The premise that everyone, especially Shakespeare, believed in a divine monarchy is part of the deep conservatism of Tudorland.Richard II is the only lineally legitimate English king in Shakespeare’s history plays, and he is created as a murderer and thief, like his nobles. When Richard II was performed as a warm-up before Essex’s rebellion, Londoners were expected to applaud Bolingbroke’s deposition of Richard. Elizabeth got the point, as usual: “Know ye not I am Richard?”Shakespeare gives his kings parodic doubles, who undercut the divine-right rhetoric. Like some of his contemporaries, he could see through 16th-century constructions of monarchy and femininity.

The providers and consumers of Tudorland haven’t seen through them yet. Against the odds, there is a largish general readership with an admirable capacity for absorbing scholarly detail. It is not well served by publishers cynically recycling the old kings-and-queens narratives.. This month, about 200 British travellers will return to the UK carrying a potentially fatal disease On average, one or two will die.

On average, one or two will die.
Malaria has long been a fact of travelling life. Yet the existence of this mosquito-borne parasite, and the absence of an infallible means of prevention, does not deter millions of British holidaymakers from travelling to tropical destinations where this “killer bug” resides.The panic among travellers over Sars is of a different order. Hong Kong has, in effect, been wiped off the map as a tourist destination, and its “home town” airline, Cathay Pacific, faces economic difficulties. A week ago it offered flights from London to all its Australasian destinations for a flat £400 plus tax and a modest margin for the agent. Even though the World Health Organisation says changing planes in Hong Kong is safe, there have been few takers.Cathay Pacific is more exposed than any other carrier to travellers’ fears about Sars but almost all have been affected. The prospect of war in Iraq hovered for so long that airlines were able to prepare for the downturn in traffic that accompanied the hostilities.

Travel industry veterans looked forward to the fall of the regime in Baghdad as the trigger for a rush of bookings, as happened after the Gulf War in 1991.Sars has upset that prediction. The virus has jeopardised the business plans of luxury hotel chains, budget hostels, tour guides and guidebook publishers. Whispers are rife about the financial health of various airlines, tour operators and cruise lines.On Wednesday, American Airlines’ financial results revealed it had been losing £100 per second in the first quarter Air Canada looks increasingly vulnerable, too. It recently sought protection from its creditors while it finds a way to stem its losses.Now that Toronto has been added to the WHO blacklist, traffic to and from Air Canada’s biggest market is certain to fall, plunging the airline into more gloom.Fortune has been doubly cruel to Canada.