William and Kate Aim to Set a New Template as Prince and Princess of Wales
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LONDON — When Kate Middleton and Prince William stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to greet the crowds mourning Queen Elizabeth II’s death last month, they sent a crystal-clear message about the sort of senior royals they want to be.
Prince William, first in line to the throne and with the new title of Prince of Wales, put aside his well-publicized differences with his brother and sister-in-law in the name of duty and respect for the late monarch.
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A few weeks later, he made it known that he didn’t want a formal investiture ceremony as Prince of Wales like the grandiose one his father had in 1969. Instead, he said he wanted to win the trust and respect of the people of Wales.
On Sept. 27, the royal couple made their first official Welsh visit with their new titles. They visited Anglesey, an island in Wales, where they resided between 2010 and 2013, when William was a helicopter pilot for the RAF. The mood was informal and upbeat, marking the end of the royal mourning period.
The Millennial Prince and Princess of Wales have made clear from the start that they want to be modern royals, in touch with their subjects and with the issues of the day. They want to be seen as compassionate change-makers, advocates for British charities and people and strong parents to their three children.
They are worlds away from their parents’ generation and from the former Prince and Princess of Wales, Charles and Diana. They also are carrying out their duties at a time when the idea of royalty seems outdated to many, and when some members of the British Commonwealth are eager to break away.
The couple — like William’s father King Charles III — are having to modernize the monarchy in real time, out of a sense of duty and respect for their ancestors and because they need the institution to survive.
According to a survey by the British Social Attitudes, 14 percent of those under 35 feel the monarchy is not very important, in comparison to the 44 percent of those aged 55 and older who feel it was key for the country.
But preserving the crown is a difficult task.
Over the last four decades, the monarchy has seen major shifts — pre-1980s, the Firm was a dusty establishment with no real zhuzh. Their image was so old-fashioned that they agreed to a television documentary in 1969, letting cameras into their daily lives and breaking the so-called fourth wall.
The renowned English presenter David Attenborough, who controlled the channel BBC 2 at the time, insinuated that the film could have kill the monarchy because “the whole institution depends on a mystique and the tribal chief in his hut. If any members of the tribe ever sees inside the hut, then the whole system of the tribal chiefdom is damaged and the tribe eventually disintegrates.”
Queen Elizabeth got the message: She later had the documentary banned. It hasn’t been shown on British TV since 1997.
When the ’80s rolled around, the royal family’s most eligible bachelor, Prince Charles, found a wife in the young Diana Spencer, who gave a glamorous boost to the family and kept them in the tabloid headlines with her marriage woes, separation from Charles and life as a divorcée.
By the time Diana died, the lives of the royals had become a British soap opera, and the monarchy’s future was again under threat. Many Diana supporters questioned whether Charles should even be king and castigated his behavior and relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.
But William and Middleton, who married in 2011, represented a fresh start, a couple with a happy marriage that was going to do things differently and try not repeat the mistakes of the past.
It has not been easy for William in particular.
He is ferociously loyal to the Firm, in public and private. His marriage is a unified front; his philanthropic causes are aligned with Middleton’s; and he has been vocal when it comes to defending the institution he’s been brought up in.
But the family can’t seem to escape one misstep after another. There was Prince Andrew’s scandalous involvement with sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein that tarnished the entire monarchy. Then there was William’s brother Harry’s marriage to Markle, which brought Hollywood glitz into the monarchy but the couple, with Markle’s star power and clear eagerness to be a royal player, threatened to overshadow the heir to the throne. Harry and Markle’s public row with the family only made matters worse.
In 2021, William responded publicly to his brother and Markle’s claim about racism within the royal family by saying, “We are very much not a racist family” during a visit to an East London school.
The royal couple are confident in their priorities: the environment, mental health awareness, education, art, history and photography. It’s clear to them that just being royals by association no longer cuts it, especially for the younger generation that’s growing up with them.
There is no rulebook or template to follow. There’s Britain as a country at hand, as well as the Commonwealth, which from time to time challenges the monarchy. For example, in November 2021 Barbados voted to remove the queen as its head of state.
On William and Middleton’s Caribbean tour, the strategy was to win favors with the region; instead they were greeted by anti-colonial protests, which forced the couple to cancel their first official Belize event, while in Jamaica, leaders rejected them from visiting the island.
An open letter backed by 100 figures from the country to William and Middleton read: “During her 70 years on the throne, your grandmother has done nothing to redress and atone for the suffering of our ancestors during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement, indentureship and colonization.”
The couple responded with a diplomatic statement when they arrived back in the U.K. “For us that’s not telling people what to do. It is about serving and supporting them in whatever way they think best, by using the platform we are lucky to have,” it said.
Despite the couple modeling themselves after the queen, it can only go so far. The old adage of “never complain, never explain” is not one that works for the present-day royals.
Being silent in the age of using and finding one’s voice can mark them as complicit. In their new roles, William and Middleton are looking to amplify their voices rather than hushing them. They have embraced their social media channels to relay their messages and the causes they care about.
In 2021, Middleton paid tribute to Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman who was murdered, by writing her family a heartfelt letter and attending her vigil off-duty, a move of great compassion that her late mother-in-law often showed to the public.
Lord William Hague, chair of the couple’s charity, The Royal Foundation, told Sky News: “Certainly in the royal foundation, we’re not changing tone, you know. If anything, we’re going up another gear with a tone that’s well established of how to help with certain issues of some of society’s deepest problems where we need to bring people together to work on.”
He added that despite the royal family being non-political, it’s “absolutely right for a royal family that’s engaged with the world and wants to help people and serve people to get involved with.”
The Age of Elizabeth II has ended, with its highs and lows. What’s to come will be different from what history has witnessed.
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