Catherine the great
from the windows of Anmer Hall, the country retreat of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the world looks reassuringly unchanged. Winter mists drift over the flat Norfolk farmland, while children and animals romp in the gardens.
Yet in the space of a few months, almost everything the Cambridges felt familiar with has been swept away. Upheavals, scandals, reorganisations, and the paralysing effect of the pandemic – including shock Covid-19 diagnoses for Prince William and his father Prince Charles – have turned the royal operation on its head. Instead of the central but manageable role they had before, William and Kate now find the entire future of the monarchy resting on their shoulders.
Prince Harry and Meghan are gone, Prince Andrew is in disgrace, the Queen, indefatigable at 94, must be shielded from the virus, and Charles, her 72-year-old heir is immersed in his worthy, but not always headline-grabbing, causes. The royal palaces are shuttered, their staffs and budgets cut, the traditional Christmas celebrations at Sandringham House have been cancelled and the familiar pomp and splendour that gives the monarchy so much of its popular appeal sits mothballed. Senior courtiers, led by 73-year-old Earl Peel, the Lord Chamberlain, say the crisis is the most serious in the royal family’s modern history, and that “far-reaching changes” are inevitable.
Out of all this gloom shines the bright light of the defiantly buoyant Cambridges. William
