The Wales children return to school next week. There’s been chatter for months about when Prince William and Kate would do public events together, but since Kate’s cancer announcement on March 22, no firm plans have been made. Everything is being kept open-ended, although “sources” insist that William will be “back at work” when his kids go back to school. Those sources conveniently forget about the fakakta school run, which is the excuse given for why William can’t do anything. Speaking of, the Daily Beast’s Royalist column suggests that William wants to be the work-from-home Prince of Wales and eventually King Work From Home. It’s getting weird…

Prince William is planning a return to full time royal duties beginning next week, combining digital ‘WFH’ digital appearances and in-person engagements to maximize “impact” in what sources said would be “a template” and a “dry run” for his future reign.

William, who had not been seen or heard from in over three weeks since before his wife Kate Middleton announced she had been diagnosed with cancer, returned to public visibility Wednesday with a social media post paying tribute to a leading female soccer player retiring from England’s national team. It was a carefully calibrated dip of the toe back into public life, and ongoing digital engagement of this kind is understood to be a key plank of his strategy for combining the unexpected intensification of his royal role occasioned by his father’s illness with being a “family man,” bringing a kind of “WFH” approach to the business of royalty as one friend put it.

While Kensington Palace declined to comment on what exactly William’s plans for the next few weeks are, and did not respond to questions about whether William would be doing more work online, his office previously briefed journalists that he could expect to be seen back in public again once the school term recommenced on Wednesday next week. The Daily Beast understands that this is still the plan and he will be making a series of in-person public appearances over the coming weeks.

A friend of the couple told The Daily Beast: “In many ways the next few weeks and months will be a template for his future reign because he will have similar personnel available after he succeeds to the throne, even if that doesn’t happen for many years. I think you’ll see him try and balance the demands of state with the demands of being a good family man, taking care of his sick wife and making sure his kids are doing OK. I’m sure that will mean doing more stuff online. He can ‘WFH’ and do hybrid working a bit. Frankly, it has more impact because it reaches many more people.”

Another source, a former royal courtier, told The Daily Beast: “William and Kate had hoped to have several decades as Prince and Princess of Wales, and, god willing, they will still get them. But what is interesting about the next few months is that William is being forced into a dry run at being king much sooner than he might have imagined such a thing would come to pass. Of course he doesn’t welcome it, but there will certainly be some fascinating straws in the wind about what the reign of ‘King Billy’ will look like.”

One thing that seems certain when talking to friends and advisors of William both recently and over the past few years is that he has no intention of emulating his grandmother’s model of doing several hundred engagements a year and being patron of hundreds and hundreds of charities. Instead, the goal will be to represent less causes but have more “impact,” to use a favored term.

But be in no doubt: if the last few weeks have shown anything it is that the needs of Kate and the kids will always, for William, trump the demands of state and charitable organizations. Kate is doing well, her team says, but if a conflict arises, William will likely have little hesitation in canceling royal engagements to focus on family.

[From The Daily Beast]

“But what is interesting about the next few months is that William is being forced into a dry run at being king…” What’s interesting about the previous four months is that William was asked to step up and he balked. He lied repeatedly, he and his office manipulated photos and videos, he showed up drunk to day events, he drank at day events and then stumbled over to a Welsh school, and then he kept on lying. He’s a 41-year-old man – 42 in June – who was a ball of lies and chaos for months and now he’s positioning himself as “this is what my reign as king will look like.” As for the whole “work from home” angle… QEII always said that she had to be seen to be believed. Charles feels the same way – that a king must be seen, must be out with his subjects. The future King Huevo’s motto is “who wants to day-drink on a Zoom call?”

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