic, and are required in public to be essentially, polite but valueless voids. This is why some people hate her, and yet she is just filling the job description for royalty as it stands today. It's a hard path.
I'm sorry, I've rambled on quite a bit. To lighten the mood, David Cameron after he reads (or has someone explain) Hilary's thesis to him and realises he should have never weighed in on the topic in the first place: