Irving: In the wake of Princess Kate’s cancer, William & Harry should reconcile

8 months ago 47
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Clive Irving is a royal historian and commentator who often publishes columns in the Daily Beast. Irving is not like Tom Sykes, who often seems very eager to parrot whatever unhinged things Prince William’s “friends” tell him, the angrier the better. Irving is more of an old-guard royalist like Peter Hunt – someone who keeps an eye on the overall health of the institution and someone who takes a longer view. Currently, Clive Irving’s long view of the monarchy is that Prince William and Prince Harry need to reconcile for the good of the institution, especially with King Charles and the Princess of Wales both facing down cancer. Some highlights from this Daily Beast piece:

The challenges of Prince William: No previous Prince of Wales has faced a challenge like the one that Prince William now does. The future of the House of Windsor may well depend on how well he handles it. It’s a double whammy for him: His wife and his father simultaneously stricken with cancers of unknown type and severity; an intimate family emergency and a grave constitutional one, too, since his father is the king.

A possible fraternal reconciliation: If it is true, as ITV News’ royal editor, Chris Ship reported late Friday, that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have reached out privately to Kate Middleton and William—after sending a public message wishing Kate “health and healing” following her cancer diagnosis—then perhaps Kate’s devastating news may yet help forge a fraternal reconciliation that, as well as harmonizing family relations, could positively bolster the monarchy as its most fragile modern moment.

Nothing is certain these days: The communications disarray of the last few weeks, as William determined that they should keep their true family agonies secret until the kids were on school holidays and could be spared a paparazzi storm, is now understandable—but let’s be clear, that was just the overture to what now confronts William as the point man of a crisis that will bring new stresses every day. There are serious issues that cannot be avoided.

William will need to fill in for his father: For example, nobody can yet know the outcome of King Charles’ treatment, especially since he chose (as is his right) not to disclose what type of cancer it is and, therefore, how taxing the treatment is—he certainly looks resilient and healthy in public and we must hope that this is a reliable guide to his actual condition. But his schedule is being cut back as far ahead as the early summer. This means William will have to fill at least some of those gaps while he supports his wife through her chemotherapy.

Tension with the way the media works now: There is now a palpable tension between the very understandable desire of the royal family for the king and Kate to enjoy privacy on the terms they have themselves set and the incessant build-up of pressure and speculation in the palpitating celebrity media universe for the smallest scrap of information or grainy glimpse of an elusive royal.

William needs his brother: William is going to need all the help he can get. This might, therefore, be a good moment to end the often petty and fundamentally pitiful breach between the brothers and their wives. A reconciliation of the Sussexes and the Waleses would be a truly historic healing moment and a refreshing sign, at last, of maturity and, not the least, of a required durability in the House of Windsor.

Charles is not a changemaker, but William & Harry could be? In contrast, William and Harry are the future, not the past. Few people have been as scarred as they are by the obscene intrusions of the hack packs. The brothers chose different paths in dealing with this menace. Harry’s full-frontal attack on hackers has been vindicated in the courts. William’s composure, reflecting his own sense of duty over personal anger, speaks volumes in its own way. Now they could together be the new face of a resolute monarchy, not the splintered force from the old bickering family of the past.

[From The Daily Beast]

This reminds me so much of Robert Lacey’s similar musings years ago, that William and Harry *must* reconcile for the good of the monarchy. Both Lacey and Irving fail to properly explain why that is and why it’s such an imperative, especially given that the most significant “spares” in royal history are the ones who actually had to step into the top job. Both Irving and Lacey can’t quite bring themselves to say the thing, The Thing Which Apparently Can Never Be Said – that William is reluctant, inadequate and incapable, that he needs Harry and Harry never needed him, and that William looks like a racist a–hole for how he treated his brother and sister-in-law.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN, Backgrid, Cover Images.

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