As royal tours go, the first following two years of a global pandemic against a backdrop of growing anti-monarchy sentiment was always going to be a tricky one to manoeuvre.
For all their months of preparation between logistics and engagements and planning on how best to connect with people across the three realms of this week’s tour, William and Kate have now jetted into two countries within hours of protests against their presence in the Caribbean.
In Belize, a small protest of indigenous groups did their best to make themselves heard, claiming a lack of respect from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s travelling party.
Claims they were ordered to stay away from a community football field so the royals’ helicopter could land whipped up feelings among locals of a whiff of colonialism in the air, despite the Belizean government later apologising over a lack of communication sparing the royal household’s blushes, albeit 24 hours too late.
In Jamaica today, further protests fuelled by calls for reparations from Britain and more pointedly the Queen and her family further threaten to marr this tour aimed at capturing the hearts and minds of a generation already making plans for a new dawn without the British monarchy the couple represent.
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For his part, as a future King, William has a responsibility - just as his father Prince Charles has done - to acknowledge Britain’s dark past in the appalling slave trade.
Whether William’s planned words will supplement the direct apology on behalf of his ancestors campaigners are calling for and put the brakes on a Caribbean future without him as king, remains to be seen.
