As a republican, I'm in agreement with Timothy Garton Ash about the position of royalty in the modern world (Comment, 28 April). There is no contradiction between being a republic and having a monarchy. Tom Paine wrote that a republic could have a king or queen so long as there was a constitutional basis to the position of the monarch. He also wrote that the real reason the French revolutionaries executed their king was that he refused to accept any constitutional restraint on or definition of his powers. What we would need to do is to bring the whole business out into the open. Start by abolishing the privy council and the royal prerogative. Then ensure that sovereignty resides with the people in parliament. If we ended up with a ruler like Juan Carlos of Spain, then we'd have a good deal.
Tony Green
Hebden Bridge
• Timothy Garton Ash asks: "Should a democracy have a King Wills and Queen Kate? You can do worse." As a person who works with people affected by poverty, I am astounded that Garton Ash states all the right facts – ie about the high level of private schooling in the UK, about the high levels of poverty etc – but draws all the wrong conclusions. The monarchy is indeed "the apex of an oppressive pyramid of class and privilege", and while it may seem to Garton Ash that this is "much less true than it was 30 years ago", he should get out there and talk to people from beyond his own socioeconomic grouping. He might be very surprised.
Majella Anning
London
• Tourists may not go "to Berlin to watch them changing the guard", but they certainly visit Versailles in their thousands. And let's not forget the Tower of London is far more popular than Buckingham Palace.
Ian Sinclair
London
• Stephen Bates' reasoned and sane article on Prince William ('He's just a regular guy', 26 April) contrasts with the articles written by some of your female staff, who, it seems, were once little girls who dreamed of marrying a prince, but didn't – so now they're going to vent their spleen on the girl who is about to. Criticisms of Catherine Middleton include the way she wears her hair, her choice of clothes, the fact that she attended an independent school, that she's old-fashioned. There are always vicious, smug references to her parents as "self-made millionaires". It's schoolyard bullying taken to a new level.
Robert Jones
Caernarfon, Gwynedd
• Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the wonderful Not the Royal Wedding (G2, 27 April) – had me crying with laughter into my muesli!
Sue Pearlman
Radlett, Hertfordshire
• Amid the rampant publicity, the still small voice of morality and propriety remains silent. Those who should have spoken out have failed to do so. The Baptist, Roman Catholic and Evangelical churches have little in common except their stand against prenuptial sex. The white dress of the bride carries a tradition of virginal purity. These two young people have been living together shamelessly for many months. The young man will eventually become head of the Church of England – thereby carrying on the disgraceful example of his father. The silence of the C of E does not surprise me, as it has drifted so far from the principles of morality left to us by Jesus Christ.
Dr Audrey Matheson
Ross on Wye, Herefordshire
• William has made it widely known that he wants "a life like grandma", referring to her quiet married life. The sedentary life of the queen can be attributed in part to her continued adherence to the main principle that governs her position – neutrality in politics. The exclusion of former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from the royal wedding – while former Conservative prime ministers John Major and Margaret Thatcher were invited – deviates totally from this. William has indelibly marked his royal milestone with politics, and appears to be more like his gaffe-prone grandpa.
Tracy Wooldrige
Gloucester
• Today is the 112th anniversary of the birth of Edward Kennedy Ellington, and my American friends are overjoyed that the UK has declared it a public holiday. Members of the Duke Ellington Society of the UK (DESUK) will celebrate by playing some of his 3,000 compositions. Royalists may reach for The Queen's Suite, inspired by Ellington's meeting with the young Queen Elizabeth at the 1958 Leeds music festival. Meanwhile this republican will play The Goutelas Suite, written after Ellington was invited to open the restored Château de Goutelas, in the Loire, as a humanitarian arts centre. Then, in recognition of the national celebrations, we might all select Duke's exultant civil rights 1941 musical revue Jump for Joy.
Peter Caswell
Chairman, DESUK
• As the Metropolitan police have said people protesting against the royal wedding could be arrested under the Public Order Act, perhaps your ads for Unroyal Wedding T-shirts should have a warning attached. As people who wish to abolish the monarchy are, of course, pro-democracy campaigners, the Met's decision is quite shameful. Perhaps the UK could ally itself with the Arab spring? I like the sound of the Royal Zombie Flashmob organised by Queer Resistance – could the Met confirm if dressing up as a zombie is to be a criminal act?
Richard Smith
Brighton
• Non-royalists will wish every young couple being married on 29 April nothing but future happiness. That said, on that date what better place to visit than the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon?
Peter Glazebrook
Oxford