As soon as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge came back from their Caribbean Flop Tour, the royal machine was in overdrive to convince themselves that “changes needed to be made,” and those changes were largely going to be superficial. As in, no one is going to reinvent the whole “colonialists on parade” energy of royal tours, but the colonialists will try to be more subdued as they are parading through their “colonies.” We’ve also known for months that the Earl and Countess of Wessex would be going on a Caribbean tour as well, a tour which is scheduled to begin tomorrow, April 22. Sophie and Edward were originally scheduled to visit Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Well, the itinerary was just released and it looks like the Wessexes have removed one country from their tour.
Prince Edward and his wife Sophie Wessex have scrapped part of their Jubilee tour last-minute, it was announced today. Without any explanation as to why it was removed, Grenada has been removed from the list of countries.
The Royals were set to visit Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines from April 22 to 28. But they will no longer visit the country following a “consultation with the Government of Grenada and on the advice of the Governor General.”
In a statement, the Palace added that the couple hope to visit at a later date, but did not confirm a new time.
The Royals jet off tomorrow – and are set to meet communities, local entrepreneurs and craftspeople, and young people on the islands, as they mark the Platinum Jubilee.
I would LOVE to know what Grenada’s governor-general said to the palace! “Don’t send Sophie and Edward here, it’s a colonialist trap!” It sounds more like Grenada’s government was about to give the Wessexes the “Jamaican Special,” aka being called into the prime minister’s office and fired live on camera. Truly, for the Wessexes to cancel one whole leg of the tour, that must mean that the palace is scared sh-tless about what Grenada was going to do.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Instar.
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- North America Rights Only – London, UK -20220329- Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey -PICTURED: Sophie Countess of Wessex -PHOTO by: PA Images/INSTARimages.com Disclaimer: This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact INSTAR Images for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207. This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. INSTAR Images reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded For images containing underage children: Be advised that some Countries may have restricted privacy laws against publishing images of underage children. Inform yourself! Underage children may need to be removed or have their face pixelated before publishing
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- LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 20: Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Prince Edward Earl of Wessex during a visit to the Autumn RHS Chelsea Flower Show on September 20, 2021 in London, England. This year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show was delayed from its usual spring dates due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which also prompted its cancellation last year. Previously, only two World Wars had caused the event’s suspension.,Image: 633059403, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Chris Jackson / Avalon
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- HRH Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, daughter Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor, son James Mountbatten-Windsor, Viscount Severn, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex departs a Service of Thanksgiving for HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London, England, UK on Tuesday 29 March, 2022.,Image: 673801210, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- HRH Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex departs a Service of Thanksgiving for HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London, England, UK on Tuesday 29 March, 2022.,Image: 673801219, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- HRH Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, daughter Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor, son James Mountbatten-Windsor, Viscount Severn, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex attends a Service of Thanksgiving for HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London, England, UK on Tuesday 29 March, 2022.,Image: 673819536, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Sophie, Countess of Wessex attends a Service of Thanksgiving for HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London, England, UK on Tuesday 29 March, 2022.,Image: 673819547, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte, Sophie Countess of Wessex, Lady Louise Windsor, James Viscount Severn and Prince Edward attend the Easter Mattins Service, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, UK – 17 Apr 2022,Image: 683741350, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Veysey/Shutterstock / Avalon
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- Prince Edward attends the Easter Mattins Service, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, UK – 17 Apr 2022,Image: 683760756, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Veysey/Shutterstock / Avalon
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- Sophie Countess of Wessex attends the Easter Mattins Service, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, UK – 17 Apr 2022,Image: 683760769, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Veysey/Shutterstock / Avalon
Side note – why is 18 year old Louise dressed like my grandmother?
And why is Sophie dressed like an IKEA duvet cover?
Sophie usually looks more pulled together and has her hair styled. I wondered if they called people last minute so W&K would have an entourage to walk behind them.
I don’ t think the cut of Sophie’s dress is that bad, she’s worn similar things before, but that pattern is ugly.
equality, I wondered if they were called at the last minute, too. Wasn’t it reported that Chuck would be filling in for TQ? I got shades of the Christmas thing when I saw the picture.
@Becks1, I like the pattern but hate the cut. I was trying to imagine it as a nice blouse or a skirt, but not a full dress. I think it could work.
She’s a cute girl. It would do wonders if she dressed her age. There are 12 year olds with more style than her.
You have to wonder if she doesn’t dress like a typical (wealthy) teenager on her own time. Maybe she dresses like this when she’s with her family and knows she’s going to be photographed so she can hang out with her friends completely anonymously because no one recognizes her in “street clothes.”
My theory is that it’s a combination of Louise herself not being much into clothes and thinking whatever is fine, plus that tthe Wessexes don’t get much money and she has to make do with whatever se can find in her mother’s closet.
