It’s obvious you’re in the middle of chaos when you find the
front of a Sunday paper carrying the news that a member of the
aristocracy is accusing the Monarch of gaslighting them. The
unseemly mess that is Earl Spencer’s book has got him plenty of
publicity and no doubt quite a few sales but it’s been anything but
classy. Mud slinging, raked over accusations and now, a clapback
against The King. And all served up on the back of Harry and
Meghan’s return to the UK which has seen reports of them also
hitting back against King Charles for no apparent reason other than
they’re angry. And in the middle of it all, one person remains
quiet and dignified. Prince William’s had a horrible couple of
weeks and he’s keeping calm and carrying on.
The visit to the Island of Bute that William and Kate made as
these unseemly rows were rippling all around them showed a very
different royal life. Both bowled up in their version of civvies –
fleeces, waterproofs and caps. They went litter picking at Ettrick
Bay as they heard about work to protect the coastline, they went to
the Anchor Tavern Pub and Hub to hear about the importance of
social connections and they headed to the Blue Shinty Club where
they took each other on in a fresh sporting challenge that ended in
smiles. It was fun, it had purpose and the whole point was
highlighting the work of others in a week when others seemed rather
more focused on themselves.
The visit came as William’s uncle, Charles Spencer, was claiming
that William’s father, Charles Rex, had said something horrible
about William’s mother, Diana, in the days following her death.
Charles, The King, had issued an unprecedented statement in which
he suggested that Charles the earl’s memory was clouded by grief.
Meanwhile, William’s brother, Harry, was making yet more calls for
royal level security after declaring that the school run the
Sussexes have to do is dangerous. The one bright spot was that
William’s other uncle, Andrew, had been miraculously untouched by a
fresh scandal for at least three days and if that’s your positive
then it really is a bad week.
William and Kate turned up in Bute and did what they had come to
do. Listen, learn and meet people. And it all worked like a charm.
There were crowds, there were so many people wanting to talk to
them that William had to break them away from it to get on with
their journey and there were selfies galore. Dozens of little
photos showing a future king and queen happy to pose with those
they had just met and exchanged a few happy words with. A tapestry
of pleasantness being created in the middle of a storm.
The photos were for those who came to see them, not for social
media feeds. In an age where putting yourself in the middle of
someone’s aimless scroll seems to be the ultimate quest, William
and Kate were taking snaps for those who had come to show them
support rather than in the hope of ”breaking the internet”, to
perhaps quote someone else. While Queen Elizabeth II didn’t do
selfies, she understood that those who followed her did and would.
Now, they do and the willingness of the future king and queen to
put their arms around someone they’ve just met for a quick picture
spoke volumes.
And it did it in a very dignified manner. Given the week he’d
had, William could have been forgiven for just wanting to keep his
head down. The most awful days of his life were being put in the
spotlight again in a book written almost three decades after they
happened. The King’s rather elegant statement was necessary but
did, for a moment, bring with it a faint echo of the War of the
Waleses that increasingly dominated William’s life in the 1990s.
It’s easy to forget that it’s the current Prince of Wales who saw
and heard so much of the splintering of his parents’ marriage. He’s
managed that and emerged as a calm and confident figure with a
loving family of his own. And yet others are more than eager to
rake over the coals once more.
That raking is, really, rather common if you want to be snobby
about it. In fact, those of us who don’t need a convoy to do the
school run have spent plenty of mornings or afternoons at the gates
hearing all about unseemly rows that spring up between in laws. The
difference is that when this happens in, say, Basildon or
Middlesborough, it’s immediately low brow, low class – you might
even get a jibe in about the people involved still being in their
pyjamas at lunchtime. When the tell all happens in a palatial
country estate and everyone’s in tweeds before breakfast, it’s
somehow just dramatic rather than, well, just a bit seedy.
But, ultimately, it is rather tacky and also rather misses the
point. For all their differences, Charles and Diana both loved
their sons enormously. And when their divorce was done, they found
out they actually rather liked each other and started to get on
well again. However, the biggest miss in all this is the most
important. For Diana wanted her son to be king. She was never
against the principal of royalty. Diana wanted the Royal Family to
succeed because they were her children’s future.
This week, William is carrying that future onwards. His eldest
son is now settling in to Eton, his two younger children continue
their well settled routine of prep school close to home while he
advances into his forties glad to still have the woman he loves at
his side after her own, very difficult health battle. And the
future king seems at peace with it all. So at peace that in a week
when a relation who once promised to protect him has decided that
an attack on the king who happens to be his father is the best way
to go, he’s just got on with business as usual.
Perhaps the most interesting part of it all is that, in a very
quiet but important way, people are backing him. Those selfies,
those crowds are proof of that. Prince William and the Princess of
Wales regularly top popularity tables for royals and often by quite
a way. William has been through plenty of fires and his ability not
to vent about that publicly has won him even more support. William
and Kate have never been showy. In fact, returning to the snob
references, they are really rather middle class. But slow and
steady in a way that others can relate to is reaping dividends.
They have public backing and the sensible attitude that Elizabeth
II always held – that you have to keep working at it to keep it.
They have, they do and they will. And that, ultimately, is what
will work.
