A low-key engagement by Will and Kate has exposed a looming disaster for the royal family. Photo / AP
OPINION:
Back in the early '90s, someone inside Buckingham Palace had a spiffing idea: What if the various arms of the royal family – the Palace, Clarence House, St James's Palace and Kensington Palace – actually … communicated. What if the various private secretaries once in a while, sat down for a weak cup of Earl Grey and a cress sandwich to do a spot of planning, thus ensuring that they did not schedule headline events for the various HRHs on the same day? What if they each focused on particular causes and charities?
Revolutionary, I know.
That it took decades for this to cross anyone's Oxbridge-educated mind speaks volumes about how siloed the branches of royalty were. But, no longer! Fountain pens came out, plans were made and things functioned a smidgen more efficiently.
All of which worked, by and large, until two front row HRHs started googling plane tickets to Vancouver and having some dangerous ideas about freedom and Oprah interviews.
That's why an otherwise innocuous new photo of William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales, this week should be furrowing brows, because all that tea-fuelled co-ordination could be about to go out the window.
📻 #WorldMentalHealthDay https://t.co/btayGJTY6k pic.twitter.com/XuwyHPed7E
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) October 10, 2022
The shot was taken when the Waleses, two people who have only just entered their 40s and yet occasionally like to dress as if they are 50-something accountants from Bedfordshire, hosted a special 15-minute episode of BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat to mark World Mental Health Day.
Their actual podcast appearance was about as predictable as reading one of the Queen Mother's to-do lists ("Put tenner on Shergar in race six at Epsom", "Check if misplaced sapphires in downstairs loo"') with the Princess telling listeners: "We need to look after and nurture our minds."
But then, within 24 hours, we had another one of King Charles' daughters-in-law appearing on a podcast to talk about … mental health.
On the latest episode of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex's, Archetypes series, the former Suits star said that people should be "honest" about "what it is you need". (Appearing alongside actors Deepika Padukone, Jenny Slate, and Constance Wu, Meghan also recounted how Harry had helped find her professional support when she was at her "lowest point".)
So, two royal wives, two podcasts, two lots of urging for people to look after their mental wellbeing.
What that dull photo of William and Kate brings into focus is the extent to which the work of the Waleses and the Sussexes overlap. For both couples, conservation, the climate crisis and mental health are central pillars of their charitable careers, a situation that has put them on a PR collision course.
For years, back when Harry was an outwardly cheeky, cheerful third wheel to William and Kate, this doubling up of interests seemed to work to everyone's advantage. Two princes fervently committed to conservation and all things green? That just reinforced the royal weight their projects carried, not to mention coming with it a nice hint of brotherly togetherness.
In a similar vein, in 2016, all three of the HRHs teamed up to launch Heads Together, appearing in a video the following year, shot in the Palace's garden, in which the trio discussed their own struggles, including Kate as a new mum, and the brothers' trauma of losing their mother.
(That is not to say that things were always smooth sailing. In Valentine Low's Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind The Crown he writes that both princes wanted "to get involved in the same areas, such as conservation, and that could lead to tensions".)
The end result? The young working members of the royal family came across as simpatico; a united and passionate made-for-Instagram front.
However, this arrangement fell apart when the Sussexes upped (polo) sticks and fled to North America. In the nearly three years since the world learned what a Megxit was, there has been no divvying up of causes, leaving us with a situation where William, Kate, Harry and Meghan are all trying to own the same charitable territory by pursuing remarkably similar means.
In May last year, Harry went on the Armchair Expert podcast for a deeply personal and frank conversation about his inner life and trauma; in December, William appeared on Apple's Time To Walk podcast for a deeply personal and frank conversation about his inner life and trauma.
In July, Harry gave a speech at the UN General Assembly speaking about, among other things, the climate crisis saying, "Our world is on fire"; in September, William was slated to give a speech at the UN General Assembly where he was going to speak about the climate crisis. (The plans were shelved when the Queen passed away.)
In 2021, Harry released a documentary he had helped make about mental health, including appearing on camera; the same year William released a documentary he had helped make about the environment, including appearing on camera.
In recent years, Harry has teamed up with environmental icon Dr Jane Goodall; William has teamed up with environmental icon Sir David Attenborough.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are delighted to share new photographs of their family with Sir David Attenborough, taken after The Duke and Sir David attended an outdoor screening of Sir David’s upcoming feature film. pic.twitter.com/4cBZPVS631
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) September 26, 2020
Both men continue to fight on the conservation front. William is the founder of United for Wildlife; Harry is the president of African Parks.
You get the idea.
The bottom line is that both Waleses and the Sussexes are trying to establish themselves as global leaders on the very same issues and, without sounding too much like a cliche-prone reality show host, there can only be one winner.
Thus far, the only thing that has vaguely kept a lid on this situation is that, until now, the two men have kept to their respective sides of the Atlantic.
But all that is about change.
In December, William's innovative Earthshot Prize will pitch up in the US. The Prince's initiative is a game-changer – over 10 years, more than $90 million will be distributed to dozens of small-scale (but highly effective) projects fighting climate change, with last year's inaugural winners including a coral replanting scheme in the Bahamas and a food waste project in Italy.
Or to put it another way, the Prince of Wales is about to encroach on his testy younger brother's Stateside patch.
Is that a warning bell I can hear somewhere?
We are now at a point where we have two princes and their wives, simultaneously angling for big names, big dollars and big media attention on the same issues, with the possibility of this PR war for charitable ground only intensifying.
It's hard to see how this situation might resolve itself given that it looks like both the Waleses and the Sussexes are dialling up their workloads post-Covid and that both would seem to be done with having babies.
There is one heartening upside to all of this. We are hopefully looking at climate change, conservation and mental health attracting double the attention, double the media noise and double the money. Dr Jane and Sir David will be pleased.
• Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.