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The one Queen act that Princess Kate ‘refuses’ to do

It’s synonymous with the royal family but there is one big part of being King and Queen that William and Kate seem to have ruled out.

There is no other building in the world that has housed four Kings, four Queens, 27 princes and princesses, close to 113 international heads of state and Prince Andrew’s 72 teddy bears – really – than Buckingham Palace.

It has a pedigree like no other – 775 rooms, its own lake and ATM – but when the day comes, King William V and Queen Catherine won’t want a bar of it and are reportedly scrap nearly 200 years of tradition and will refuse to move in.

Since 1837, the Palace has been the official London residence of the monarch but the Waleses have already, seemingly, let it be known they have no intention of ever calling the 52-bedroom Palace home.

One of the most famous buildings on the planet now looks set to become the biggest white elephant the royal family has been saddled with since Andrew found himself at a loose end.

It’s been a rocky few years for the old girl.

Since 2017 the Palace has rung with the sound of hammers and saws as it undergoes a $776 million, 10-year renovation. This programme includes everything from replacing the plumbing a fresh-faced 20-something Prince Philip had installed to fixing a leaky glass roof over a priceless trove of Canalettos, Vermeers and Rembrandts.

Because of all this work, so far, King Charles and Queen Camilla have yet to be able to move in there.

However the end is in sight and this week the Palace confirmed the decade-long reno (or in their lingo, “reserviecing”) is on track to finish according to schedule in 2027.

Except now no one wants to live there.

The Royal Family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images
The Royal Family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Already William and Kate seem to be indicating they have no interest in packing their bags when the inevitable day comes.

You might think, golly gosh why? It’s a literal Palace with hot and cold running servants and more Rembrandts per square inch than even the Netherlands can boast. It is the rien ne va plus of opulence and a deeply symbolically-imbued national treasure that befits the head of state.

The reality is though, no one inside the royal family actually likes the Palace that much.

Back in the day, come the end of the working week, Queen Elizabeth and Philip beetled off to Windsor Castle or Sandringham to breathe large sighs of relief over the drinks trolley. In 2020 when the pandemic struck, they decamped to Windsor full-time with a trusted cadre of aides and formed ‘HMS Bubble’. They never moved back to London.

An aerial photo of Buckingham Palace.
An aerial photo of Buckingham Palace.

Then came the accession of Charles in September 2022, but with the renos still ongoing, he and Camilla stayed put at their place, Clarence House, just a short walking distance down The Mall. (Though One takes the State Bentley to travel the 200 metres or so to the Palace where One’s offices are.)

On the King’s coronation day in May 2023, BBC camera crews filmed His Majesty, still in is positively medieval regalia making his way down Palace halls strewn with dust sheets and scaffolding.

(Side note – Charles does work out of the Palace. His private office and communications teams are run out of there and it is where he conducts the business of State and having the Prime Minister around for a weekly cuppa. William would likely do the same.)

What this week’s news confirms is that come 2027, the Palace will be ready to be fully occupied and to have a ready King and Queen occupy the usual private apartments.

Kate just won’t agree. Picture: Odd Andersen/AFP
Kate just won’t agree. Picture: Odd Andersen/AFP

But the old dear faces a very lonely future. Charles and Camilla have signalled they aren’t going to pack up their Lladro dog figurines and bunion pads to trade Clarence House, where they have been for 25 years, for the museum piece.

“I know [the King] is no fan of ‘the big house’, as he calls the palace,” a source has previously told The Times. “He doesn’t see it as a viable future home or a house that’s fit for purpose in the modern world.

Look further down the road and things look even sadder for the fabled building.

Unlike his father who publicly entertained the possibility of one day making the Palace his home, William and Kate aren’t even doing that, seemingly making it clear from this far out it’s a hard pass for them.

William reportedly agrees with his father’s view and thinks “the palace is not suitable for modern family life,” per the Times.

So far, King Charles and Queen Camilla have yet to be able to move in there. Picture: Leon Neal/POOL/AFP
So far, King Charles and Queen Camilla have yet to be able to move in there. Picture: Leon Neal/POOL/AFP

This gels with the blueprint that he and Kate put in place as far back as 2011 when they wed. Just think of it as HMS Normally Normalton. The couple has always tenaciously, and some might argue a tad naively, tried to keep their life as work-a-day as possible – at least for people who travel with gun-toting protection officers to pop down to Asda for a litre of skim milk.

Home for the Waleses is Adelaide Cottage, a four-bedroom home on the Windsor Estate that used to be where Kings stashed their dutiful equerries, not where two future Kings dossed down. So compact, in royal terms, is the Cottage they have no, gasp, live-in staff. Brave stuff.

The prince and princess still religiously share the school run. They are also, reportedly, regularly seen at their kids’ concerts, plays and sporting matches.

Recently, the next King of Great Britain was seen standing poolside at his daughter Princess Charlotte’s swimming gala, holding her sports bag, “just like any other dad,” The Times’ royal editor Roya Nikkhah reported.

It would be a nightmare for them to move here. Picture: Piroschka van de Wouw – WPA Pool/Getty Images
It would be a nightmare for them to move here. Picture: Piroschka van de Wouw – WPA Pool/Getty Images

For the privacy-loving Waleses, having to pack up and move into Buckingham Palace would constitute nightmare stuff. Just to really mash metaphors, it’s the world’s most opulent, gilded fishbowl.

Consider the sheer numbers. It is filled with 800 plus staffers and every summer 300,000 plus tourists pay to tramp through it goggling at all the filigree frou frou and paying $98 for a decidedly average cream tea out the back.

It also, in normal times, hosts 40,000 members of the public at garden parties, 10,500 investiture attendees, and 40,000-plus people for official receptions.

London attracts about 20 million international visitors a year – you would have to think about 19,999,999 go and stand outside the Palace and have a sticky beak.

Imagine trying to live in the middle of that and trying to pop out for a flat white or to attend Prince Louis’ trombone recital.

Imagine trying to live in the middle of that and trying to pop out for a flat white or to attend Prince Louis’ trombone recital. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Imagine trying to live in the middle of that and trying to pop out for a flat white or to attend Prince Louis’ trombone recital. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

(William would, like Charles, have his office there and still use it for doing his public-facing Kinging.)

Which brings us to a multibillion-dollar problem that William will inherit – the number of royal properties will outstrip the number of HRHs to fill them. There will be Highgrove House, Clarence House, the Castle of Mey, Sandringham, Balmoral, Anmer Hall, St James’s Palace, and swathes of the Kensington Palace complex including the properties there currently occupied by 80-somethings the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

(Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s former home Frogmore Cottage is still empty too.)

The public wouldn’t stand for, nor would he consider for a second, filling them with sponging second and third cousins.

Being King is never a piece of cake.

If you want an indication of the direction that William and Kate are taking Crown Inc, look no further than a Colchester hospital this week where the Princess of Wales turned wearing a pair of Veja trainers and talked about her feelings.

Now that is an activity I’d wager that no one has ever attempted inside Palace walls.

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

Originally published as The one Queen act that Princess Kate ‘refuses’ to do

Read related topics:Prince AndrewQueen Elizabeth

Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/the-one-queen-act-that-princess-kate-refuses-to-do/news-story/bf8507ea83d457e0fa8a65eecbf86dee