I don’t need to tell you what’s happening in the royal world today.
There is one story and one story only, and it is a story that is not just being spread across every British news site that uses it War of the Worlds-The size of the fonts but even has the venerable The New York Times I’m about to sweat. (At the time of writing, this story was posted above The New York TimesCoverage of the 2024 US presidential race.)
It’s baaaaak.
As I write, Kate, Princess of Wales, is trying to remember the intricacies of one of the key performance indicators in her day job, waving to crowds while maintaining an air of cheerful generosity and warmth. In the early hours of Saturday morning AEST, the Princess revealed she will make her first public appearance in nearly six months this weekend, and will appear at Trooping the Colour, the official celebration of King Charles’ birthday.
However, in all the hoopla and fanfare that followed Kensington Palace’s release of not only an unexpectedly poignant and poetic snapshot of the Princess, but also a statement she personally wrote, there is one detail that really captures just how big this all is.
in London) timesKate Mansi reported that the presence of Kate’s forces was “considered large enough to alert No. 10 and the Cabinet Office who in turn informed the opposition parties”.
Just imagine the scene inside Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s offices in Downing Street when this happened – all the aides, all the special advisers, the unimaginable number of Oxbridge degrees gathered in one small room, all holding their phones out of self-importance – when some hurried secretary Private to hack the news.
Bear in mind that even with Mr Sunak currently fighting, and likely to lose, the battle for his political survival during an election campaign that looks set to return Labor to power for the first time in nearly 14 years, this fight has been deemed heavy and big enough. To be informed that a 42-year-old mother of three will be standing on the balcony this weekend.
This panel – from a Prime Minister pulled aside for a briefing, from whispered conversations, from someone who has the lucky job of reporting to Opposition Leader Sir Keir Starmer – is the kind you could see was needed before, say, Killer facial plastic surgery educator
Vladimir Putin decides to launch a ground invasion, or someone starts coughing in a Chinese wet market near pangolin cages. Kate has always been important, but this Sunak fact underscores just how big Kate is now.
Since William placed Diana, the Princess of Wales’s ruby the size of a quail’s egg, on his college girlfriend’s finger in 2010, the princess has become politically significant, in part because she would one day become queen and mother to a future king.
However, there’s what it looked like before – her entrance into the royal heaven and subsequently making Walker’s shortbread start slapping your face on shortbread tins – and what things look like now, with an update regarding her health rating up there with Finland being overrun by Russian ground forces. The Princess now occupies such a place in British public life and in the public imagination and psyche that you have to go back to the previous owner of this ruby ring to find her equal.
Camilla is the de facto queen, Princess Anne was born second in line to the throne, and Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, actually went to war and were in the line of fire. However, do you think Sunak would have these kinds of conversations? Silent if he fights cancer? If any of them decided, during chemotherapy, that they were well enough to venture out into public and see a few military parades here and there at the Horse Guards?
Looking back over the past six months, the Princess of Wales’s sudden and complete removal from public view has raised (or should that be, throne?) some painful domestic truths about the House of Windsor. In the battle to keep Crown Inc. going, keep it a going concern and make sure republican sentiment takes hold in anything, the King is well and good. But really? Which characters are the royal family’s public relations nuclear power plant? The people who attract disproportionately large attention and clicks are Kate, William and their family.
In the new photo of the Princess of Wales, taken by regular royal snapper Matt Porteous, she is seen standing under a willow tree which Google tells me means it could symbolize rebirth. That’s nice, but for me, what this current situation of Kate and No. 10 and even the pictures that I’ve taken brings me to is that Kate is the backbone, the solidity, the foundation upon which the future of the British monarchy rests. Now let’s say good luck to Kate’s long-time stylist Natasha Archer who, I assume, is currently discussing editorial options with the Princess while Prince Louis roars around his parents’ bedroom with weeks of hand-embellished silk-trimmed London milliners’ hats. A threaded bait is attached to its little head.
(*Charles was actually born in November; however, since George II in 1748, the annual military event has also become an official celebration of the King’s birthday.)
Daniela Elser is a royal writer, editor and commentator with over 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.