To think William will struggle when he’s King?

[Curtain1980]

Who are the young people that will help him?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65523802

perhaps Edward’s children?

The whole concept of a 'royal family' with sundry sons and daughters and cousins and nieces and nephews doing 'good works' on behalf of the monarch is actually a fairly new one in the history of the monarchy. The 'slimming down' is going to mean that there is simply going to be less of the above, and the monarchy will more closely resemble a ceremonial Presidency with occasional tiaras and pageantry.

This won’t work, it will make the royal family look more elitist than ever, if this happens it will be reverting back to the pre King George and Queen Mary era who started off a more modern monarchy, being in touch with the people, they knew that in order for the monarchy to survive they had to change to be more accessible to the commoners, just turning up to state events in diamonds will be the end of them, they need to do the grunt work of factory and hospital openings and charity events or they are done for. Charles and William have both stated in recent days their reign is to serve and I don’t see them just wanting to host state banquets etc. they know their relationship with ordinary people is what keeps the monarchy alive.

My pet theory is that William does not really want George to be king and the reduced working royals is the first step to a big change.

I'm not suggesting they do away with the 'aaht and abaht' stuff completely. I agree that they need to be seen to connect with 'ordinary' people. But I don't think that there will be much interest in minor royals opening hospital wings or visiting country fairs, in the way there was during the queen's reign. So I don't think there's a great 'staffing' crisis. The 'core' royals, which is to say the King, Queen, William, Kate, Sophie, Edward and Anne can manage it, and later on the Wales children can get involved, even if Louis and Charlotte are not 'full time' royals.

That's the direction most European royal families are moving in. Granted, most of them have much smaller populations than Britain, but even Spain, which has over 40 million people, only has the King and Queen as 'working' royals.

Or, just a thought, they could stop calling what they do 'work' and just not do it?

I agree with this. I can't understand why anyone would want that life for their child in this day and age.

@nonheme most posters are saying this might happen or they could do this but your being specific - “He’s a lot more hot tempered than Charles” “has to walk on egg shells” I’m genuinely interested to know where the info is from?

I was at an event today with a lot of the RF there in 'working' capacity. Beatrice was there as an official part of quite a large team, so I suspect she and Eugenie will not be completely off the books.

Nah, he will be fine. Could be another 20 odd years. The,royals are blessed with longevity. William will be 60 odds . His kids grown up. Christ harry could be back in the fold, his kids, who knows.

Your definition of “struggling” and mine are clearly very different.

He’ll open fewer shopping centres. Big deal. None of them are necessary.

We saw Charles being tetchy at his accession signing - but then his mother had just died, so he’s obviously upset.
cant think of any other times - he’s always seemed rather a shy, contemplative man to me.

william - when has his temper been evidenced? He’s always come across as a balanced, cautious and careful man.

Harry is the one whose temper has been evident - caught on camera brawling outside a nightclub, raking his spurs down the flanks of a polo pony and drawing blood.

maybe he is the reason so many of his and MMs staff resigned?

Ah yes poor old future king. The struggle is real 😂

No. Not necessarily. A feelgood factor maybe but that's it.

This is worth a read. A study of royal patronages with a database with 3million entries.

https://giving-evidence.com/2020/07/16/royal-findings/

Absolutely no way will they entertain this. Never ever ever. They are free to pick up endorsements because they are Royal, make money, travel the world, do their own thing, loads of freedom.... they'd hardly trade that in. Look at the photos of them in Australia, they were all over the place, at the Races looking worse for wear, selfies, provocative poses together ....
Don't blame them. Up to them.
But they wouldn't give that up.

I think it's doubtful he'll ever be king, I know which way I'd vote if we had a referendum.

Well if the monarchy wants to evolve, perhaps a step forward would be for there to be no working royals outside of the direct line.

They could simply enoble and give dukedoms to ordinary people who have extraordinary talent and representation of different parts of society, and they can do the charity work. Subject to strict vetting and eligibility, naturally (permanent veto on David Beckham).

It is ridiculous that Charlotte and Louis might be further ennobled just for getting married, like Harry was.

Yes yes yes to this. ⬆⬆⬆

The only problem with a scaled down monarchy, is that the monarch is also the monarch of the commonwealth, covering many large and small countries. Of course, if some choose to become republics, which seems likely then there will be less of an obligation to those countries.
The Kents and the Gloucesters are getting older, and when they retire, there will be just Anne, Edward and Sophy. (apart from W&K)
Harry has departed, and there is no reason why James and Louise will choose to be 'working' royals, they may prefer to live life away from the glare.
The late Queen became monarch age 25, generally considered very young, but I am using this as a benchmark. Hopefully George will have at least 15 years (I think he is about 9), before he takes on royal duties.
It is possible, that Beatrice and Eugenie could be called upon to participate, but somehow I think Charles will try to avoid this if possible.
When William becomes King (and if we assume Charles has around 10 years), then I think W's children will possibly still be a bit young. don't think it is possible to decide ahead in 15 years, as there could be no commonwealth, or even a monarchy by then.

I think the Commonwealth will be around for a long time, there are countries who have recently joined the Commonwealth who were never part of the Empire.
It's basically a big trading bloc.

The staffing issue isn't now the issue is in 10 years time when Williams kids are still in school / uni / miliary life. And only William & Kate are under retirement age.

Back in the '80s / 90s, when Charles probably first suggested slimming it down there must have been about 18 working Royals,
Qmum, Queen & Philip, Margaret, Charles & Di, Ann, Andrew & Fergie, plus about 8 Kents / Gloucesters.

The only problem with a scaled down monarchy, is that the monarch is also the monarch of the commonwealth, covering many large and small countries.

There's no such thing as being 'monarch of the commonwealth'. Most members of the Commonwealth are republics, with only 14 remaining as overseas realms. Several of these are talking about making moves towards becoming republics, but it's unlikely that any would leave the Commonwealth.

I think William and Kate will find this a problem.

I doubt very much that they will backtrack on Beatrice and Eugenie and I don't know if they would still be interested in being working royals anyway.

I think Charles made a mistake in being so definitive about Beatrice and Eugenie, they seem to do well with the charity work they do already and they could have been a support to William and Kate but it's too late now to go back. Zara, Peter, Louise and the other one (David?) are too far down the succession and have not been brought up as Prince/Princess to be suitable now.

The real issue is that William and Kate clearly don't want to do many engagements but they are going to have to step it up at least a bit. There's been excuse after excuse but there comes a point when you just have to conclude that they just don't want to. I know someone is going to come along to say oh but Kate does the school run but you don't have to do the school run every day to be a hands on parent (I don't and I don't have all the household support they do)

I said this on another thread - the scaled down RF will have to do more engagements. Only Anne consistently does anything approaching a number of engagements equivalent to a full time job. Kate did just 90 last year.

And yet can mysteriously always find time for things like Wimbledon..