There would be no British royal history without sneaky sons, sneaky fathers, sneaky uncles, brothers, friends, dukes, earls, French cousins, and some Machiavellian friends of the queens who aspire to be the power behind the throne.
But it's still quite different to see it up close and in person.
Just now, this week, Prince William has gone and given a major new interview about his style of governing, throwing his dear old father King Charles under the bus in London, implicitly saying that his reign is a bit of rubbish.
Last week, the Prince of Wales was in South Africa to attend the Earthshot Prize, and while there, he laid out his vision of becoming the first banana — a phrase you strangely won't find in the Magna Carta.
He wants to usher in a new era of “small” ownership, which seems like a fairly meaningless phrase, high on emotion and low on actual facts.
(Does this mean they will get rid of the walkers, and Prince George, as Prince of Wales, will be tasked with unpacking Buckingham Palace? Will all logos be removed from letterboxes? Will King William hold a meet-and-greet? Coffee mornings with the public at a rotating chain of Neros cafés in the suburbs With palace branded cups?)
The details, such as they are, come across timesKate Mansi, whom the prince told about his plan, said, “I'm trying to do it differently and I'm trying to do it for my generation.”
“And to give you a little more understanding about this, I do it with maybe a lower 'r' in the royal, if you like. It's more about influence and philanthropy and collaboration and coming together and helping people,” he said.
“I'm also going to throw compassion in there as well because I really care about what I'm doing. It helps impact people's lives and I think we can do that with some of the most compassionate leadership around the world. “So that's what I'm trying to achieve, and that's what Catherine is trying to achieve as well.”
This all sounds like an exaggeration, but saying “we could do with some more compassionate leadership” suggests that we don't have any at the moment, and so King Charles is lacking in that department.
The same applies to the current apparent inability of His Majesty the King in terms of “influence, charitable work, cooperation, and bringing people together and helping them.”
If Charles had the idea of “helping people” – say in the 1970s, when he launched the then-groundbreaking Prince’s Fund – “helping people”.
The sticking point is not what he says, which is basically that he wants to be a more sensitive king, but rather his comments being a not-so-veiled criticism of the way the king runs things.
And from that, we can take something else too – that William felt emboldened to come out and make these comments that say something about the state of the nation within Crown Inc.
It seems that the king has lost control over his unruly relatives.
Forget that prodigal son who's several time zones away Googles the camera angles surreptitiously when his Netflix crew isn't looking, but closer to home, he has not one but two close family members who went public broke this week.
For nearly two years, Charles has waged a very public war on his disgraced, if not despised, brother, Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
In early 2023, it was revealed that His Majesty intended to move the Duke out of his grand estate, Royal Lodge, the Queen Mother's massive home for 50 years.
Andrew's team responded in a mature uhhhhhhh tone and started waving his rental agreement around the place.
What followed was called the Siege of the Royal Lodge, which saw the Duke dig like a tick into soft flesh and Charles resort to increasingly extreme tactics to try to evict Andrew.
First, in August, he fired the 10-man private security team that cost him the $5.8 million a year he paid the 63-year-old in an attempt to force him to give up the Frogmore Cottage inside the house. Windsor security perimeter.
This didn't work.
Then, in November, it was revealed that the king would stop giving his brother his $1.9 million annual allowance in a bid to starve him financially.
This didn't work either.
Neither man blinked – yet.
This week, Andrew triumphed, words I find no joy in writing that prove that no bad deed goes unrewarded.
(Where are the sweets just when you need them?)
the times He now reported that the Duke had essentially outmaneuvered the King, somehow finding the funds to stay at the Royal Lodge independently.
His supporters were busy shouting, and one of them said to Daily Beast Tom Sykes: “We are absolutely delighted for Andrew.
Andrew has a cast iron lease on the property, so God knows why Charles chose to pick this fight.
“It's hard to imagine anyone would have had any interest in where Andrew lived if Charles' aides had not spent the last year talking about it.”
Another friend of Andrew (who knew he had so much?) told Sykes: “It was evil of the king to try to take (the Royal Lodge) from him. Why? Who cares?
The cases of William and Andrew suggest a ruler struggling to maintain control over a defiant group intent on going their own way, regardless of the king's cancer treatment.
That the 76-year-old has only been warming to the throne for two years and that his son is already making some teases about what his rule will be like and outlining his royal stall does hardly any favors to the Prince of Wales's credit or says much about his loyalty.
Indeed, what William and Andrew's position tells us is that self-interest now directly triumphs over all of them who stand in line behind the king.
If Charles doubted his son's commitment to the “small” monarchy, all he had to do was look at pictures of himself in Cape Town.
The 42-year-old wore sustainable white trainers to the formal awards ceremony, a printed Prince of Wales jacket sourced from a second-hand shop in London, a tie made from recycled water bottles, and a friendship bracelet with the adorable inscription “Papa” on it, made by his father. . Daughter of Princess Charlotte.
Unfortunately, power-hungry people have never looked so cool.
Daniela Elser is a royal writer, editor and commentator with over 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading newspapers.
