The slimmed-down monarchy is basically a skeleton at this point. King Charles is being treated for cancer and his events have been extremely limited this year. Queen Camilla needed a 10-day vacation after doing a dozen events in five weeks’ time. The Princess of Wales has not been verifiably seen by the public since Christmas 2023. Prince William is just… MIA, in general. Sophie and Edward are crushingly boring. All of which has led to the royal rota being culled, have you noticed? In the past year or so, suddenly all of those self-important stenographers to power are being sh-tcanned. Thankfully, the royal historian industry is booming, especially when they can chime in with commentary in the American gossip media. Speaking of, royal historian Gareth Russell told Us Weekly that the slimmed-down monarchy is not sustainable and that by the time Huevo and Buttons are on the throne (or whatever), it really will just be the two of them, trying to manage all of the work. Hahahahaha good luck with that.
The slimmed-down monarchy may not be “a mistake,” but royal historian Gareth Russell exclusively told Us Weekly “it’s not what was intended.”
“If you are to use the metaphor, the monarchy is underweight at this stage, it was never intended to reach the levels that it did,” Russell told Us while promoting his book The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court. “It was always anticipated that you would have [King] Charles III with three working siblings and two working children and their wives, and that that would be a sustainable footing for the monarchy going forward.”
In the past five years, the firm lost Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (the pair stepped down from their senior duties in 2020), Prince Phillip (he died at age 99 in 2021), Prince Andrew (his titles were removed in 2022 after he was accused of sexual assault, which he has denied) as well as Queen Elizabeth II (she died at age 96 in September 2022).
“So at the minute we’re looking at a monarchy that really was just holding it together in terms of the number of functions they had to attend and events, overseas visits and particularly their charitable and military obligations,” Russell told Us, adding that Charles, 75, and Princess Kate Middleton’s aligning cancer battles shows “the cracks turning into craters.”
Russell noted that this has sparked conversation among the British media about the possibility that Prince Edward and Sophie’s daughter, Lady Louise Windsor and Andrew’s two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, could be moved into senior working royal statuses.
“Otherwise it is unsustainable … At the minute, Prince William is the only senior working royal man under the age of 60 and above the age of 16,” Russell said, adding that two women royals fall into that category: Kate, 42, and Sophie, 59.
Russell noted that when Princess Anne, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Queen Camila, Charles begin to scale back their duties, “there is going to be a seriously underweight monarchy when potentially you would just have King William and Queen Catherine dealing with it, doing all of it until their children come of age.”
“The slim-down monarchy sounded a very good idea when there were so many working royals back in 2000, 2001, but through a variety of factors it is now something that needs to be rethought,” Russell told Us. Russell noted that when conversations about a condensed monarchy began, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were alive. “That’s how long ago it was,” he added.
Two parallel conversations need to happen in this space, where Kate and Charles are both dealing with health issues and William is… somewhere, not working. One conversation is: are the Windsors actually missed by the general public, is there actually an outpouring of sympathy and/or an urgent need to have the royals out and about? The second conversation is: with the core senior royals largely out of sight for months now, does that make anyone rethink the funding/money part of the grand royal calculation? As in, the British taxpayer can say: here’s what I’m getting for my taxes and support of the monarchy this year.. and it’s just Camilla neighing in church while everyone else has gone missing. It’s a pretty weird element, one which the British media rarely discusses – the slimmed down monarchy has become anemic and they’re barely doing their “jobs,” so why are the taxpayers still footing the bill? Why are they still being funded to this degree?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.