Last week, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace made some financial and staffing disclosures to the press. Prince William actually got mildly criticized for refusing to reveal how much he pays in taxes (something his father always did as Prince of Wales). William didn’t like that mild criticism, so he pivoted to a different story: he fired Queen Camilla’s sister Annbel Elliot from her salaried position in the Duchy of Cornwall. Annabel is an interior designer, and for nearly 20 years, she collected hundreds of thousands of pounds for “work” she did for the Duchy. William fired her and his staff made a big deal about how he’s going in a new direction with the Duchy. Well, Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast is emphasizing that there’s an undercurrent of scandalous beef between William and his stepmother Queen Camilla. Personally, I don’t think it’s a beef as much as Camilla toys with William whenever she wants to put him in his place and he mostly just has to take it. Some highlights from Sykes’ latest Royalist column:

William’s office confirming that he fired Annabel Elliot: For nearly two decades, the British press have largely ignored the strong whiff of nepotism involved in the appointment of Annabel, 75, Queen Camilla’s sister, as the head of interior design for the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duchy is always the current Prince of Wales’ private estate; this means that it was formerly the property of the then-Prince Charles and now belongs to William. The apparent favor shown to Elliot has long been rumored to have never sat well with William and it is unsurprising to many who know him that he moved so quickly to shift her off the books. Annual accounts published last week revealed she was paid nothing in the 2023-2024 financial year.

William wants nothing to do with Camilla’s extended family: William’s parting of ways with Annabel is no great surprise to his friends. They say he has long sought to keep the entire Parker Bowles family at arm’s length. He is not close to Camilla’s children, Tom and Laura. Indeed, one source, who is a mutual friend of the reluctant step-siblings, told The Daily Beast: “It is best to avoid mentioning Tom around William.”

Tom Parker Bowles’ louche lifestyle: Partly this stems from William’s nervousness about Tom’s “rather louche lifestyle as a Mayfair bon vivant,” the source said. Tom was famously caught admitting to using cocaine by an undercover tabloid reporter in 1999, long before his mother became queen. Given William’s general frostiness towards the wider Parker Bowles clan, the ejection of Annabel is no great surprise to insiders.

Charles has bigger fish to fry: While some might imagine the king would take offense at his son giving his sister-in-law the royal boot, one friend of Charles and Camilla told The Daily Beast that was far from the case. “I think Charles has got bigger fish to fry than worrying about Annabel’s job prospects. The Duchy of Cornwall is William’s now. She is 75 and she is Queen’s Companion [Camilla’s new term for a lady-in-waiting] now, so she is very busy. Annabel and Camilla are very close.”

[From The Daily Beast]

The whole “Charles has bigger fish to fry” thing is funny because when the Telegraph reported on Annabel’s firing last week, they mentioned that Charles had already hired Annabel to “oversee significant improvements to the visitor centre and restaurant at Balmoral ahead of its opening to the public this summer” and she’s also being tasked with redecorating Sandringham AND she’s probably doing some work at Buckingham Palace. The point being, Charles and Camilla were well aware that William fired Annabel and they ensured that she was still their go-to nepo-designer.

Now, as for William keeping Camilla’s family at arm’s length… that’s certainly interesting. Charles absolutely spends more time with Camilla’s kids and grandkids than his own. Camilla’s family is now welcome on royal properties for holiday celebrations. The Parker-Bowles clan was front and center at Charles’s coronation too. William is doing a terrible job at keeping an arm’s length from his stepmother’s kin. And trust me when I say that Camilla has clocked William’s attempts to distance himself from her family. Camilla will absolutely design a punishment for William.

PS… Tom is connected to his bestie Giles Coren, who is one of the aristo-adjacent people who confirmed the rumors about William and Rose. Just FYI. Tom and his crew know all about what William has been up to for years.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.