That's why I always think the repeated faux pas are down to them....their entitlement, their superiority, their complete and utter ignorance about the real world, and not wanting to know.
They have the best sources at their fingertips so if they balls up, it's down to them.
I completely agree.
When you look at Prince Philip and his many 'gaffs' that were laughed off good-naturedly as "Oooh, what is he like?!" - many of them were very hurtful and offensive comments that he made deliberately, knowing that he would get away with it because: A. the sycophants would refuse to believe that a royal would ever intend to be anything other than kind and charming; and B. who would ever have dared to complain or pull him up on it?
People laughed along in fear and in full knowledge of the extreme imbalance of power, not because they genuinely thought it was a hilarious good-natured jape that they'd just been insulted with. It was the worst kind of claimed 'banter' that is actually nothing more than hidden-in-plain-sight bullying; not like you could give as good as you get if your friends misjudge it and take it a little too far.
This is one thing that I hate so much about the idea that we are a true democracy and that the monarch is just a benign, powerless figurehead that is there to do whatever the elected government tell them. The fact is that we have a totally unelected, untouchable leader who usually does do what the government/electorate decide; but who could very easily indeed completely ignore it and do whatever they want. No law can be passed by government unless one unelected person agrees.
Of course, I'm not claiming that there aren't a huge number of less privileged, less relatively free and less pleasant countries in the world that we could live in; but can anybody convincingly explain to me how the UK monarch isn't effectively a 'benevolent dictator' in our so-called 'democracy'? Even our country's national anthem is all centred on them, their importance and their preservation, rather than about the country and all its people - which is traditionally wholly what the point of a national anthem is.