‘Double-edged sword’: Princess of Wales’ dangerous threat to King Charles revealed
The King might have just gotten a big Scottish celebration – but His Majesty may well need some serious cheering up this weekend.
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COMMENT
Get out the good 18-year-old Laphroaig.
Someone find that favourite Bach cassette that King Charles likes to play on his tape deck. Maybe, just maybe, Queen Camilla is considering buying her husband a new watercolour set that he can take out for a long contemplative session in some remote dell.
Because His Majesty is having a bit of a rotten, no good, very bad week and could do with some serious cheering up.
Oh sure, the crowds turned out in Edinburgh on Wednesday to line the Royal Mile as he received the Honours of Scotland, aka a tartan-lite coronation of sorts.
Aa an added bonus, there was only a handful of fluoro-clad republicans who turned up to slightly sour the pip-pip, pro-regal mood.
The sun came out, Her Majesty managed to find her Order of the Thistle cape in her suitcases under the collection of Lord Peter Whimsy novels she had packed, and the King even got presented with a new sword of state so ornate it looked like it had been nicked from a Game of Thrones reboot.
But the whole thing was still a bit of a damp squib, not least because of one particular ingredient in the mix – the appearance of Kate, the Duchess of Rothesay, as she is known north of the border.
In a grim repeat of what happened after Charles’ actual coronation back in May, the media coverage of his Scottish ceremony was not breathlessly focused on the country’s newish King, but on his glamorous daughter-in-law instead.
The day after the Edinburgh ceremony, of the nine major national newspapers in the UK, only one actually had a photo of His Majesty on the front page – and then it was a group shot featuring him with the Queen, Kate and William, the Duke of Rothesay.
Even after waiting more than 50 years to get the top job, Charles isn’t even getting his spotlight moment.
In case anyone is counting, Kate, meanwhile – done up in a Saltire blue Catherine Walker coat and a strangely shiny Philip Treacy hat – managed to enjoy poll position on two front pages.
Even on what was meant to be an important day for the King, His Majesty is still being eclipsed by the duchess.
Uh oh, spaghetti-o.
The last year has seen not only Charles and Camilla come to grips with their new titles and roles, with Her Majesty learning that the Sceptre of State is a handy way to change the channel while lying prone on a sofa, but the same is true for William and Kate too.
Freshly made the Prince and Princess of Wales only a day after Her late Majesty’s passing, a title bump that was entirely at His Majesty’s discretion and choosing, the couple has also levelled up in the royal game since then. They are not only that much closer to the throne themselves, but their elevation has seen their stature and their star get that much shinier and bigger.
And this is all a dangerous business for William and Kate, because if there is one rule in the royal fight club, it is never outshine and outdazzle the numero uno. Le capo di tutti cap. The bloke who can order a pre-dawn 42-gun salute in the Clarence House back garden to irritate his Russian oligarch neighbours. (Charles stands with Ukraine).
The last 40 years is testament to what a mess things become when various factions inside the royal tent, intentionally or otherwise, eclipse those higher up the line of succession.
Charles famously grumbled when his Disney princess wife Diana attracted adoring crowds by the tens of thousands while he moped about in his beige safari suit.
Come the 90s and the Waleses’ separation, things devolved such that the couple seemed locked in a permanent death match for the public’s hearts and minds.
Then the aughties rolled around and still Charles did not get a real go at being the star, what with Princes William and Harry turning out to be serious bits of all right who fell out of Mayfair nightclubs and got themselves photogenic girlfriends.
The last 12 years of the union of William and the world’s most famous part-time accessories buyer has only seen their star glow brighter and brighter.
For Charles’ entire life, there has always been someone in his family more interesting, more glamorous, more photogenic, or better able to sell newspapers than himself.
His Majesty might have enjoyed better and better approval ratings in recent years and higher and higher favourability with the hoi polloi but still, he was only just part of the ensemble cast of the royal family, never the leading light.
And even now he is King, that has not really changed.
