Right up front, let me state that I am anti-monarchy. Why any country in this day and age would want to maintain the full blown version of this archaic institution, I just don't get.
I do get why Euro nations - Denmark, the Netherlands - still have low-key royals. History, culture, continuity, etc. Fine! Great! Tote 'em out for ceremonial occasions. Occasionally. But mostly...
Then there's England.
I do know that King Charles is trying to slim down the royal retinue, with fewer royals earning their living by cutting ribbons at jam factories and waving from the balcony at Buckingham Palace.
But however much nipping and tucking Charles does, the royal family - Should That Be Capped? - owns so much of the their own country/countries and beyond. While they may only have 250,000 acres in England, I read that, worldwide, the royals own (should that be "own"?) a staggering 6.6 billion acres. Rule, Brittania! alright!
Shouldn't at least some of that be repatriated to its rightful owners?
And the working royals, not to mention a bunch of peripherals you've never heard of unless they show up at Wimbledon, all make a decent salary for all that ribbon cutting and hand waving. Plus they get to live in splosh housing.
If I lived in the UK, I'd be out in the streets clamoring for an end to the costly royal madness.
Keep what's needed for tourism and uniting what's left of the kingdom, but jettison the rest and move on to the more general Euro-model, where royalty's role is limited to ceremonial and/or appearing in the tabloids. (Princess Mathilde of Sturm und Drang twisted her ankle on the slopes at Klosters while in the company of Marco Bellissimo, pretender to the Royal House of Savoy and a gigolo half her age.)
Yet I must confess that I have a near-insatiable appetite for gossip about the British royals. (It goes without saying that I greatly enjoyed The Crown, which did nothing other than reinforce my opinion that the royals are not much more than a bunch of entitled - literally and figuratively - often nasty and overprivileged twits. I do give the late QE a pass. I think that, despite her rigidity with respect to letting her peeps - like Princess Margaret and her son Charles - marry the person they loved - she served admirably.)
Anyway, because I click on every click-baity article on the royals, I get bombarded with more and more click-baity articles.
So I know that the current funeral planning for King Charles is routine, done for every monarch so the full coterie will be ready to rock and roll when the great day comes, and that the preperation has nothing to do with his health which may or may not be precarious. (If he has pancreatic cancer, as is rumored, he's likely a gonner.)
I followed every last detail of last winter's brouhaha about Princess Kate's botched Photoshop job on the holiday picture of her kids. (I've mercifully forgotten the brouhaha details. Did Charlotte have three arms or something?)
And speaking of winter, King Charles likes a cold house - he must love England, is all I can say - and keeps the windows open year round. Queen Camilla, on the other hand, likes cozy, and is always shutting the windows at Balmoral, or whichever of the drafty piles they're chillin' in (literally, I guess) for the week.
I know, of course, that Prince Andrew, a Jeffrey Epstein frequent flyer, is on the royal outs, and that the king is trying to dislodge Andy from his commodious digs in the Royal Lodge at Windsor, and demote him to the relatively shriveled Frogmore Cottage (which, at over 5K square feet, is still hefty enough for a single gent like Andy, even though he does provide housing for his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson). Frogmor is the home that Harry and Meghan were dumped out of once they decided they'd rather be Californians than royals.
(BTW, I have a tiny bit of sympathy for Wills and Kate, hoping against hope that Charles lasts long enough for them to raise their kiddos before Prince William becomes King William, but if I had to pick a side, I'm team Harry and Meghan.)
More royal stuff: I know that Prince Edward's daughter is into her grandfather's sport of competitive carriage driving (!?!), and that Princess Anne's daughter, like her mother, is an Olympic equestrian.
Etc.
So how could I not click on the Sky News well-baited headline that Prince Edward and his wife Duchess Sophie were "reeling" after they weren't granted some add-on titles they felt they had coming.
In April, new appointments to various Orders of Chivalry were announced by Edward's eldest brother as a part of his annual birthday celebrations. (Source: Sky News)
April? King Charles' birthday is in November. (His mother's was in April, so there's that.) I know there's a royal bit in which, whatever your actual date of birth, the official birthday is in June. But April is not June. Guess if you're a top-dog royal you get to observe as many birthdays as you like.
Queen Camilla received the title "Grand Master and First or Principal Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire", while Prince William was bestowed "Great Master of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath," a title the King previously held himself.
Grand Master? I thought that was a hip-hop designation, but what do I know?
Meanwhile, Princess Catherine made history by being appointed to the newly created position of "Royal Companion of The Order of the Companions of Honour".
This sounds to my American ears like being named the Duke of Earl. And with Duke of Earl, at least you get a great song to go along with it.
But this is the one, apparently, that had Edward and Sophie feeling as snubbed as if they were any old pedestrian, non-royal Eddie and Soph.
"Edward’s household was hoping he would finally get an honour... They have really stepped things up with their commitment to service over the past few years."
The royal source added that Princess Catherine's title was a particular "blow" for Edward, as it's "a special award granted to those who have made a major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government lasting over a long period of time".
If it's any compensation, Edward recently received the honor of becoming part of "The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle." And in 2019, Edward was granted the title of Earl of Forfar. Forfar is a town in Scotland known for "witches who once danced on graves and frolicked with the devil." Sounds like more fun that being named a Companion of the Companions.
Anyway, Edward and Sophie should buck up. The tea being spilled is that they're going to get to move into the Royal Lodge once Andrew gets the royal boot. I'll be staying tuned for more dish here.
I just love a good royal gossip...
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BTW, that's a pic of Mad King George. Aren't they all...
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