‘Serious problem brewing’: Sweet Wimbledon photos reveal looming crisis for Kate and William
The Princess of Wales has made her first appearance at the famous tournament – but there could be trouble brewing.
COMMENT
You have to wonder what the St John’s ambos stationed at Wimbledon actually do.
Contend with Pimm’s-related tripping incidents? Manage dangerous spikes in blood sugar after vast quantities of strawberries and cream have been gobbled up? Deal with accidental umbrella-poking traumas when it inevitably rains?
After all, the famed tournament – which manages to combine rippling muscles with crumpled linen, raw sporting hunger with British politesse and a spot of well-mannered clapping – is hardly much of a danger zone.
Except, that is – pause for dramatic effect – if you are a member of the royal family.
Because for years now, the tennis love-in has been the setting for intriguing scenes that have often gone on to carry far greater significance.
Go back to the shots of Kate, the Princess of Wales and her sister-in-law Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex in 2018 and 2019, and even a former professional actor and an experienced HRH couldn’t quite pull off the attempt to play pally.
Even back then, at a time when Kensington Palace was desperately peddling the ‘EVERYTHING’S FINE!’ line about the two royal brothers and their wives, said womenfolk’s appearance at Wimbledon did nothing to quell the growing feud chatter.
The signs of trouble were there at Wimbledon.
So are we going to see the same thing play out this year?
Overnight on Wednesday, Kate made the first of her usual several trips to the tournament, doing her level best to make a $3705 Balmain blazer look like something from the Whistles sales rack.
Look at the photos of her and she is just doing her usual poised, kinda dull future Queen turn. Kate showed up, made Olympic-level small talk, cheerfully contended with the rain and didn’t once demand a break so she could neck champers in a back room with her trusted right-hand woman, Natalie Barrows.
But looking at the shots of the Princess of Wales, what will set this Wimbledon apart is who she chooses to attend with her – specifically if Princess Charlotte turns up.
Stay with me here.
Last weekend, her brother Prince George was trundled along to Lord’s by his father Prince William to watch the Australians trounce the English, an outing that saw the kid become the only primary schooler in history to eat pizza while ignoring the UK’s Prime Minister.
This is just the latest in a string of sporting outings that the prince and princess have taken their son to in recent years, including watching the semi-final and then later the final of the Euro 2020 which was actually held in 2021, an England versus Wales rugby match in 2022, Wimbledon last year, and then in April this year, an Aston Villa match.
The thing to note here is that it has been George and only George who has been ‘treated’ to these particular days out. (Outings during which he is normally forced into some mini suit like a tiny accountant having an away day).
Charlotte is currently eight years old – around which age George was flying the flag for Great Britain at his first major national sporting matches. (Okay, so in 2019, Charlotte was taken to a Villa game with her father, mother and brother, but we have never seen this repeated and that was a private outing).
If we don’t start to see Charlotte make her debut at a similarly global and official outing in the next few weeks, then it will look like there is a serious problem brewing. Yuge in fact.
Because if we were to see, say, only George next week at Wimbledon and not his sister too, it would start to look like a horrible replay of heir versus spare, the first and second class treatment afforded to William and Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex.
Read Harry’s Spare, and it is clear that one of the deep-seated wounds in his psyche, and totally understandably so, came from the fact that as a wee HRH, he was always made to feel lesser. His entire sense of self was rooted in what he was not.
Even if he had suffered no further traumas, this childhood wound alone would have been enough to leave serious psychological scars.
If William and Harry, aka the Brothers Grim, had been ruthlessly raised as equals – two boys with robust, whole senses of self founded on who they were as people, not their proximity to the throne, and thus had a much better relationship – would we be where we are today?
It could be argued they would have the emotional fortitude and strength of bond to have found a way to deal with whatever problems they faced as men.
Instead, well, we have one brother trying to make millions by telling the world what a wrong ‘un his brother has been at times.
William and Kate simply cannot let this sort of inequality take hold, because as we have seen, the consequences are disastrous.
If the Waleses fall into the same trap as King Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, then several decades from now, we will have to watch Prince Louis malign older brother Prince George from his new home on the Mars colony.
I dread there coming a day when there are reports that George is having fireside chats one-on-one with his Grandpa Charles, as William did with Her late Majesty when he was a teenager.
I’m sure hours and days of careful instruction about the business of Kinging will be needed, but why not make all three of them undergo the training together? (It would get all of them out of Kate’s hair in one fell swoop if nothing else).
Not only would it prevent the sort of fractures and inequities that have riven William and Harry from forming, but think practically too.
The British royal family tree is full of instances of fate intervening and adults not raised to accede ending up wearing a crown. (Maybe George will just want to move to Mustique to work on his tan and read Lee Child novels and leave Charlotte to rule?)
If the House of Windsor is to make it to the 22nd century and the advent of flying cars (the Royal Flying Saucer could join the Royal Train), then there has to now be a nice long spell of unity.
For the monarchy to work as an institution, the Windsors need to work as a family first, a family who can and will pull vaguely in the same direction and not have years-old bitterness eating away at things.
Which is why we need to see Charlotte spending a precious day of her summer holidays, which start next week, sitting tidily in the Royal Box wearing whatever junior Laura Ashley nightmare Kate has chosen.
We need to see definitive proof that, if George was being taken to high-profile sporting matches at this age, then she will be too; we need to know that William and Kate are not laying the seeds for the next generation to fracture as badly as the current one has.
So keep your eyes peeled.
In the next ten days or so, the real action won’t be on centre court but in the Royal Box.
And hopefully right now, some housekeeper at the Waleses’ Adelaide Cottage is neatly pressing a small floral frock like part of the future of the monarchy depends on it.
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.
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