King Charles and Queen Camilla are not going to appreciate any of the reporting and gossip coming out after their big Scottish coronation. It’s looking very much like Kensington Palace went on a briefing spree after William and Kate’s brief jaunt in Scotland, a briefing spree which centers everything on William and Kate, mostly Kate. KP absolutely went to Katie Nicholl, who literally wrote the book on Kate. And now it feels like those same KP sources went to Tom Sykes to drive the point home in explicit terms: Kate is the only one people want to see, Kate is the monarchy’s biggest asset, Kate is more important than Charles and Camilla. Here’s the Royalist’s headline and sub-head: “King Charles and Queen Camilla Are Just Marking Time for Queen Kate. A lackluster ‘Scottish Coronation’ for Charles and Camilla contrasted sharply with flashbulb-filled appearances for Kate. She is managing her own succession with trademark steel.” Ouch, ouch and triple ouch. Some highlights:

Charles & Camilla are not popular in Scotland or anywhere, really: King Charles and Queen Camilla are struggling to command anything like the same kind of respect, let alone love, across the border. A Scottish coronation in Edinburgh this week was not thronged; banks of Republican protesters waving yellow ‘Not My King’ banners were its most prominent feature. The noises of protest could even be heard inside the church while the ceremony was going on; a report in the London Times patriotically tried to make the case that “the demonstrations seemed to become almost part of the occasion.” Up to a point….In short, it is becoming painfully clear that King Charles III (most recent net favorability: 32 percent) and Queen Camilla (most recent net favorability: 4 percent) have lost vast swathes of the public who supported his mother (deathbed net favorability: 70 percent).

Kate the Modern: In contrast to the two wealthy senior citizens who looked like they might be happier on a world cruise than dressed up in absurd and anachronistic “Order of the Thistle” uniforms at St Giles’ Cathedral, Kate Middleton, sitting next to them wearing a chic electric-blue coatdress by Catherine Walker paired with a gorgeous Philip Treacy hat, looked like she increasingly does these days—the one senior royal who actually understands that the world has changed in the past 500 years. William, although bedecked in ludicrous ostrich feathers and medieval bling, at least managed to smile in contrast to his father, who again spent much of the ceremony showcasing his bewildered ‘big baby’ resting face.

Will Charles abdicate, LOL: It seems sadly inevitable that as long as King Charles and Queen Camilla remain on the throne, affection for the British monarchy will dwindle. There is a not-so secret hope among many royal loyalists that Charles will abdicate on or around his 80th birthday, handing the controls to William and Kate while they are young enough to make a difference. The nightmare for the institution is that he chugs along into his 100s (his father lived to 99) refusing to hand over power until death, while the great balloon of monarchy slowly deflates, leaking credibility and influence as it sinks to earth.

Waity & Wills: Kate and William must do little other than wait, and rear their children, which they will do happily for now, having no desire to immediately give up their largely private existence….But if Charles does hang on to the crown until death parts him from it, a time may come when the Waleses tire of waiting. Although the dynamic of the two courts has been largely free of petty feuds so far, there have been some classy power plays from William and Kate’s side. They have, for example, made it very clear that the days of being told what to do by Charles and his office are over.

Charles can’t scold William & Kate any longer: But we are clearly a long way from the time when Charles’s office felt able to “openly scold” Kate and William for “drawing attention away” from him.

Charles the place-filler: Charles may not want to believe it, but for many of his subjects he is just a place-filler between the twin stars of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Kate. There is no doubt that when the moment comes, the reign of King William and Queen Catherine will be radically different to what has gone before. And it seems increasingly clear that it is Kate who is shaping that dramatic shift in tone.

[From The Daily Beast]

Am I crazy or does it seem like the royal rota is trying to egg on Charles and Camilla, trying to get a negative reaction from them, trying to get the king and queen to put William and Kate in their place? That’s what it feels like, and it’s some next-level strategy from the rota, if that’s what they’re really trying to do. Charles hasn’t even been king for a full year, and Kate’s people are already openly briefing the press that her father-in-law is nothing more than a place-filler? Come on. Sykes also mentioned the Chelsea Flower Show debacle, where Kate deliberately scheduled her appearance to pull attention from Charles and Camilla. What goes left unsaid is that immediately after Kate’s flower show stunt, Charles and Camilla slapped back hard, and there was definitely a push of negativity against Kate AND the Middletons. Like, all of the reporting about the Middletons’ shady finances, their fraud and bankruptcy, that all came out immediately following Kate’s flower show stunt. What will the punishment be now that Kate is making Charles’s Scottish coronation into the Queen Kate Show?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.