‘No crowds’: Embarassing Prince William moment caught on camera

A day out for the Prince of Wales has resulted in startling scenes that should have the palace and the royal family seriously cringing.

It really takes something to cause an involuntary wave of sympathy for a royal prince with a multibillion-dollar trust and four houses and a wife who is one hug away from being beatified.

So, meet Something.

Or maybe it should be Somewhere, with the Scottish city of Aberdeen having put on quite the astonishing reception for the arrival of Prince William. (Or the Duke of Rothesay, as he’s known north of the border).

The poor chap, said with a good chunk of tongue firmly wedged in cheek. Oh dear.

Generally, it’s his brother Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex who is on intimate terms with the most Bolshevik-red of ruby faces but today, it’s the prince’s turn.

William weaves his way through the crowds of well wishers in Aberdeen #WorkShyWilly#BillyIdle#PrinceWilliam#RoyalFamily#RoyalCharity#WillyWashing#Greenwashingpic.twitter.com/tqCPlWW5Cy

— #NotMyKing (@NoKingCharlie) September 19, 2024

Imagine for a moment you are the next King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. (Don’t worry about your hairline, you’re working on a beard).

You have been raised under the vaulted ceilings of the most rarefied palaces in the world and under the watchful eye of Rembrandts in the nursery. You have been prepped for a thousand-year-old throne since you were old enough to throw a solid silver rattle at a cowering footman.

Videos from William's trip to Aberdeen make for such cringey viewing that the British Republican movement must have gone weak-kneed with pleasure.

You have dedicated your life to The People and to Duty and Service and to the random grandiose application of capital letters and you have put in place the most radical modernisation plan in decades.

Presidents and prime ministers and Bill Gates readily take your calls and Tom Cruise keeps suggesting a mano-a-mano motorcycling trip around the Grand Canyon with only one sleeping bag.

So one day you turn up in a bit of the UK generally overlooked by pollies and where a change of bin night is probably breaking news, and you put on a nice suit and the local police turn out and Fleet Street photographers are poised and … not one member of the public appears to have specifically come out to see you.

Not one.

No crowds thronging streets and no reason in the least for anyone needing to get the barricades out.

There was no reason to get the barricades out. Picture: X

Poor William does not need to imagine any of this.

Unfortunately for Kensington Palace, videos from his trip to Aberdeen on Thursday to thank the city’s homelessness organisations make for such cringey viewing that the British Republican movement must have gone weak-kneed with pleasure.

In one clip, he exits his Range Rover to what appears to be a largely empty street and what sounds like two people casually chatting to him: “Hello prince” and “Hi William, hiya”. The moment has the tenor of lifelong neighbours nattering over a back fence. (The Black Prince must be rolling over in his grave. And to think there was a time when kings were seen as having been personally chosen by God).

In another video, the 42-year-old is seen briskly arriving at another location on foot with only one backpack-sporting aide by his side. Again, aside from two stray passers-by, not a single Scot would seem to have turned up to actually see him.

Prince William is greeted by members of the public as he arrives in Aberdeen

William is in the Granite City to thank the homelessness sector and hear about their work pic.twitter.com/VkTAwPENsg

— Northsound News (@northsoundnews) September 19, 2024

(Keep in mind here that Aberdeen is only about an hour away from Balmoral, so you’d think there might be at least some sort of contact monarchical sentiment to bank on).

This bleak view of zero crowds is not quite the picture you would see if you took a peek over at William and Kate, the Princess of Wales’ official social media accounts, where bouncy clips from the away day show him bounding down the stairs of a plane and giving an inspiring speech.

Full credit to the most stalwart pro-palace sorts on X, formerly Twitter, who were quick to argue that today’s videos are proof positive of what an unaffected chap William is, so down to earth and unsullied by the titles and trappings of royalty. (Quick, someone cue up Salt-N-Pepa’s Whatta Man).

Kudos for such valiant spinning, but it’s hard to not read these videos in the diametrically opposite way. That the prince flew more than 1000km from his home at pretty much the other end of the entire country, and no diehard monarchists or slightly bored, how-about-a-day-out pensioners or even more than a couple of mildly curious onlookers bothered to hang around to catch a glimpse of the next King.

William was in Aberdeen to thank the city’s homelessness organisations. Picture: Kenny Elrick/Pool/AFP

Surely even the most sturdy of egos and ids would have to take something of a hit when faced with such an apathetic reception.

What these videos lay bare is that while William might enjoy high approval ratings (75 per cent of Brits have a favourable view of him as of last week), he does not spark the same emotional response in the masses as his wife, or his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales or even his brother.

If Kate had been with William in Aberdeen too this week, I highly doubt we would be seeing these sorts of wide open and empty footpaths and streets untroubled by jostling, cheering multitudes. There would have been kids and flowers and iPhones held aloft for selfies and videos excitedly shared to regional Facebook pages of the princess.

But William on his lonesome? Just William? There is lacklustre and then there is this.

Kate pulls a crowd wherever she goes. Picture: Toby Melville/Pool/AFP

For now, all of this is just an interesting morsel to contemplate, but this could have much broader ramifications when the day comes that he accedes to the throne.

Anyone who takes the permanence of the British monarchy as a given just needs to ask the French, Italians, Russians, Portuguese, Germans, Greeks, Serbians, Montenegrans and Hungarians who have all done away with their crowned heads of state. Centuries, even millennia of history are no guarantee that the shiny, gilt edifice will actually endure.

In the 1930s, American poet Carl Sandburg wrote, “Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come”. What happens if the Windsors gave us a monarchy and nobody really cared?

Thank god then for Kate; thank god then for commoner women coming to the crown’s rescue and thank god then that no one seems to pay that much attention to the goings on in Aberdeen.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles

Originally published as ‘No crowds’: Embarassing Prince William moment caught on camera