Sure, the crowds that turn out to see him and Camilla for engagements across the UK are impressively large and far better than I would have thought a couple of septuagenarians would draw on, say, a grey Tuesday morning in somewhere like Leeds.
But while he might be the titular headliner, in reality it’s Kate who can really pack ‘em in and who gets people clicking on stories and buying papers.
It’s not exactly hard to work out why – she’s youngish, she’s a stunner and it’s a hell of a lot more interesting looking at whatever style du jour she is experimenting with (corporate chic? Home Counties Barbie? Zara mum-next-door?) than reading about some hardworking bloke in a handmade suit.
While Charles’ job boils down to ensuring the survival of the institution – and therefore anything or anyone who bolsters that is a boon – the situation is more complicated and all far more of a double-edged sword.
His Majesty is a man who is known to have a fairly healthy ego on him.
His own son Harry made the point in his roman-a-biff Spare, writing: “Pa and Camilla didn’t want Willy and Kate getting loads of publicity. Pa and Camilla didn’t like Willy and Kate drawing attention away from them or their causes. They’d openly scolded Willy about it many times”.
Elsewhere he writes of the arrival of Meghan: “What [Charles] really couldn’t stomach was someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him. And Camilla. He’d lived through that before, and had no interest in living through it again”.
None of this is going to change, however, I fail to see Charles suddenly taking an equanimous, c’est la vie approach here.
And if all of this was not enough to leave the King’s spirits flagging, there is more news to put him in dire need of a pre-lunch stiffener.
Just across the North Sea, this week Dutch King Willem-Alexander issued a formal apology for his nation’s role in the slave trade.
Sure, both Charles and Prince William have passionately condemned slavery, with the former having called it an “atrocity” that “forever stains our history”, but they have stopped short of apologising.
The pressure on the King to follow Willem-Alexander’s example is only going to grow and His Majesty – as both the British head of state and as the head of a family who historically profited from the barbaric trade in human life – will have to address this head on at some point.
This is not an if but a when situation, and the longer he leaves it, the more damage it does to Buckingham Palace’s standing at a time when its stance on racial issues has been called starkly into question.
My view: Show some leadership, Your Majesty, for f**k’s sake.
Also in the “going nowhere and can’t be ignored forever” pile is the cash-for-honours scandal that ensnared his Prince’s Foundation charity last year and which felled one of the King’s most trusted and longstanding lieutenants, Michael Fawcett.
This week, the Daily Mail reported that police are considering bringing criminal charges against unspecified individuals. (His Majesty himself has never been accused of any wrongdoing).
At some point, the shoe is going to drop on this one, and I fail to see any good outcome for the King.
Even if no charges are forthcoming, what has been reported by the Times – the substance of which has not been disputed by Charles’ Clarence House office – is damning.
Even if it was for charity, the former Prince of Wales accepting plastic bags full of cash from shady sorts is a terrible look. (The best that can be said here is that at least it was a Fortnum & Mason plastic bag).
Add it all up – a bobby dazzler Kate, the mounting urgency of the slavery situation and the simmering disaster of cash-for-honours – and even before you add in the fact that there is still the prospect of a second Harry book or daughter-in-law Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex writing one, what do you have? A bùrach – which Google reliably tells me is Scottish Gaelic for “mess”.
So you can see why a King, even a hardworking trier of a King who really is dedicated to making the world a much better place, is having a rotten time of it. Why One’s sprits might be flagging. Why One might need Cook to make an extra large Dundee cake to cheer One up or for One’s darling wife to really let loose when she’s mixing their nightly jug of Cosmos.
The King might be ready for his close up – ready for his big moment, ready to be adored, ready to do things his way, ready to be the headliner – but thanks to Kate, thanks to horrors committed centuries ago, and to the fact that he readily took charity cash from a member of the Bin Laden clan (truly) … will Charles ever get a go at leading man status?
Maybe get Cook to make that two extra Dundee cakes.
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 ‘Double-edged sword’: Princess of Wales’ dangerous threat to King Charles revealed
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