After a series of disastrous events and scandals, the Queen's position is looking shaky. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
If you look back at the 41 kings and queens who have ruled over England since William the Conqueror got the idea in his head to pop across from France and claim England in 1066, the ravages of old age has not been much of an issue.
For centuries, whoever wore the crown often didn't get to enjoy a particularly long life thanks to murderous siblings with designs on the throne, syphilis, gout and the odd longsword to the noggin trying to push back the French. (Or in the case of William, being tossed off your horse after indulging in a spot of pillaging.)
Which is just another reason that the current Queen is such an outlier when it comes to her centuries of regal forebears.
Set to turn 96 years old in the coming weeks, the longest-serving sovereign in British history is currently busy splashing the cash to make her various palatial homes amenable to an increasingly immobile monarch.
First came news that she had a $35,000 wheelchair-friendly lift installed in one of her favourite cottages on her Balmoral estate and then this weekend The Sun reported she had taken delivery of a $108,000 golf cart.
But Her Majesty's advancing years aren't just taking a toll on her ability to plod around on her beloved gee-gees or to take her corgi puppies out to chase the swans of an afternoon but on the monarchy.
With William and Kate, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, having touched down back in the UK after their calamitous eight-day tour of the Caribbean, the uncomfortable question must be asked: Is the Queen losing her grip?
Their flit from Belize to Jamaica to the Bahamas was not the flag-waving injection of royalist bonhomie as expected but a painful and very public reckoning about race, slavery and power.
When the Cambridges, long held as the monarchy's great – and very white – hope of survival touched down in Belize, ready to do a spot of charming of the masses, replete with plenty of peppy Instagram videos #blessed, they instead slammed straight into the ghosts of Britain's colonial past.
The entire foray started on a bum note when, faced with a protest at a cacao farm they had planned to visit on day one, their itinerary was instead hastily rejigged rather than, say, still going along and engaging with the community.
Likewise, their stay in Jamaica was also doomed from the get-go when, in front of the world's cameras Prime Minister Andrew Holness told William point blank they planned on severing their ties with the monarchy. Nobody likes being sacked, let alone on live TV.
Then came the point when things really skidded off track. The image of Kate shaking hands with people of colour through a fence in Trench Town in Jamaica was curdling HORRIBLE, the beautiful white saviour deigning to touch the locals.
While it might have been an innocent gesture and one taken out of context (Jamaican-born Manchester City player Raheem Sterling also greeted fans through said fence), that there was no appreciation of what this would look like is ridiculous.
William and Kate doubled down on their colonial-era cosplay when they attended a Jamaica Defence Force military parade and viewed the troops from the back of an open-topped Land Rover which had previously been used by the Queen.
By week's end, things were at breaking point as the couple got increasingly bad reviews in the UK, US and worldwide. On Friday night at a dinner in Nassau, William finally acknowledged the swirling issue of republicanism, saying: "We support with pride and respect your decisions about your future. Relationships evolve. Friendship endures."
Then, when the couple jetted out of the Bahamas they following day, they put out a highly unusual statement admitting that they had essentially stuffed up, saying: "Foreign tours are an opportunity to reflect" and that "I know that this tour has brought into even sharper focus questions about the past and the future … Catherine and I are committed to service. For us that's not telling people what to do."
There are no bones about it – this was the most disastrous royal tour in decades, if not, ever. This wasn't the tepid reception that some had feared going into this but an unmitigated fiasco.
As the BBC's inimitable royal correspondent Jonny Dymond put it: "Quite how defeat was plucked from the jaws of victory in Trench Town, Kingston, may one day become the stuff of public relations legend."
The post-mortems are now rolling in the British press, dissecting how the Cambridges first major, and entirely preventable, flub of their royal careers was allowed to happen. The unmistakeable picture that is now emerging is of a royal house stumbling about in the dark and suffering from a dearth of seasoned leadership at this most critical of moments.
In the same piece, Dymond called out the tour's "bad planning and bad execution" and argued that "the Cambridges' team sorely lacks experience in setting up a long and complex trip".
This tour was two very privileged white people travelling to three black nations.
That going into this there wasn't an acute, overriding awareness of how inherently fraught this undertaking was going to be post-Black Lives Matter only reinforces the impression that the royal family and their aides exist in a rarefied bubble, oblivious to shifting political and social conversations.
