On Sunday, we talked about the Mail’s fascinating exposé on Prince William. The Mail’s piece hit all of the sweet spots of William’s rotten personality – his laziness, his refusal to travel for work, his “foursome” with Rose Hanbury and David Rocksavage, his football obsession, his drinking, his annual “lads-only vacations,” and on and on. William turns 44 years old this month, but people always make him sound like a 24-year-old who is still figuring out his life in between whiskey shots. Well, Tom Sykes did his own coverage of the Mail’s report, and he added some interesting information about William’s refusal to travel for work. This has been a steady conversation for the past two years or so – William tried to get out of attending Pope Francis’s funeral because Aston Villa was playing that weekend, and William successfully got out of attending Jimmy Carter’s funeral as well (they sent Prince Edward instead). Sykes adds one more trip which William is apparently reluctant to take: visiting the US around the Fourth of July. An excerpt from the Royalist’s “Why Charles Can’t Stop Undermining His Son and Heir.”

If you’ll allow me to read between the lines, Davies’s [Mail] piece is also a revealing dispatch from the ongoing conflict between William and Charles over what the duties of the Prince of Wales actually are. The Mail, for reasons of access, can’t really afford to tell you the truth about the bitter war simmering between the two courts, but this piece, with its sly digs at William for being lazy, is an interesting exhibit.

Senior staff at the paper know which side their bread is buttered; many are close to Tobyn Andreae, the King’s chief communications man and a former Mail man who missed out on the editor-in-chief’s chair by a hair. And the first sign that this warm portrait is in fact a hit job dressed up as a hagiography comes in the sub-headline, which promises to reveal “why royal aides are concerned” about William’s “hidden” blokeish ways. Headlines are written by editors, not journalists, and they reflect a publication’s line.

The stick used to beat William has always been that he is “lazy,” or “workshy.” And, prima facie, the data supports it. And tempted as any normal person would be to discount the last two years, the hardest of William’s life, Charles’s team emphasize relentlessly that his cancer-stricken, far older and frailer father comprehensively out-publicked him: 372 engagements in 2024 despite treatment, 532 in 2025, while William slipped to seventh on 202. William’s critics go further, noting that his personal best is just 220, hit in 2018 and 2019. The gap, they say, long predates any illness. This is just who he is.

William’s court argues that he simply sees the job differently. He disdains performative monarchy — the appearance-counting, the diary stuffed with engagements that exist only to be counted. He believes in impact. Earthshot, Homewards, mental health. Fewer things, done more deeply.

And the figures speak for themselves: Charles’s never-ending tour, plus the patina of actually being King, have pushed his approval to a record high of around 60 percent — but William and Catherine outstrip him by a mile, in the late seventies.

I was also fascinated by Davies’s account of the row over the Pope’s funeral. As I exclusively reported at the time, William initially demurred about going, because he wanted to watch an Aston Villa match, to his father’s disgust.

Davies reports growing concern in royal and government circles about his reluctance to travel abroad unless the destination interests him personally.

The Foreign Office, one source tells her, has struggled to get him on a plane — the big overseas trips have all been Earthshot, while he’s made eight visits to watch rugby or football. I can add to this: William is, as of now, reluctant to commit to going to the USA this summer to support England at the World Cup, citing the end of George’s final term at junior school. I’m told he’s resisting unless England reach the quarter-final.

[From The Royalist Substack]

In this week’s Gossip With Celebitchy podcast, I noted that there has been a lot of weirdness – meaning no confirmation or hype – around a potential Wales trip to the US, and here’s the answer. William isn’t actually interested in soft-diplomacy or visiting his BFF Donald Trump or any of that. William won’t make the US trip unless England makes it to the World Cup quarterfinal! Imagine being that lazy, to hold everyone hostage in the British diplomatic corps, not to mention your own staff, about a potential trip to the US because you only want to watch football. Anyway, the rest of the Royalist piece was just Sykes ranting about Prince Harry, because (you guessed it) William is still having a nervous breakdown over Harry and King Charles’ meeting last September.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.