Last fall, Katie Nicholl’s latest book, The New Royals, was released to widespread ambivalence. There was so much happening around that time, with QEII’s passing and every royal biographer trying to get their books out before Prince Harry’s Spare blew them out of the water. I didn’t even read Nicholl’s book, but I covered various excerpts. In the book, Nicholl claimed that Prince William and Kate are already preparing Charlotte and Louis to be “half-in/half-out” of the institution. Meaning, in this brave new slimmed-down monarchy, only Prince George matters. Charlotte and Louis will get to do whatever they want, regardless of QEII’s declaration that there IS no “half-out” of the monarchy… when it came to Prince Harry and Meghan. Anyway, Mail columnist Richard Eden is expanding on that:

How can the Royal Family avoid history repeating itself when it comes to Prince George, the heir, and Princess Charlotte, the ‘spare’? This is the question that Daily Mail, Diary Editor, Richard Eden is asking this week, as he analyses sibling relations within the royal family.

Writing in his Palace Confidential newsletter, Richard explained: ‘From what I hear, the Prince and Princess of Wales want Charlotte, aged seven, to grow up with the expectation that she will get a job and not be a full-time royal.’

This path for the young Princess would be in keeping with her grandfather, King Charles III’s, vision for a slimmed-down monarchy. Her father Prince William, 40, who will one day be King himself, also shares this ideal for the future.

Richard described how he can understand these views, but said that he doesn’t necessarily agree with the idea of a slimmed-down monarchy.

He explained: ‘Personally, I would prefer to see a larger Royal Family, carrying out more official engagements and meeting more members of the public. If Charlotte is to get a job and not be an active member of “The Firm”, she needs to be ready to step into the breach, if needed.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I mean… at a fundamental level, the Windsors are gonna have to decide what a “working royal” is and whether royals can be “half-in.” What Harry and Meghan asked for was not unreasonable, especially given what they saw with the York princesses and some of the older royals and royal-adjacents. These questions should have been worked out years ago by QEII and Charles. Instead, the institution thought they could just half-ass everything and make sh-t up on the fly, and everyone would capitulate. Anyway, I hope Charlotte and Louis get far away from the institution as soon as they can. I hope they do end up getting jobs, not as punishment for not being born the heir, but because it feels good to take care of yourself.

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