Prince William holds the future of the British monarchy in his hands

Prince William holds the future of the British monarchy in his hands

While next week almost all attention will be focused on Queen Elizabeth as she celebrates her 70th birthday on the throne this year, for those looking to the future of the British monarchy, attention is focused on her grandson Prince William.

British royalty have suffered bruises for several years in the US abuse case against Elizabeth Andrew’s son, Prince Harry, William’s younger brother, leaving his duties to move to the United States in 2020, and police investigating alleged violations in the main charity of the son and heir of Prince Charles.

As the health of the popular 96-year-old queen becomes a growing source of concern, forcing her to retire from public engagements, her platinum anniversary will mark not only a time to reflect on her past, but also to look ahead.

Most polls show that the majority of the British public supports the monarchy, and while his 73-year-old father is less popular, William – second in line to the throne – and his wife Kate are the most popular royalty after the queen.

But research also shows that people under the age of 50 are much more ambivalent about the institution.

“The future rests with Prince William,” said Matthew Denison, the Queen’s biographer. “And we all know that public opinion can be rude.”

A decade ago, in the wake of Elizabeth’s then-diamond jubilee celebrations, there was a remarkable moment when she greeted crowds from the balcony of Buckingham Palace, accompanied by Charles, his wife Camilla, William and his wife Kate and Harry.

This reflects Charles’s long-understood plan to reduce the monarchy effectively to his closest family when he becomes king.

But the shocking departure of Harry and his wife Megan to the United States has paid off, putting even more pressure on 39-year-old William and his young family to maintain the institution’s long-term viability and popularity as they navigate the rapidly changing society. .

“THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS”

“William is the key man, because William will become king one day,” said Charles Ray, a former royal correspondent for The Sun. “Basically, he’s the last of the Mohicans. I think a lot of things are on William’s shoulders for the future of the monarchy.”

The 40-year-old William and Kate have enjoyed extremely positive media coverage over the past five years as one of the most glamorous couples in the world with an appeal to Hollywood stars. The prince shook off the nickname “shy of work Wills”, which the British tabloids gave him in the last decade, when they assumed that the couple was lazy.

“Honestly, I’m going to get a lot of criticism in my life, and it’s something I don’t completely ignore, but it’s not something I take to heart,” he said in an interview in 2016 to mark his 90th birthday. the queen.

William also received much praise for his work on mental health, homelessness and the environment, but the couple’s recent Caribbean tour was a wake-up call after protests over Britain’s imperial past and criticism that some of the tour had a colonial impact. going back.

“I know this tour has put even more focus on issues of the past and the future,” William said in an extremely unusual statement issued at the end of their visit.

According to the Sunday Mirror, the visit prompted William and Kate to rethink what the monarchy should look like, with the couple saying they wanted to be known by their names, not their titles – Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

“They want to try to avoid bows and curtseys in public, be more accessible, less formal, less suffocated, and break away from much of the tradition and focus on a modern monarchy,” an unnamed source said. in front of the newspaper.

Miguel Head, who was the prince’s key aide for a decade until 2018, said that although William did not like the ceremony, he understood its significance.

“When he gets the highest job, he won’t give up,” Head told the Sunday Times. “He realizes that the monarchy is something eternal that is above all of us, and many people like the magic and the theater of it.”

William agrees that the monarchy must go through time to remain relevant, something the Queen has been praised for. The prince in 2016 called her his best role model for this work.

“This is the challenge for me on how to make the royal family relevant in the next 20 years, and maybe 40 years, maybe 60 years … I hope this is something I can do. (Reuters)