Five Kings, eight Queens, 9 Princes, 13 Princesses, one Empress, one Grand Duke, a Grand Duchess and the Margrave and Margravine of Baden.
This week, in the event you had by accident stumbled down central Athens you’d have discovered your self falling over almost each senior topped head, titled European and Hapsburg descendant to have been left answerable for a crumbling schloss or second-rate fort.
The motive was the funeral of King Constantine II of Greece.
It was by far and away the most important gathering of women and men whose forebears took sides within the Napoleonic Wars because the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis’ annual blini’n’board sport night time or Queen Elizabeth’s unhappy farewell final yr.
But take a look at the pictures and there’s something very clearly lacking, or ought to that be somebody, particularly the late King’s personal godson Prince William and his spouse the Princess of Wales.
While this who’s who of intra-married monarchies squashed into the pews of a church in central Athens on Tuesday, AEDT, William, essentially the most well-known dog-bowl-destroying royal since Edward the Black Prince bought aggravated together with his poodle, was nowhere to be seen, solely popping up on Tuesday at a London charity that, paradoxically, helps with youth battle decision.
For William and Kate their Greek no-show was a giant mistake. Huge.
Let’s begin with the plain right here in that that is hardly a terrific look proper on the similar second that Prince Harry is finishing his transformation from lord of the lager to essentially the most well-known determine of royal dissent because the Roundheads bought collectively and began utilizing the identical barber. For a lot of this yr, because of his best-selling memoir Spare, the California transplant has been busy making the royal household out to be emotionally stunted and myopically self-interested.
For the Waleses, staying away from King Constantine’s farewell hardly does something to counter that message.
On Sunday, Kensington Palace introduced that Lady Gabriella Kingston, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, would formally symbolize William on the occasion, which is hardly a gesture of deep respect and affection for the late King.
In some methods, deputising the fifty fifth in line to the throne, whose marriage ceremony the Wales didn’t even attend, to pop orf and fly the Wales flag is definitely extra a slight than sending nobody in any respect. (The eternally splendid Princess Anne, her signature steely pompadour in place and husband Sir Tim Laurence dutifully by her aspect, was there on behalf of King Charles.)
William not going simply seems … lazy.
Imagine the cacophony of chuntering types who could be lambasting Harry proper now if he had determined to remain in Montecito to loll about of their infra-red sauna re-reading Deepak Chopra or instructing Oprah learn how to play Halo relatively than tootling off to certainly one of his godparents’ funerals.
Beyond that, William and Kate actually missed a trick in staying dwelling and never making a fast sprint to Greece.
The most damaging factor about Spare, in the event you get all the way down to it, is just not a selected incident of Palace fisticuffs or some frosty showdown in a royal backyard among the many topiary corgis however his general characterisation of the Windsor famille as pathologically self-interested types with all of the innate heat of a freezer filled with Paddle Pops.
Photos from the funeral present a visibly emotional Queen Anne Marie and Crown Prince Pavlos embracing Princess Beatrix of The Netherlands (previously the nation’s Queen), King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands, King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, Prince Joachim of Denmark, amongst others.
William and Kate being seen on this sensitive, feely titled combine would have added a sure heat, humanising component to their picture at precisely the second they wanted it essentially the most.
And but as a substitute, they had been nowhere to be seen.
So far, because the launch of Spare, each Buckingham and Kensington Palace have maintained a whole and utter vow of monastic silence, refusing to remark as Aitch has been busy monetising his incipient messiah complicated.
While the palaces’ technique has seemed a case of cool-heads-prevailing thus far, nonetheless, that doesn’t imply they need to solely be sitting on their manicured palms and naively hoping that the world would possibly transfer on from Planet Sussex and the gravitational pull of their reality.
Rather, with the funeral of King Constantine, what William and Kate have carried out is look the present horse of a golden PR alternative within the mouth and wandered off within the different route whereas Lady Gabriella was pressured to hurriedly dig out a black hat.
For the Waleses, a fast injection of some pomp and grandeur would have been simply the picture-perfect ticket this week, giving them the prospect to rub regal shoulders and for headline writers to get to work on their repertoire of ‘Kate stuns’ staples.
Never underestimate the facility of a photograph of the 41-year-old carrying the hell out of an eye-wateringly costly black coat and a handful of the late Queen’s priceless sparklers.
Moreover, after the final six weeks, going again to early December when Harry and spouse Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s eponymous Netflix collection was launched, the Sussexes have dominated the narrative.
That’s why, what the Prince and Princess of Wales want so badly proper now, greater than a minibreak in Klosters or a contemporary supply of Tanqueray, is the prospect to vary the channel, rhetoric-wise.
Them going to the King’s funeral would have given them the prospect to wrest again, even briefly some management.
It would have reminded the world that when William and Kate are usually not dropping the youngsters off at netball or making an attempt to decrease generational charges of despair, they’re true states individuals who, typically, do a cracking job of representing the UK on the world stage.
Harry has been busy making (profitable) hay out of his a long time of – as he clearly sees it – mistreatment because the spare; what William ought to have been doing is identical factor primarily, and capitalising on his standing as inheritor by hanging out with a clutch of Kings and Queens.
Sadly, this week, for the Prince and Princess, they’ve been struggling the after results of a Greek tragedy.
Daniela Elser is a author and a royal commentator with greater than 15 years’ expertise working with a lot of Australia’s main media titles.