Hopefully some of the other countries are going to fire them on camera but didn’t give them warning.
That’s my hope. Grenada showed their cards early.
Yep – I think Grenada was like, “Why spend $ on these idiots when they visit and make everyone pretend like we give two flicks about them with pomp and circumstance and all that garbage…I don’t feel like dressing up for those people – just let them know they’re getting dumped beforehand and be done with it”.
Antigua is supposed to give them a letter asking for reparations.
To the contrary! I hope they go and then do more colonialist racist stuff, offend the world and so they can go down on their own, by their own doing, they are stupid it’s not even funny
If it was just scrapped, then someone from grenada clearly told them “yeah don’t come here.” At this point the schedule is pretty set I would imagine and the events planned etc, so there was definitely something exchanged or shared that made the Wessexes realize avoiding Grenada was best so they didn’t wind up in the same situation as the Cambridges.
No one is interested in the Whey-Faced Wessex Tour, least of all the nations being toured. Maybe stop touring, you thick-headed dunderheads.
Hahahahahahah dunderheads is one of my truely African Father and Uncles favourite insults.
I’m still really shocked they are even going in the first place. One would think after the Flop Tour that the RF needs to stay far away from these colonial tours for a while.
Agreed L84Tea. How was this trip not cancelled right after the flop Cambridge tour?
Yup, I sense they are avoiding a very public break up.
By the by, I hope this gives other members of the commonwealth ideas on how to keep the Windsors out the next time they want to invite themselves over to celebrate the glorious empire. “Great! Come on by! We were hoping to have someone represent the crown so we can fire you to your face!”
Hail Britannia, Britannia rules the waves…
Grenada doesn’t want to spend the money on the Jubbly tour! And lol forever at the palace statement, the Wessexes/RF totally got told point blank WE DON’T WANT YOU.
Makes it harder to pretend that these countries actually invite any of them to come visit. The public version is that the country invites them but we all know the reality is that someone from the UK office contacts the country to tell them to make the invite. And in this case Grenada saw an out after the Cambridge colonialist flop tour.
That totally sounds right to me, someone broke ranks and it has given everyone else an opportunity. The idea that having semi-obscure royals (or any royals) visit is somehow a benefit to a small country is kind of ridiculous. I wonder, too, how much the requirements for them get ramped up as the date gets nearer – like, do these countries commit on a really limited basis and then they are just told “oh well we need this too and you have to do it (and it’s so odd that you didn’t already know that, peasant”)” or similar. I feel like there may be a lot of gaslighting about what the real plan is.
😂😂😂😂😂
I’m so glad Grenada told the Bottom and Beard of Wessex where they could go!
Don’t hold back on your homophobia. You’re so open and honest about being a bigot.
RIGHT lmao. It’s 2022… who cares anymore about the sexual preferences of someone they aren’t actively banging?
Insult them for a million valid reasons if you must. They’re all right there LOL
That’s unnecessarily crude — this has nothing to do with their *private* lives and everything to do with the façade that the BRF does any good for the Commonwealth nations.
There are plenty of valid reasons to criticise the BRF; their sexual orientation, whatever it may be, is not one of them.
@Andie I love the way you put it! 😀
If even this under-the-radar part of a pared down snooze of a “royal tour” got canceled, none of this bodes well. They should NOT be doing this, and certainly not after the Cat 5 Catastrophe Caribbean Tour. There should have been a statement that BP has listened and taken under advisement the temper of the diverse Caribbean (and more broadly Commonwealth) countries, and AT THE QUEEN’S BEHEST determined that visits by the BRF will be postponed for the time being.
^^^ Exactly!
Do these countries even know who the Wessexes are? They’re so far down the line of succession it’s practically an insult. I can’t imagine it getting much coverage, if any, even here (UK).
Very interesting that this decision to scrap Grenada came so late in the day. I would love to have heard what was said in THAT meeting.
I just hope the local people they do meet aren’t expected to perform for these two like circus animals.
It’s so cute of the BM to act like they don’t know why. /s Pretty sure fears of more protests had something to do with it.
https://www.nowgrenada.com/2022/04/urgent-call-for-reparations-for-slavery-hits-home/
If only there were real journalists in the UK ( obviously not amongst the RR ) who could investigate the story further to find out the exact reason why the Grenada leg has been cancelled.
Wow. Thanks for the link. It’s super galling to realize former slave owners were compensated for their loss after abolition. Talk about backwards reparations.
Yesssss, go Grenada!! I had the pleasure of being able to live there for a couple of years while my ex-husband was attending medical school, I STILL miss it to this day and hope to be able to return again at some point.
The “Jamaican Special” lol. I LOVE it! Go Grenada indeed! I may pic my next vacation based on who has true most colorful farewell to the Colonialists!
