From the Windsors, a Down-Home Royal Bash

By Pico Iyer

Listen! The London air is sweet with jubilation. Few cars this day, and no Klaxons in the central part of town. Just bells pealing gaily and the sound of horses prancing in unison along the Mall. A great fanfare of trumpets arises from Westminster Abbey, and the stirring chords of Elgar resound through the vaulted nave. Then a hush. Through the breath-held stillness, two voices ring out. "I will." "I will." And then a great roar from outside, and rising above the spellbound listeners, beautiful and light, an aria by Mozart, and then another.

Later, an antiphony. Tens of thousands gather in the streets and break into a good-humored chorus of "Why are we waiting?" though some have waited for two nights or more and would not think of quitting now. A handsome couple appear on a balcony above. "Give us a kiss!" calls out the crowd, and the playful pair cup hands to ears as if they do not follow. Then, obligingly, they kiss. That morning the toothy young lieutenant and the bonny red-headed publishing assistant awakened as Prince Andrew, second son of Queen Elizabeth II, and Sarah Margaret Ferguson. That night the two 26-year-olds went to sleep as husband and wife and, thanks to a wedding-gift title from Her Majesty, Duke and Duchess of York. Five years ago, when Prince Charles took Lady Diana Spencer for his wife, the occasion was rich with fairy-tale solemnity. As the heir to the throne exchanged troths with a bashful girl just past her teens, it seemed that Prince Charming rode with Sleeping Beauty in a coach of glass. When Charles' younger brother and Diana's fourth cousin wed last week, it was a jollier occasion, a larkish high-society romance scripted by P.G. Wodehouse. No foreign heads of state were present, and no national holiday was declared. Instead, the abbey was full of family and friends, there to celebrate Queen and country and witness the perfect match of two frolicsome young people. The < royal family are royals, and that is the secret of their magic; but they are also a family, and that is the essence of their charm.

The pageantry was, in a sense, just business as usual. But last week's peerless one-acter also marked a new spirit in the productions of the Windsors, the royal repertory company that takes the country as its national theater and itself as its subject. Horseplay was on show as much as horsemanship, and high spirits sometimes got the better of high style. Here was the first great spectacle graced with the trendified traditionalism of the second generation, the young royals. Even the Queen forsook her trademark bucket-size handbag for a small clutch that could have been borrowed from Daughter-in-Law Di. The royals know how to follow trends, it seems, as well as how to set them.

Final preparations for the sovereign display began before dawn, as crack marksmen took up their positions on the rooftops and security men disguised themselves as bewigged footmen. By 10 a.m. the first of the 1,800 guests began taking their seats in the abbey. First Lady Nancy Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were in attendance, along with Opposition Leaders Neil Kinnock, David Owen and David Steel. So too were Actor Michael Caine, TV Host David Frost and Singer Elton John, sporting purple glasses and a ponytail.

As some 250,000 well-wishers waved their greetings, a parade of five carriages traveled to the abbey. Inside were familiar veterans of the traveling company: Prince Edward, his brother's "supporter" (best man, in common parlance), and the Queen Mother, Prince Philip, Princess Anne and little Prince William. After the country's first family took its place on the high altar, across from "Fergie's" glamorous mother Susan and her second husband, the Argentine polo ace Hector Barrantes, the final carriage in the procession, the gold-black-and-burgundy Glass Coach, pulled up outside. As trumpets sounded and thousands roared, out stepped the Titian-haired bride, royal in her carriage and radiant in her flowing ivory satin gown and 17 1/2- foot train. By her side stood her proud father, "Major Ron," Prince Charles' polo manager.

For all the splendor of the pageantry, however, the ceremony never lost a sense of down-home majesty, best caught perhaps by the four tiny bridesmaids dressed like floral sylphs and the four small pages clad in naval costumes. The eldest, Princess Anne's son Peter Phillips, 8, did a game job of managing both his troops and the bride's train, but the show stealer was Prince William, 4. During the 45-minute ceremony, he played on the cord of his hat like a fakir's apprentice, wrapping the string around his nose and chewing it like a licorice stick. Undaunted by baleful stares from his mother and grandmother, he pulled out his miniature ceremonial dagger and began poking holes in the dress of Diana's niece Laura Fellowes, 6. When his victim wagged a finger of rebuke, the second in line to the British throne trumped her with a silent, but definitive Bronx cheer.