All those eager and fresh faces on the Duke and Duchesses' team might be whizzes at hashtags and lining up podcast appearances but, presented with what was always going to be a highly charged tightrope walk of a tour, they were left floundering and their principals left looking like horrifyingly anachronistic hangovers slathered in SPF 50.
As the BBC's former diplomatic and royal correspondent Peter Hunt posted on Twitter: "They'll never do a royal tour like this again. The fact they did, is a reminder of the price the royals are still paying for purging good advisors in 2017."
What he's referring is the Queen's incredibly well-regarded longtime Private Secretary Sir Christopher Geidt (now Lord Geidt) being ousted after Prince Charles and Prince Andrew allegedly ganged-up on him.
With Geidt's tight-rein over the various royal houses (Clarence House, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace) gone, what has followed has been years of clashing egos and internal power plays.
Tragically, the Geidt putsch has been followed by the most chaotic chapter in royal history since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales including the palace revolt of Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their transformation from team players to headline-hogging perma-agitators along with the shame of the horrible Andrew situation.
The thing is, the Queen has let this all happen.
She didn't stand up to her sons when, reportedly for entirely self-serving reasons, they decided they wanted Geidt, Her Majesty's excellent lieutenant, gone. (Geidt is said to have wanted to curb Charles' ambitions and was keeping an altogether too close of an eye on Andrew's spending for his liking.)
It was on her watch that Andrew decided that an hour-long grilling by the BBC over his friendship with a convicted sex offender was just the ticket. It was on her watch that he was allowed to hold onto his clutch of shiny military roles right up until the point it was confirmed that he would go to trial in a civil sex abuse case.
(It was his Mumsy who stepped in to help him find the dosh for the estimated multimillion-dollar payout he gave to accuser Virginia Giuffre and who has still, after everything, allowed him to hang onto his Vice-Admiral rank and position as a Counsellor of State.)
It was on her watch that the Sussexes' frustrations and grievances went ignored for so long that they finally blew, Krakatoa-style, bolted for North America and proceeded to spend the intervening years telling the whole world how rotten they thought things were behind palace gates.
The depressing reality is that now as the monarchy prepares for the most critical juncture in a century, her passing and the rise of King Charles III, there is no indication of a coherent, focused institution with someone in charge.
Instead, the Queen remains sequestered away in what has been affectionately dubbed HMS Bubble in Windsor Castle, removed from the manoeuvrings of Charles' Clarence House outfit and the Cambridges' Kensington Palace fiefdom.
The Cambridges have now arrived back in the UK, humiliated and chastened. As is customary after a foreign tour, they will meet with Her Majesty this week to give her a rundown on the tour but this could be a particularly painful conversation for all involved.
In ominous news for the Cambridges, The Times has reported that "the monarch has followed this tour closely and will be 'interested' to hear the couple's take on it", a source close to the Queen has observed, and that "lessons will be learned". (One might be about to give the duke and duchess something of a dressing down. No finger sandwiches as punishment!)
Her Majesty might have "followed" William and Kate's tour from her Windsor sitting room, surrounded by an army of Meissen figurines, priceless brick-a-brack and chocolate boxes, acutely aware of the disaster unfolding thousands of miles away and in her name but what will she – or can she – do about it?
Having devoted seven decades to tirelessly serving her country, she must be positively exhausted. If ever there was someone who deserves a family-sized box of Quality Street and a very long sit-down, it is her.
However, the consequences of her refusal to countenance any transfer of power to Charles, are becoming harder and harder to ignore.
While it seems likely this debacle of a tour will trigger plenty of soul-searching, the royal family is looking increasingly adrift and bereft of a competent, calm hand on the tiller.
Today, the house of Windsor's future looks much less assured than it did ten days ago.
The end of Her Majesty's reign might not come about on a muddy battlefield or in an ignominious syphilitic sickbed like those sovereigns who came before her, the way things are going at the moment, her final chapter might be no less messy or embarrassing. It is entirely up to her.
Sometimes the truly noble thing to do is to, metaphorically of course, fall on one's sword, or in her case, grab the Quality Street and let Charles pull everyone into line.
• Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
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