A royal expert has claimed that the prospect of ascending the throne sooner than anticipated is causing Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales great concern.
Former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Tina Brown said there was a “frightening proximity” to William becoming monarch as his father, King Charles, battles cancer.
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“The … news of Charles’ cancer has put William and Catherine in frightening proximity to ascending the throne just when they had hoped for a span of years to parent their children out of the public eye,” Brown wrote in an essay for the New York Times.
“The prospect of it, I am told, is causing them intense anxiety.”
Brown said that recent royal scandals, from Prince Andrew’s ties to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to the drama surrounding Harry and Meghan, had put the pair under “unmanageable pressure”.
“Catherine is the most popular member of the royal family after William,” Brown wrote.
“The future of the monarchy hangs by a thread, and that thread is her.”
With Catherine facing her own cancer battle, the pressures are mounting.
“A tidal wave of premature responsibility is crashing in her and William’s direction,” Brown said.
“Frozen, unready and with Catherine now seriously unwell, the Prince and Princess of Wales await the awesome burden of the crown.”
That may sound overtly dramatic, but with three children aged 10 or under, and with the reigning monarch unable to carry out all of his official duties, the weight of responsibility has fallen mostly to Prince William along with Charles’ wife, Camilla.
Tuesday marked Charles and Camilla’s 19th wedding anniversary, but their tendency not to publicly “celebrate” the occasion has been compounded this year by the King’s illness.
Charles, for now, has scaled back his public-facing duties markedly, only attending to government paperwork or hosting small private audiences at home.
But Camilla and William are now doing most of the legwork when it comes to public events and duties.
Brown added that Charles’ vision of a slimmed-down monarchy might have initially sounded good on paper — but with two working royals now in treatment for cancer, there were fewer people able to step up to the plate.
“Help from other family members is scant,” the author wrote.
“The slimmed-down monarchy that Charles always promoted in suddenly looking very lean indeed.”
With the publicly disgraced Prince Andrew not eligible to step into the fray, all eyes are looking towards Charles’s other siblings.
Charles called on brother Prince Edward and his wife Sophie to take his place during a military event at Buckingham Palace on April 8, while Princess Anne has also stepped in for certain duties.
But even when Charles’ treatment is over and he returns to public life, it’s likely that the 75-year-old will continue to lean on Prince William to shoulder more responsibility.
Brown said it was unlikely that intense public scrutiny of the royal family would ever go away, as the wild speculation around Kate’s absence from public life ahead of her cancer announcement proved.
“The fascination of the crown will always be the tension between a venerable institution and the human beings who are trapped inside it,” Brown wrote.
“Isn’t it just too cruel to expect modern mortals to live and love and parent in such a blisteringly unforgiving media gaze?”