What is the public interest in seeing the private parts of princes?
That, as I see it, is the issue behind the latest escapade of Prince Harry, a 27-year-old who's taking rather a long time to grow up.
Then again, why should he be in a rush? His granny won't get off the throne, his daddy still calls her mummy, and whether or not his daddy still wants the job, his brother is next in line.
Harry probably faces a long future of elegant boredom. His country hasn't picked a fight with any other recently, so military service promises no thrills. He needs to let off steam while it's still within him.
And we lesser folk, whose improprieties are confined to such things as fiddling expense accounts or jaywalking, need to know what our Harry is up to.
Some of us need to know to imagine a life of a privileged prince with time on his hands and money in the public treasury. Some of us need to know because we need cause to purse our lips and point our fingers censoriously.
More than that, we have a constitutional attachment to Harry as a member of our Royal Family. Some of us want nothing to do with the Crown any more. Some of us have lost our faith in princes.
But though we've cast off our ties to Westminster, we're still tied to Her Majesty's garter by our Constitution.
The antics of Harry are nothing compared to the conduct of the kings and princes down the ages, as Michael White of The Guardian reminded us last week.
There hasn't been a royal murder for a long time, but sexual shenanigans frequently have cast a pall over, or brightened, the reputation of many a monarch and his or her relations.
An earlier Prince Harry who became Henry VIII is remembered for his repeated coupling in the service of his country more than anything else he did to nourish or brutalize it.
Charles II had his Nell Gwyn, among others. Descendants of her bastard children hold the dukedom of St. Albans today.
Queen Victoria, the only legitimate child of all the heirs of George III, tried to instil prudishness as a national trait. She failed.
Edward VII had a box set aside for his mistresses at his coronation.
Edward VIII lost his crown because of his infatuation with a twice-divorced American with reportedly interesting tastes.
And then there was - is - Harry's father Prince Charles, who started raising eyebrows with a glass of cherry brandy as a 14-year-old and destroyed a fairy-tale marriage with a longing for an old fling.
We know all this because increasingly - until now, anyway - it has been reported by whatever medium available.
It's ridiculous for Charles, with his past indiscretions, to threaten legal action against newspapers for invading Harry's privacy as The Sun did by publishing photos of Harry at a silly "strip billiards" party, especially since they were all over the Internet.
Some say it's just as ridiculous for the newspaper to claim it was serving the public interest in doing so. I don't.
Obviously, members of the public are interested in the antics of those enjoying fame and/or fortune, like entertainers or athletes. But kings and queens, princes and princesses, with public duties are holding public office of a sort.
The public, whom they serve, even if it is simply to open Olympic Games or country fairs, must be able to judge their suitability - just as it must be able to judge the suitability of those elected to public office.
In this country, the "private" affairs of politicians were hidden from public scrutiny until the tragedy of Pierre Trudeau's marriage became part of public debate. 91原创s didn't learn of Mackenzie King's dalliance with spirits until after he'd gone.
When MPs are drunk on duty, we should know. When they're seen running naked through the corridors of power, we should know that, too.
Newspapers can't be cowed, as the British ones seem to be, by the public inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.
They can't abandon their public duty to the voracious, uncritical, unappeasable appetite of the Internet.
