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AIBU?

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Original poster

The Duke of York wants his daughters to be full time Royals?

918 replies

MidnightVelvetthe7th · 23/10/2016 14:45

www.express.co.uk/news/royal/724136/prince-andrew-requests-princesses-beatrice-eugenie-kensington-prince-charles-queen-william

This is a Sunday Express link, not a Fail one.

So Andrew wants both of his daughters to have full time royal roles funded by the public & have larger apartments at Kensington Palace. Given that the only time I ever see them in the news is for dreadful outfits & holidays, to me they are embarrassing & a bit cringy.

Andrew is complaining that they are overshadowed by William, Catherine & Harry. But if you believe & support a system of privilege by birth such as the monarchy, then it stands to reason that the direct heirs are more important than the rest.

Does Andrew have a point & IABU?!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
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LastGirlOnTheLeft · 26/10/2016 21:42

I'm with you Hope! I am quite astounded that people on this board know the pathetic ins and outs of one seriously dysfunctional family!! That takes dedication! I myself have better things to do.

BunnyBunnyMooseMoose · 26/10/2016 22:22

Good for you LastGirlOnTheLeft and thanks for letting us know Grin

LikeDylanInTheMovies · 26/10/2016 22:24

Princess Alexandra is also rumoured to have been a paramour of Prince Phillip's back in the day!

Who wasn't? In his younger days Phil would have shagged the barber's floor if there was hair on it. Dirty old sod.

LuluJakey1 · 26/10/2016 22:30

Marina Mowatt is back in favour with her mother and family. Her children are included in royal events. Her daughter Zenoushka (think that's her name) was on the balcony at the palace recently.

QueenoftheAndals · 26/10/2016 23:01

Yes Puzzled, that was Marina. There was a quickie wedding either while she was pregnant or soon after she gave birth and then another child a few years later but they are now divorced.

BillSykesDog · 27/10/2016 00:24

Couldn't her family pay her rent after all she could afford school fees.

I agree with you that it's pretty awful because the Queen should have waived the rent. But re school fees: normally for people like that the school fees come out of a trust. So the money will be available for children's school fees but nothing else and the parents can't touch it.

BillSykesDog · 27/10/2016 00:28

The previous kings called Charles weren't exactly role models

I don't know, Charles I was very brave at the end, and Charles II was very popular and presided over a lot of reform to the monarchy and general prosperity. He's regarded with quite a lot of affection. And he managed to turn adultery into something good for his image, so Chaz might think it's quite appropriate!

QueenLizIII · 27/10/2016 01:09

But re school fees: normally for people like that the school fees come out of a trust. So the money will be available for children's school fees but nothing else and the parents can't touch it.

The article I read said she was considering withdrawing her daughter from private school and sending her to a comprehensive becasue of the fees.

So the council was in fact paying her rent and council tax whilst she paid school fees.

The queen owned that property outright that Marina resided in and the queen is worth a fortune. She should have waived the rent instead of Slough Council (i.e. the taxpayer) paying rent to the Queen on behalf of Marina.

BillSykesDog · 27/10/2016 01:20

Liz report is here:

www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-228860/QUEENS-COUSIN-ON-STATE-BENEFITS.html

It says she 'couldn't meet the costs' rather than explicitly saying fees. She wouldn't receive HB if she had enough income to pay school fees. I suspect the 'costs' referred to means things like uniform, sports kit, extra curricular activities etc rather than fees. They cost a bomb at boarding school.

Agree with you totally that the Queen should have waived the rent.

BillSykesDog · 27/10/2016 01:21

Sorry, private, not boarding school.

SenecaFalls · 27/10/2016 01:29

And he managed to turn adultery into something good for his image

And through that adultery and via Diana, Charles II will have a direct descendant on the throne when William inherits.

QueenLizIII · 27/10/2016 01:31

And Diana didnt commit adultery?

BillSykesDog · 27/10/2016 01:36

Yeah, she did.

SenecaFalls · 27/10/2016 01:38

Speaking of adultery, Camilla is also descended from Charles II, but then again, I imagine half the people in the UK might be as well.

mimishimmi · 27/10/2016 01:40

They're not even English, mostly all German. I am sure if they did a DNA test on the royals, there would be very little 'blood' from the islands. Call us all terrorists, nick everything, involved in the most horrible debauchery (missing children, wars etc) and then wonder why birthrates have collapsed. They thought they had it in the bag after WW2.

