Tom Sykes was and still is The Daily Beast’s Royalist columnist and European editor, but he’s branched out with a Royalist Substack, where he’s started to move beyond the palace’s talking points and his briefings from Prince William’s most incandescent “friends.” Well, Sykes covered the Prince and Princess of Wales’s planned move to Forest Lodge, and he actually pinpointed why the palace briefing about the move is so infuriating.
At a time when millions across Britain are struggling to pay rent, heat their homes, or secure a doctor’s appointment, the Prince and Princess of Wales have announced they are moving into a newly renovated £16 million ($20.3 million) mansion in Windsor Great Park, with sources saying they are doing so to safeguard their emotional wellbeing.
The property in question, Forest Lodge, is a secluded eight-bedroom Grade II-listed estate with sweeping views across Berkshire and London. Renovations are already underway, funded privately by the couple through William’s Duchy of Cornwall income, a £1 billion ($1.27 billion) portfolio of land and assets that has been enriching royal heirs for centuries.
The move was briefed by Kensington Palace as a “fresh start” for the family to heal from a difficult few years; the loss of Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles’ cancer diagnosis, and Princess Catherine’s own health worries. Outside the royal bubble, many were left speechless by the gall of it all. Millions of Britons are also emerging from a “brutal” few years. Most of them don’t respond to adversity by moving into a multimillion-pound mansion with period features and expansive private grounds. That the Waleses would position this luxury upgrade as a form of restorative therapy speaks volumes, not just about how far removed they are from the public mood, but how tone-deaf the Palace has become in framing these decisions.
It’s not the move that is rankling, it’s the absurdity of presenting a 328-year-old eight-bedroom lodge as a necessary crutch for emotional survival.
The family first moved to Windsor in 2022, settling into Adelaide Cottage to be closer to the late queen and to allow the children, George, Charlotte and Louis, to enjoy a more private, countryside upbringing. The current home has no live-in staff. Nor, apparently, will the much larger Forest Lodge. Which rather begs the question: if you didn’t need staff and you have four bedrooms, why do you now need eight? For a couple who seem keen on staying relatable, the spinning of this house move lands somewhere between baffling and plain stupid.
William has spent the past year casting himself as a reformer who wants to make the monarchy “fit for purpose.” But it’s hard to imagine anything less modern or relatable than announcing, during the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades, that you’re moving house to emotionally reset and your new house happens to be a manor on Crown land worth north of £16 million.
The late queen might well have approved the move itself—kings and queens do live in palaces, not cottages, after all—but would never have had the gall to pitch such a move as a therapeutic necessity. Her reign, for all its stiff upper lip flaws, was defined by discipline and duty. William’s emerging version of kingship appears far more personal, driven by private need and family comfort, and to hell with the PR optics.
No one denies the last 18 months have been hard for the Waleses. But the idea that the solution to coping with grief, illness and transition is a £16 million “forever home” with woodland views is grotesquely out of touch. You guys want a bigger house! Just own it.
LMAO, let’s see if “friends close to Prince William” arrange a briefing now. “Presenting a 328-year-old eight-bedroom lodge as a necessary crutch for emotional survival” and “That the Waleses would position this luxury upgrade as a form of restorative therapy speaks volumes, not just about how far removed they are from the public mood, but how tone-deaf the Palace has become in framing these decisions.” Well done. While I agree that the framing is asinine and hilariously out-of-touch, that isn’t the only problem with this move. It’s beyond clear that William is using this move to proclaim that he’ll 100% live in Forest Lodge forever… so that by the time he becomes king, people are going to be BEGGING him to live in a palace or castle. There’s a hint of a longer-term strategy at play here, and I doubt that William came up with it. But yes, it’s amazingly privileged to argue that you and your wife need an emotional-support mansion (to compete with your brother’s Montecito mansion, sob).
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
