The Telegraph’s royal editor Hannah Furness’s original headline was “Why this is the most important picture of the royal family since Queen Elizabeth died,” referencing the photo of King Charles, Camilla, William and Kate standing together at Tuesday evening’s Diplomatic Reception. That headline was changed to: “Is the Royal family’s message of unity enough to save the monarchy?” Which is better? I actually like the second version – it’s more open-ended, less of a bold statement “this photo is important” versus “is this photo that important?” Anyway, the point of this piece is: where do the left-behind Windsors go from here? The answer is “???”

The photo from the Diplomatic Reception: It could be, observers noted, the most important image since the death of Elizabeth II more than a year ago. Or, said a palace insider present at its taking: “It’s [just] a nice up-to-date picture of the four of them.” In other words, there were no frantic phone calls to assemble the 2023 royal “Fab Four” especially for the occasion. “This was them getting on with the job,” another shrugged. “There was no change to the schedules in reaction to anything. This was when the diplomatic reception was happening – it’s a key event in the royal calendar. What it shows is an unwavering commitment to duty and service and that is the plan today, next week and long into the future.”

The influential Sussexes: The influence of the Sussexes’ version of life in the Royal family persists, despite their pointed silence over the latest allegations which began in their own Oprah Winfrey interview and have never quite gone away. Endgame, with its portrayal of Prince William as an angry, jealous, power-hungry heir and the palace staff as omnipotent master manipulators of the media, tallies remarkably with Prince Harry’s autobiography, Spare, and the Sussexes interviews to date. The storylines on The Crown, broadcast on Netflix – which signed the Sussexes up for a multi-year, multimillion-dollar deal – have been influenced by Harry’s version of events.

The Crown also predicts the monarchy’s endgame: Perhaps most uncomfortable of all is the theory, pressed home in multiple scenes during the final episode, that without the late Queen, the monarchy cannot survive. The rest of them are “not remotely ready”, says Philip. The ghost of the young Queen, rather improbably, tells the elderly version of herself that the rest of her family always “make such a mess of it”. That doom-laden thesis has not yet come to pass.

The whole operation hinges on Charles & William’s ability to work together: The King has been warmly received by a public who have largely embraced him as his mother’s son. The Prince of Wales, still the more popular in the polls, is planning for a future reign that he knows will have to look different to the monarchs who have come before him. Their success rests on their ability to work together. “The King and Prince have massive areas of life in which they overlap and support each other,” said a palace source of their current working relationship. “They also have their distinctive interests. On their support for the monarchy and the institution, they are totally in agreement.” Another noted: “They are talking regularly about issues around their work and the institution.” On the challenges outside the royal households, aides are – or at least try to be – sanguine.

Palace aides bitching about The Crown & Omid Scobie: “Everyone stopped caring about The Crown long ago,” said one palace source. “It’s lost whatever qualities it once had. I think everyone has got the message it’s make believe. And Endgame is about as credible as The Crown. It is a vanishingly small minority of people that believe it, they’re not going to change their minds, but to everyone else it’s wholly unreliable.”

[From The Telegraph]

I never get tired of palace seething with a thin veneer of performative apathy. “Scobie isn’t credible, neither is The Crown,” meanwhile Charles was in emergency-mode for YEARS over a Netflix show and the monarchy had to hold emergency crisis talks over yet another racism outbreak documented by Omid Scobie. The real point of this, for me, was the acknowledgement that in the immediate future, the whole thing hinges on William not stabbing his father in the back. Hilarious. Of course, that’s well-documented in Endgame as well – the fact that Charles and William aren’t actually close at all and they’d both sell each other out for one sliver of temporary power, or even just one good 24-hour newscycle.

Also, with all of the talk about the importance of Tuesday night’s photo, I think people are forgetting the other “Nu Fab Four” photo where they were smiling like horses’ asses just days after QEII died.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Buckingham Palace and Instar.