That spirit of grand informality could not be kept down. After the 240-lb., five-decker cake had been cut at the palace, the couple went out again into the streets, riding through the brilliant afternoon in an open landau. As the irrepressible Prince William ran toward the carriage, an unusually fleet- footed Queen hurried to retrieve him. Meanwhile, on their joyride, the couple's unlikely chaperone was a gift from the royal family, a four-foot-tall teddy bear. At the back of their carriage, under a home made replica of a satellite dish, was a message that advised, PHONE HOME.

That almost bumptious sense of lese majeste had been established at the outset of the courtship. Though the couple first met on a polo field when both of them were four, their romance was sparked not by a sudden glance or even a heartfelt declaration but, well, by a profiterole actually. The cupid's confection came into play at Ascot last year, when a boisterous Andrew put his arm around Fergie and tried to stuff the cream-filled cake into her mouth. The girl who last week vowed to obey him winged the pastry back at his royal person.

Thus the japery continued. A week before the wedding Fergie and her close friend and matchmaker, Diana, dressed themselves up as policewomen. Then they stole into Annabel's, a favorite haunt of London's young rich, and giggled at their secret over champagne before vanishing into the night. Not exactly Henry V slipping into disguise to mingle with the troops on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, but when it comes to rallying spirits, it seemed just as good.

Andrew has always been the imp perverse of the royal household, placing whoopee cushions around "Buck House" and once, the story has it, sprinkling itching powder in his mother's bed. The "Randy Andy" of the tabloids cavorted with beauty queens, topless lovelies and such unsuitable consorts as ( Koo Stark, the American soft-porn star. Beneath all the headlines, however, was a boyish loner who sometimes seemed a little lost. After three months of hard combat in the Falklands war in 1982, the young prince spoke movingly of the fear he felt while crouching on the wet carrier deck as missiles screamed overhead. An amateur photographer, Andrew once described the theme of his work as "loneliness."

What he really needed, many friends thought, was a good common-sense girl. Enter Fergie. Though a commoner, the bouncy, Rubenesque young lady hails from the thoroughbred set so close to the court that it seems like almost part of the family. Like many of her class, the duchess went from a fashionable boarding school to secretarial and cooking schools where most of the skills taught are social. But unlike the shy and sheltered Diana, Fergie has seen something of the world, including liaisons with a self-described "ski bum" and a playboy motor-racing consultant 22 years her senior. Still, as last week's TV coverage displayed, she has genuine poise and a bubbly, pleased-to- meet-you good nature that will serve her well in her role in Windsor Inc. ("We're not a family," King George VI once remarked, "we're a firm.")

Indeed, in its new junior partner, the multinational firm has once again revealed its skill at recruiting fresh female talent. The blushing Lady Diana of five years ago is now a global symbol of glamour. The new Duchess of York is a perfect counter-Diana, a feisty young lady sure of her own resources. After enduring months of barbs in the press for her jerry-built wardrobe and ample hips, she silenced critics with a wedding dress that was properly grand and frankly flattering to her figure.

Soon enough, her public mettle will be tried anew. When the honeymooners return from a five-day cruise through the Azores, including an overnight stay near the island of Pico, they will eventually move into Buckingham Palace. Within a few months, Andrew is scheduled to start teaching courses in helicopter warfare to navy personnel. Sarah hopes to continue working at a graphic-arts firm, where she is just completing a coffee-table book on the Houses of Parliament. But both may have to give more time to the family business.

That is a job that still inspires resentment as well as reverie. PARASITE MARRIES SCROUNGER, shouted a 1 1/2inch headline in the Socialist Worker. Even the august Times lamented on its front page "an unavoidable flavor of ; schmaltz." When the special day arrived, however, such complaints seemed beside the point. As the sun broke through the clouds on cue, and as the air was silvered with tintinnabulation, it seemed more fitting to recall the lovely raptures of Edmund Spenser in his own Epithalamion, or wedding song, written in the age of another Queen Elizabeth:

Let no lamenting cries, nor doleful tears,

Be heard all night within nor yet without.

Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears,

Break gentle sleep, with misconceived doubt.

He might have added:

Let all bells peal

In honor of one fantasy that's real.

With reporting by Mary Cronin/London