Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte, Prince William’s two younger children, are to be “encouraged to not become working royals” under radical plans to reshape the British monarchy when William and Princess Kate ascend the throne, following the disastrous impact on the family of Prince Harry’s vitriolic exit from royal life.
One insider told The Daily Beast: “The working assumption is that the younger two children will get on and do their own thing. They will be encouraged to not become working royals.”
William and Kate’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the bombshell claims made by the insider, a former Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace staffer who keeps in contact with former colleagues.
They were speaking after a report in the Daily Mail said William not only agreed with his father King Charles’ drive to slim down the monarchy but would go even further. The report cited a friend as saying: “When the older members of the family retire, (William) won’t be inviting anyone else to become working royals. It remains to be seen if he will even want his two younger children to be working royals.”
The source said of the report, “It’s absolutely true. The option isn’t there for George, of course, but the children have been kept at arm’s length from royal life. They are exposed to the minimum possible publicity, and that is a deliberate strategy to let Charlotte and Louis choose their own destiny.”
A friend of the couple who spoke to The Daily Beast concurred with the report in the Mail saying: “It is no secret that William has been devastated by the destruction of his relationship with Harry. Although he absolutely puts the blame on Meghan and Harry, he does of course also appreciate that the whole system, where one of your kids is less important than the other due to an accident of birth, had a massive part to play in what happened and how it happened.
“There is an entirely reasonable argument to be made that if you are born into the royal family, the logical thing to do is to leave it. The same logic applies to your kids, he doesn’t want to put them through a human mincer that is going to cause everyone misery. He and Catherine adore the children, and their whole lives are about the children. I think they want to find a practical solution to the ‘spare’ problem that has bedeviled the family for generations.”
Critics, of course, will argue that if the couple don’t want the children to take on formal royal duties, they should stop promoting them, and the royal family should stop using them to market itself. The children are often featured in Wales family photos (most recently their Father’s Day snap with William, and Wales promotional videos, such as those released after Trooping the Colour, which featured the kids extensively. Prince Louis’s facial antics have made him a superstar, and similarly Princess Charlotte is seen as a commanding big sister.
Defenders of the Waleses retort that they would like nothing better than for their children to grow up in total obscurity, but say that’s not realistic, and point out that the carefully staggered release of images of the children has largely achieved its primary goal of destroying the paparazzi market for such pictures.
Think about it: When was the last time you saw a pap shot of the kids?
Another issue that might arise, of course, is what will happen if one or both of the children actively wants, in later life, to be a full-time royal, despite their parents’ nudges in the opposite direction. But that seems to be a question for another day. For now, the direction of travel and the goal is clear: as normal an adult life as possible, as removed as possible from the destructive power of the public eye.
As another friend of the family told The Daily Beast: “If you look at the spares who have made it work, you only really have Edward and Anne. Margaret’s life was pretty miserable. Harry we know all about. I’m sure William and Catherine don’t want history to repeat itself.”
The dramatic impact of the ongoing reduction in royal numbers was graphically illustrated on Saturday when only a small number of royals were invited onto the balcony at Buckingham Palace to wave at the crowd gathered to watch the king’s birthday parade known as Trooping The Colour.
The full balcony line-up last weekend numbered just 14 souls: the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Prince George, Prince William, Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte, Kate Middleton, King Charles, Queen Camilla, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, her husband Prince Edward, his daughter Lady Louise, Princess Anne, and the Duke of Kent.
In 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, at least 42 people were on the balcony for the monarch’s birthday including: Prince William, Prince Louis, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Kate Middleton, Charles, Camilla, Princess Anne and her husband Sir Tim Laurence, Andrew, Beatrice, Eugenie, Prince Edward and Sophie, their daughter Louise and son James, Harry, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, James, Peter Philips, his then wife Autumn, their daughters Isla and Savannah Phillips, Lyla Gilman (a granddaughter of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester) and Lady Helen Taylor (daughter of the Duke of Kent).
Charles’ felt such overwhelming numbers gave a bad impression of a gigantic crowd of freeloaders, and was long said to have lobbied for a “slimmed-down” royal family, which was ultimately granted him by the dramatic exit from royal life of both the Yorks and the Sussexes. Princess Anne has publicly said she thinks the process has gone too far.
However, the Mail suggests there is no desire on William’s part to grow the family’s public size again, instead, he apparently wants to move towards an even smaller ceremonial family, emulating norms among European royal families.
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