QueenLizIII · 27/10/2016 01:41

The public didnt turn against Diana for adultery either so not sure what the point is with Charles.

LikeDylanInTheMovies · 27/10/2016 03:46

The public didnt turn against Diana for adultery either so not sure what the point is with Charles.

It is probably one of the few occasions when an adulterous woman in a relationship was judged less harshly than the adulterous man. I guess the point was that Diana was considerably younger, Charles. was/is seen as emotionally distant and unable to give her what she needed emotionally.

Add in the fact that Diana's liaisons were more fleeting and her lovers didn't occupy the central role that Camilla did. Her lovers only really appeared in the public eye when they did kiss and tells which made them rather than her look shabby.

diddl · 27/10/2016 06:10

"The public didnt turn against Diana for adultery either so not sure what the point is with Charles."

Did anyone see that interview he did after Diana had done the excruciating "Queen of people's hearts(?)" thing?

He said something along the lines of he started seeing Camilla after his marriage had broken down but it came across as that being in his opinion iyswim.

And I just thought how fucking arrogant.

Get a divorce, don't cheat.

I think a lot of people just couldn't understand him wanting Camilla & not Diana.

BillSykesDog · 27/10/2016 06:48

I was just making a joke about both the Charles being adulterers! But yes, the public really did turn against Charles at the time, was it before your time Liz?

Hardly anyone wanted Charles to be King and Camilla couldn't go out as she used to get bread rolls thrown at her in the Supermarket!

Diana cheated after Charles had essentially left her for Camilla in all but name. She was only 24 and could hardly be expected to live the life of a nun while her husband went off with another woman.

Charles on the other hand went into the marriage with the full intention of cheating and hoodwinked a 19 year old girl into a marriage he had no intention of honouring properly. So he was judged much more harshly. Not many people believed he ever gave Camilla up and Diana certainly didn't.

Roussette · 27/10/2016 07:56

Diana supposedly had an affair for years with that James Hewitt so she really wasn't whiter than white. Then there was the surgeon, and the art dealer (think that lasted years too), her bodyguard, that Gilbey bloke... she ran affairs alongside each other. One of them, think it was the art dealer, was married and she got a bit stalkery with him when the affair finished.

So although Charles was a complete buffoon taking on the young Diana as a wife when it was only Camilla who he loved, Diana was not perfect and blameless.

Don;t get me wrong, I think Diana actually was good for the Monarchy and I so admired her for taking on unpopular charities, she also gave them the shake up they needed and what wonderful sons have come out of the marriage, but she did have her faults.

BillSykesDog · 27/10/2016 08:15

The thing is, that when Diana saw those people she was a single woman in all but name and living apart from her husband who was shacked up with Camilla at Highgrove. She couldn't really get a divorce, but the lifestyle she had would be acceptable for a single woman. And that's what she was really. I don't think anybody could have reasonably accepted that at the age of 24 Diana would have to shut up shop and have no more sex or relationships because her husband had gone off elsewhere.

BillSykesDog · 27/10/2016 08:18

And she did have her faults, particularly the stalker thing. But I don't think calculated unfaithfulness was one of them.

She was incredibly badly treated by Charles. She was practically a child when he married her, only just turned 20, and came from an unstable background. He was very much using her.

Roussette · 27/10/2016 08:24

She was married to Charles when she had affairs with Hewitt, Gilbey and the bodguard... of course Charles was not blameless, he was a fool. And looking back to that time, I don't think anyone really knows what went on much like real life!

Roussette · 27/10/2016 08:28

Yes, I agree Bill. He needed to find a wife and he bowled over Diana. She was unstable, her Mother had walked out the marriage leaving the kids, I think she was probably very emotionally unbalanced. It was a recipe for disaster really.

But as the years went by, I think she grew up and it became a bit of a public war, often she manipulated the Press and Charles being useless had no defence.

diddl · 27/10/2016 08:40

I don't think I'll ever understand why he didn't marry Camilla or why she married someone else.

Or why marry at all, or why stay married after the boys were born?