It’s what Phillip would’ve wanted
Lol. I love it.
Edward: No bother, we’ll just replace Grenada with Kokomo.
Now I’ve got that song in my head!
The Harry story is the distraction – this is the real story, IMO. If this tour goes sideways too – then it’s going to be a full-on mess for the royals.
And with this little bit of news dripping out, there will now be a lot more eyes on these two than there ever have been before which could also cause issues since they aren’t used to being top billing.
This has been in the news I the past 2 days and people in Grenada are justifiably angry-I think they have been told they wouldn’t be welcome.
In the late 18th century Britain’s Caribbean island colony of Grenadas main trade was sugar, coffee and slaves,in the early 1770s the ownership of two plantations and 599 people passed to an unusual new owner: the Bank of England.
The Bank has already apologised for its role in the slave trade, but revelations of the institution’s direct ownership of the people have been uncovered in new research commissioned in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.
The research has been presented in a new exhibition that opened last week at the Bank’s museum in its headquarters on London’s Threadneedle Street. The names of the 599 slaves, acquired by the Bank in the 1770s, take a central position in the free exhibition.
During the protests the Bank apologised for the 25 governors and directors who had owned slaves. According to an article in the Guardian this shocking revelation is one outcome of a research project “led by Michael Bennett, a specialist in the history of early modern Britain and Caribbean slavery, and volunteers from across the Bank of England’s ethnic minorities network.”
Throughout the Bank of England’s Governors Thomas Hankey (1851–1853), John Palmer (1830–1833), collectively owned 772 enslaved people on this island.When slavery was abolished Hankey was compensated an amount that is the equivalent to £14 million.
Thanks Roseberry: the other shoe drops!
Edward and HMTQ are twins, borderline identical. He’s the male version of her; it’s uncanny!
Madge Brenda was pretty when she was young. I recall a People Magazine article circa 1979-1980 that named the royal siblings so that we could get to know them. It was the Pre-Diana age. Edward was called “The Pretty One”
So I’m thinking the rf advisors presented a bill to cover the cost of the tour, and Grenada said, hell no, we won’t pay a single red cent!
The independent is reporting that this cancellation is due to a new report commissioned by the Bank of England which revealed that ownership of two plantations and 599 people was transferred to the financial institution in the early 1770s. The British monarchy supported and profited from the slave trade for centuries. And apparently The Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission – a Government appointed body – will present an open letter calling for slavery reparations to the Wessexes during their visit.
This tour is going to be a disaster. They should just cancel the entire thing.
This piece that you wrote is poetic gold. Love it and hereby will refer to the colonial boot, as the Jamaican Special.
“It sounds more like Grenada’s government was about to give the Wessexes the “Jamaican Special,” aka being called into the prime minister’s office and fired live on camera. Truly, for the Wessexes to cancel one whole leg of the tour, that must mean that the palace is scared sh-tless about what Grenada was going to do.”
Sounds like the “Antigua and Barbuda special” could be even more humiliating.
This is going to be an absolute disaster.
Is history repeating itself? On the eve of the Lambridges disaster tour there were protests in Belize that forced them to cancel their first visit. that set the tone for the rest of the Colonization tour. Now on the eve of Eddie & Sofiesta’s visit Grenada pulls out…another bad omen?
Listen, COVID-19 hit us really hard here in the Caribbean. There were massive job losses and reductions in manufacturing, plus gas prices have gone up as well as overall inflation. We’re still recovering but we’re still in a pandemic. So these ugly-couch-upholstery-wearing racists want to tour the peasants’ islands and the peasants have to foot the bill? We having none ah dat sh*t.
I hope they get fired from every Caribbean commonwealth country they visit. “Be gone you leeches!”
sipping champagne and smiling sweetly as I witness the glorious implosion. They are learning the definition of FAAFO. Karma.
The Caribbean has enough to deal with, we don’t need more colonizers dirtying our land. Stay on salt isle with your own kind
Wow, I must have read about this trip for several days in a row, and I have already forgotten about it. So good luck making the monarchy “relevant,” Edward and Sophie. Lol.
I thought the trip came and went, it sounds like such a snooze fest with this couple.
Oh …l thought the whole tour had been scrapped. It is all a waste of time and money for all involved. Nobody is interested in the Wessexes.
Will they also have a private plane and a non stop fashion show? Will they go scuba diving? Have their own photographer? Order pizza?
Trying to save face (Way, way too late) by not getting fired by Grenada, as well. LOL
It seems that the RF is running scared and are afraid Grenada and other colonies will team up and thoroughly embarass them in public, by denouncing QE2, as their Head of State. They probably are drawing up plans, at this very moment, to silence any colony from doing what Jamaica did to the Crown a few weeks ago. Once QE2 passes away, Charles will be lucky if he has England, left as a Royal possession. Times are a changing…