At the end of 2024, various royal commentators tried to take stock of the Windsors’ sh-tshow year. King Charles’s cancer, Princess Kate’s disappearance, a “kill order” on a palace-released frankenphoto, more sleazy Prince Andrew shenanigans, Princess Anne getting kicked in the head by a horse, and on and on. The Daily Mail’s A.N. Wilson did a summary of all of that, but instead of striking a rosy tone about how 2025 could be better for the Windsors, Wilson makes the family sound like they’re on their last leg, especially with “future king” Prince William. What’s also remarkable is that this is a highly critical piece and yet… Wilson did not mention the Sussexes whatsoever. Usually, the conversation is “yes, the Windsors are doing terribly, but we still hate Harry and Meghan!” There’s none of that. Some highlights from “Without their links to the Church and Armed Forces, the Royal Family are just a bunch of celebrities. Sooner or later, that means the end of the monarchy.”

Charles & Camilla in Australia: “In spite of their age and vulnerability, the King and Queen visited Australia in October and put up as robust a defence of the monarchy as they could. It was impossible not to feel sorry for them having to endure that embarrassing week when, despite displays of loyalty by many Australians, the couple almost seemed to be there on sufferance. When an Aboriginal member of Parliament bellowed her nation’s grievances at King Charles, it prompted many to ask themselves: How long before this voice of Republicanism becomes as strong back in the United Kingdom?”

William got heckled: That premonition seemed to come true just weeks later when Prince William was heckled with the chant ‘Free Palestine’ during a visit to Northern Ireland – as if he were to blame for the tragic situation in the Middle East. Such an outburst in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II would have been unthinkable. ‘How long?’, the Republicans must gleefully have wondered – how long?

The Slumlord Windsors: At present, Republicanism is not popular. But there are signs the movement is gathering strength. One of the most damaging arguments against the House of Windsor is its personal wealth and the way it is exercised – which was put under stark scrutiny this autumn. A joint investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Sunday Times revealed some of the ways in which Prince William and his father have accrued truly vast sums of money through the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster….The huge personal wealth of the Windsors is not a problem while they are popular and continue to believe in the constitution they sustain. But it is undeniably an embarrassment. Even the most fervent monarchist cannot really believe that the vast revenues from the duchies should be regarded as the royals’ private money. It isn’t their money, is it? Not in the way that your wage packet or salary is yours.

The sorry state of modern royalty: Prince William has long strived to prove he is a modern royal. Last year, for example, it was reported that he saw no reason why his son George should – unless he chose – be a member of the Church of England or serve in the Armed Forces. That’s fine. We can all see that William is a very different person from his father. He has described it himself as being royal without a capital R. All of this works perfectly well, so long as the popular members of the Royal Family are in robust health and the monarchy continues to be stable. But when the King, Queen Camilla and Princess Catherine were taken out of the picture through illness this year, we were forced to imagine what the monarchy would look like without them. The vision, certainly, was a bare one. Princess Anne remained the ‘hardest-working royal’ this year despite taking some time off in the summer when she was kicked in the head by a horse. But what of the other royals and younger members of the family? What are they doing to bolster those crucial connections with the country?

What is the point of royalty? To put it another way: What is the point of royalty if it is not spelt with a capital R? If the men and women who are serving this country do not feel a deep sense of kinship with the monarch – a kinship that is meaningless unless he or she can wear a uniform on public occasions – have we not lost one of the essential building blocks of what makes the royals royal? If – as seems increasingly possible – the Church of England is disestablished and the monarch is no longer required to belong to it, another deep link with the past is removed…Sir Keir Starmer’s Government plans to remove the last hereditary peers from the Lords. You can see why. In today’s climate, how can the hereditary principle be defended?

William is not religious & he won’t retain links to the armed forces: But, if you apply that argument to the non-elected members of our Second Chamber, surely it also applies to the monarch? Why should someone be our head of state simply because they have inherited the role? The answer would once have been: Because of the link with the Church. But Charles will surely be the last English monarch who takes that link seriously, and William is not even especially religious. Another answer is – because of the link with the Armed Forces. But, as referenced, William has suggested he does not think even that would continue when George grows up.

The burden on William & Kate: Abolish those two ingredients – church and military – along with the hereditary principle in political life, and the monarchy starts to look vulnerable. It is straying perilously close to being just a group of celebrities, like the Beckhams or Elon Musk. If that is all they are, then the end – sooner or later – will come. The burden of all this is on the shoulders of Prince William and his wife. They are the ones who have to carry the institution forward into new generations, for the sakes of their children and the majority of Britons who wish them all the very best. That burden is particularly heavy on William as the shadow of Catherine’s illness continues to loom. We can only pray she makes a full recovery, for the prospect of her absence from royal engagements – however short-term – heaps further pressure on William’s already mighty task.

[From The Daily Mail]

In Endgame, Omid Scobie wrote about how Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers always believed that the monarchy would be in safer hands with William than Charles, that the courtiers believed that William would be more popular and a more uniting figure than Charles. But since QEII’s passing, I’ve genuinely gotten the feeling that there’s some panic within the “establishment” that William is a total dud, completely unprepared for the job and utterly unwilling to do much of anything. That’s what 2024 showed us too – that with Charles and Kate largely out of commission, William could not be counted on to pick up any slack.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.