It turns out that being preoccupied about mental health hasn’t worked for the Prince of Wales. The man who has made being in touch with his emotions his USP is, it turns out, in no fit state to look at Hamnet. “I need to be in a calm state”, he told someone at the Baftas who asked him if he’d seen it, “and I am not at the moment”. Well, we can excuse him not wanting to watch Hamnet, which sounds gosh-awful (see AN Wilson’s review in this paper), but putting his understandable reluctance down to not-being-calm does suggest that this youngish man is cut from a different cloth from his late grandmother.
In the Keep Calm and Carry on era, you weathered the disgrace of your family members either by retreating to the country or by putting a brave face on things. It would seem that the heir to the throne is a little more fragile than that. He is the man who once observed, “I take a long time trying to understand my emotions and why I feel like I do, and I feel like that’s a really important process to do every now and again, to check in with yourself and work out why you’re feeling like you do”.
Right now, that shouldn’t be difficult. The reason for his not-calm situation can be roughly summarised thus: he and Kate can attend as many public functions as humanly possible, but the only thing anyone is thinking about is Andrew. When your royal uncle, (who strongly denies any allegations of wrongdoing), has been hauled out of bed by Thames Valley Police allegedly shouting (I heard this from my Norfolk friend, so can’t swear to it) “I’m the Queen’s son and you can’t do this”, it does rather put paid to the efforts of the rest of the family to present a cheerful front.
A number of pundits have suggested that the Princess of Wales, notwithstanding her lowly origins, might be the person to save the monarchy. Yet she too has her own brand of woo-woo – who can easily forget her video following her tragic illness involving her swanning around a meadow in a summer frock, looking like a Timotei advertisement? – and I think it will take more than Kate in a lovely dress at the Baftas to steady the ship. Incidentally, at her age – 44 – I’m not entirely sure she can get away with very long, flowing hair any more - it puts into even more painful focus William’s hair-loss. Just saying.
The truth is that business-as-usual is almost impossible for the royals unless they function without opening their traps. Everything they say will be interpreted in terms of the Andrew Debacle. And until the police and, presumably, the Crown Prosecution Service actually decide that there’s a case for him to answer in terms of misconduct in public office, it’s going to be hard for anyone to think about anything else. Princess Anne will probably be immune from the whole thing, for it would take a very brave hack to heckle her, but for the King, Camilla, Wills and Kate, I imagine it’s going to feel like the dark days of 1793 until the matter is resolved one way or another. Aren’t you just looking forward to this year’s King’s Speech on Christmas day?
Meanwhile, one of the causes of the royal downfall is still, even now up to her old tricks. I refer, obviously, to Sarah Ferguson
Meanwhile, one of the causes of the royal downfall is still, even now up to her old tricks. I refer, obviously, to Sarah Ferguson, who, we discover from the Mail on Sunday, was allegedly holed up in a Swiss wellness retreat for the month of January to get away from it all.
Apparently she took refuge in the £13,000- a-night Paracelsus Recovery clinic in Zurich following the release of those parts of the Epstein files which show her abject gratitude for Jeffrey’s financial bailouts. An insider said: “Sarah went just after Christmas and stayed until the end of January. She always feels at home at Paracelsus, and knows she’ll get love and attention there, as well as expert health treatment when she’s feeling her most vulnerable.” Isn’t that nice?
Trouble is, there is no such thing as a completely free £13,000 a night wellness stay and in due course the Paracelsus retreat website carried an endorsement from the former Duchess of York (they may like to reconsider that endorsement). But it’s not just the venality of the transaction that is terrifying. It’s that, based on the recent revelations, this was one of the reasons she and her former husband got into this situation.
Fergie’s debts, and the need to fund them, were one of the factors that put her and her former husband in Jeffrey Epstein’s control. God knows I am rubbish at personal finance, but Sarah Ferguson and her inability to spend within her means is in a league all of her own.
Her ability to ratchet up debt by an impossibly extravagant lifestyle is itself a world away from the home life of the late Queen and her generation, but there comes a day of reckoning, and Sarah Ferguson pays her dues by apparently using the last shreds of her royal status to get her accustomed treatment. If she had wanted to redeem herself, she would now be leading a life of monastic simplicity in some country hideaway, but nope, even in adversity she wants “love and attention”. What she should be trying for is Lenten austerity, preferably in a convent. Instead of that, she’s reported to have managed to secure a hideyhole in the UAE with her friend the Crown Prince of Bahrain, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. What, do you suppose, will come of that?
This delusional idiot has been the undoing of the Royals. Meanwhile, her former husband is waiting to know if he’ll be wanted for more questioning about the allegation that he passed on sensitive information gathered as trade envoy to Jeffrey Epstein.
It’s no wonder, really, that Prince William is not in “a calm state”?
