It’s been four years of this exhausting, obvious and childish melodrama from the UK and it’s crazy that they don’t understand how juvenile and warped they sound all the time. The Windsors, the British media and seemingly a good chunk of the British populace have all agreed that the best way to talk about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is through a patronizing combination of hatred and projection. This week, in the wake of the Princess of Wales’s hospitalization and King Charles’s announcement about a prostate procedure, this group of people can’t simply say: we wish Prince Harry was around, we sort of miss that ginger, we treated him unfairly. Instead, it’s this convoluted and pathetic argument of “Harry should want to be back in the UK, but thank God he’s not around because we hate him, even if we really do need him!” Behold, an excerpt from Richard Kay’s latest Daily Mail column, “Charles’s slimmed down monarchy is coming apart at the seams – just as Anne predicted.”

Ordinarily at such a moment, King Charles’s son would be able to take up some of the royal slack. But Prince William has, understandably, put the welfare of his wife and children first and postponed his official engagements. That the three most important members of the Royal Family – Charles in his position as sovereign, William as heir to the throne and Kate as the monarchy’s most relatable figure — should all be absent from the public stage at the same time is alarming enough.

But what is far more striking — and should also be a cause for concern — is just what these medical emergencies mean for the ability of the House of Windsor to fully function when it is beset by unforeseen setbacks. For, if nothing else, these health alarms have exposed the consequences of a slimmed-down monarchy. Shorn of such dependable figures, even for a short time, they reveal just how empty the royal cupboard is.

More telling perhaps is how quickly a problem can turn into a crisis. For decades the royals glided serenely through many a difficulty because there were enough of them to deploy. If one family member was indisposed another would seamlessly step in. But the turbulence of recent years, from Megxit to Prince Andrew’s Epstein crisis and the death of Queen Elizabeth, has put resources under the heaviest of strains.

In private moments, Charles must surely wish he still had the box office draw of Prince Harry to call on. The ‘old’ Harry that is, the fun-loving prince who threw himself into royal duty with a verve and a popularity unmatched by any other family members. But that was before marriage, self-imposed exile to California and bitter estrangement from his own brother. Together with the forced exclusion of Prince Andrew as a working royal over the Jeffrey Epstein affair, the absence of Harry and Meghan has done more to slim down the monarchy than any kind of tinkering that Charles himself might once have envisioned.

When the late Queen marked her golden jubilee in 2002, the balcony heaved with royal hangers-on. Fast-forward ten years to her diamond jubilee in 2012 and that same balcony looked somewhat sparse. The handful that stood to acknowledge the cheers of the crowds were exactly as Charles had been advocating, a nucleus of royals representing the direct line of succession.
That same tableau was repeated in the summer of 2022 at Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee, but while the numbers alongside her increased because of the presence of William and Kate’s children, the absence of Harry was notable. Even Charles could never have dreamt that this slimmed-down vision would not include his younger son, daughter-in-law and their children Archie and Lilibet. Which is why today the sudden — if temporary — removal of three key figures exposes the limitations of this new look Royal Family.

How prophetic Princess Anne’s words now seem when she was asked ten months ago about the new King’s plans to reduce the royal workforce. ‘I think “slimmed down” was said in a day when there were a few more people around,’ she observed. ‘It doesn’t sound like a good idea.’ Charles’s rationale was not just based on the physical presence of a bloated family, but also on confronting the public perception that it is kept afloat by the taxpayer. He is keen for the monarchy to be seen as value for money. Achieving all of this can only be done by reducing what the institution actually does.

This week’s events are testing the strategy in a way courtiers had perhaps not anticipated. It is fortunate therefore that these medical bombshells have come at a time when royal duties are traditionally lighter. Imagine if the alarm had occurred midway though a state visit when both the King and William and Kate would have been playing central roles. Despite these dramas, the public are entitled to ask how well Charles’s small-scale monarchy will cope. They may also question whether or not the royals’ extraordinary portfolio of houses may need to be slimmed as well.

[From The Daily Mail]

“Charles’s rationale was not just based on the physical presence of a bloated family, but also on confronting the public perception that it is kept afloat by the taxpayer. He is keen for the monarchy to be seen as value for money.” Instead, there’s a smaller number of people with more Sovereign Grant money, spread out across more than a dozen castles, palaces, forts, cottages and mansions, and the newly slimmed-monarchy is now saying they need to do less, be seen less and you can’t count on them in a crisis either. “Charles must surely wish he still had the box office draw of Prince Harry to call on.” If Harry was still around, he would be used in much the same way he’s being used now – as a deflection from the larger issue of an extravagantly financed family out of touch with the issues Britain faces. And guess what? Harry is never coming back, and he’s said that repeatedly with his whole chest. Instead of acknowledging that and giving royal commentary in good faith, Kay and the others are lamenting “why did jolly old Harry have to leave us, he should be back here to ease some of the workload off Charles and William!”

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.