I was talking to someone else about this in another post over here about how the RBF have majorly screwed themselves by chasing Harry and Meghan out. Currently, there are very few working royals who actually have any impact: Charles, Camilla, William, Kate, Anne, Edward, and Sophie.
Out of these, Anne is still quite beloved, and Charles has spent decades working on his image and has shown he can step up as King. Edward and Sophie, bless their hearts, don’t really have much negativity surrounding them, but they also don’t generate much public interest either. And Camilla... well, she’s Camilla. Even if the world could forget her stint as a mistress, she simply lacks the charisma to truly shine on solo engagements, although she has seemingly put in some effort, at least by royal standards.
William and Kate both seem to share the stance that they want fewer engagements, and that’s reflected in their workload over the years, which has always been abysmal compared with someone like Anne. Realistically, there’s still quite a long time before George, Charlotte, and Louis will be able to take on royal duties themselves, assuming they even want to. George will obviously have to eventually, and Charlotte seems to have been moulded into a very loyal “spare”, so I could see her becoming the Anne of her generation. Louis is a wild card, and honestly I fear the media will give him the Harry treatment, so I do commend William and Kate for keeping the children more on the outskirts of public appearances.
But my question is: who is actually going to do the work until those children come of age?
There’s at least a ten-year wait before they can realistically become working royals, potentially even longer if they’re given gap years and the freedom to focus on university. So what happens during that gap? Charles, Camilla, and Anne are not getting any younger, and their health is clearly deteriorating. Will William and Kate suddenly step up and work alongside Edward and Sophie? Will they eventually bring in Lady Louise and James as senior working royals? Or would that be considered too controversial after sidelining Beatrice and Eugenie?
William and Kate seem to want the royal family to step back, but then... what exactly is the point of having royals in the first place? The public wants to talk about them. That’s the draw. If they’re barely seen, then what exactly is their place in British society? People always mention diplomacy, but the UK already has actual diplomats handling the bulk of those relationships. The royal family’s role is fundamentally media-driven and symbolic. It’s marketing. Disappearing defeats that purpose.
I don’t know whether they intentionally wanted to push Harry and Meghan out, or whether they were genuinely shocked by how far Harry was willing to go to protect his family unit, but either way it was a massive miscalculation. They now have very few senior working royals to rotate duties between, and they also no longer have someone to throw to the wolves of the tabloids, which has historically been a huge RBF survival mechanism.
What do you think the long-term plan even is here? Charles clearly has no intention of abdicating, and honestly, why should he when the heir hasn’t exactly shown enthusiasm for embracing the practical aspects of the role?
And yes, I know there are other royals who assist at events, but realistically, do the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester generate any public interest at all? They help, but they’re also older and hold very little cultural influence, which to me signals that the RBF may have backed itself into a corner where it risks slowly losing relevance altogether.