This article originally appeared in the Sept. 19, 1997, edition of U.S. News & World Report.

In Britain, where several hours a week of prime-time television are devoted to soap operas, millions of people relish the ups and downs of familiar but fictional figures that populate the likes of EastEnders and Coronation Street. But the British public's patience with a monarchy afflicted by a host of real-life frailties is clearly growing thin.

Barely 48 hours after Princess Diana was buried on an island on her family's estate, fresh charges of petty spitefulness had the royal family squirming anew. The Channel 4 TV network reported that in the week between Diana's death in Paris and her funeral in Westminster Abbey, nasty feuds--pitting Queen Elizabeth II against her son Prince Charles and Diana's family, the Spencers--raged over how the palace should mourn and bury the woman whom Prime Minister Tony Blair, on the day she died, called "the people's princess." Even in death, Diana's ability to rock the monarchy to its foundations remained undiminished--indeed, enhanced. As a result, Britain's 1,000-year-old throne is teetering, perhaps not on the brink of extinction but surely on the precipice of change.

The network report, though denied by all parties, was clearly believed by much of the public, partly because it came from a respected journalist, Jon Snow, and was picked up by mainstream dailies. The prime minister's intervention, it said, was required to get the queen to agree to a public funeral with royal trappings. The charges underscored the sense of alienation between the monarch and her subjects. Anger toward the royal family had crescendoed the previous week when the grieving nation widely perceived Buckingham Palace's silence as aloofness, until the queen issued a statement five days after Diana died. The hostility capped years of public irritation over the foibles of the house of Windsor.

Some sort of swift alteration in the workings of the royal family now seems unavoidable. Blair said as much before meeting with the queen the day after the funeral. "I personally think that the monarchy is a tradition which we want to keep," he told the BBC. "But the monarchy adapts and changes and will change and modernize with each generation."

Allies. The prime minister placed himself clearly in the corner of the heir to the throne, Charles, opining that the prince of Wales would make a good king. Relations between the two men have been good ever since Blair and his Labor Party routed the Conservatives in May. Downing Street has even pegged Charles as a progressive. Nevertheless, he faces a questionable future. In some respects, the 48-year-old prince cut a sympathetic figure during the period of mourning. The grief etched on his face after his ex-wife's death was plainly heartfelt. His public appearances with their sons, William, 15, and Harry, 13, could not help but tug at the nation's heartstrings. Although their divorce last year was at times bitter, even Diana's camp stresses that recent months saw a loving rapprochement between the two.

Yet if fault is to be found in the couple's breakup, the British people tend to place most of it on Charles. Most damaging to his reputation was 1994's admission of adultery with long-time mistress Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana may have forgiven him, but many of her admirers are less magnanimous. "He's a pig," said Sheila Perks, 60, one of many mourners who brought flowers to Kensington Palace, Diana's home. "He thought he could have his mistress, and she [Diana] would be the nice little wifey and produce his heirs." That Charles is somehow culpable for the events ending in her death is a shadow from which he may never emerge.

It's a shadow that will deepen as scores of shrines to Diana are created. Suggestions include a children's hospital, various statues, an eternal flame, even the renaming of London's Heathrow Airport. A charity fund that should grow to tens of millions of dollars is receiving donations faster than they can be counted.

William's turn. For many Britons, the most apt tribute would be to skip a generation in the royal line and make William king. They find in him not only a son who physically resembles his mother but also a youth who has inherited her caring spirit. Sentiment that Charles should eventually step aside for his son is rife. In a Gallup-Daily Telegraph Poll last week, 51 percent of respondents liked that option. The rationale is that the queen at 71 seems robust. And given that her mother is 97, there is a good chance that Elizabeth will reign for many years to come--perhaps until William grows well into manhood.

But royal subjects can't choose monarchs the way voters in republics can elect presidents. Before Parliament would seek his abdication, Charles would have to commit a venal act, explains Ben Pimlott, a political historian at London's Birkbeck College. It is unlikely that Charles would voluntarily give way, Pimlott adds, if for no other reason than he is keen to be king.

There was some comforting news for the royals. The Gallup Poll found 71 percent want to retain a monarchy; another survey pegged support at 73 percent. Scandals and missteps may have dented the crown, but, as Pimlott notes, "there is no popular demand for getting rid of the monarchy."

The queen is not indifferent to change. Urged on by Charles a year ago, she created the Way Ahead Group to consider ways to revamp the monarchy. Earlier in this decade, she agreed to pay taxes and trim the rolls of royals entitled to annual payments.

The 71 percent of Gallup respondents who want a monarchy say it should be "more democratic and approachable." Among recommendations on how to accomplish that: Charles should encourage his sons to pursue professional careers, overly formal palace protocol should be dropped, the queen should mix more regularly with her subjects. A Blair advisory group suggests that she and Prince Philip embark on a round-the-world goodwill mission.