Prince William was apparently left “hurt and angry” over a moment that was splashed all over social media.
I don’t know where we would be if the Windsors spontaneously took themselves all off to family therapy to sit around in a circle and authentically share how sad they feel when underbutlers forget their toast points at elevenses or when angry spares go off and wreak PR hell.
For years now, ‘Windsor’ has become shorthand for angry, sad, shirty emotional thrashing-about that hogs headlines and dominates royal discourse.
Golden Balls himself has now accidentally gotten tangled up in the latest round of royal hurt feelings and finger-pointing and is part of the reason that Prince William is “hurt and angry”.
Sir David Beckham is made a Knight Bachelor by King Charles. Picture: Instagram
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The former England captain has now got his very own title (after only 11 years of lobbying, one tax snafu and that time he called the honours committee “a bunch of c***s”) kneeling in front of a sword-wielding King Charles at Windsor Castle while looking suitably solemn and be-suited.
It was one small crouch for the footballer and one stratospheric social step for les Beckhams, as both Buckingham Palace and Sir David and Lady Victoria reaped a nice truck full of mutually beneficial PR.
His wife Victoria and his parents, David and Sandra, look on. Picture: Jonathan Brady/PA via AP
Beckham and Charles are very close. Picture: Instagram / David Beckham
In tow to South America were the British media who all packed tropical-grade insult repellent and their best manners to glowingly report on the rapturous reception he enjoyed as he leapt around Copacabana beach having a jolly good crack at retaking pinup status.
Prince William, Prince of Wales speaks during the COP30 UN climate conference in Brazil. Picture: Aaron Chown – WPA Pool/Getty Images
Then it was off to Cop30 for William and his unexpected new ‘Robin’, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer desperate to get away from the fact his government keeps accidentally releasing sex offenders back into the community. Whoops.
From Kensington Palace’s perspective, last week was meant to be ‘All hail William’-headlines as he swept about Rio in high street linen separates.
Prince William plays on the beach in Brazil. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images
He was really getting into the game. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images
But even future heirs to thrones can’t have everything they want, because dashing his clear run and big spotlight moment were, back in drafty Windsor, Charles and David doing their new buddy-buddy double act.
William, over in Rio, was reportedly left spitting chips.
The decision to hold Sir David’s investiture right when the prince was meant to be having his big moment left and basking in glowing press coverage, a friend of his told Tom Sykes, author of the superb The Royalist Substack and European editor-at-large of The Daily Beast, left William seeing red.
“Of all weeks,” the pal told The Royalist, “this was the one week he needed the family to be pulling for him. Instead, it felt like they were pulling against him. He was left hurt and angry.”
“The family sabotaged it from beginning to end. It was pathetic, like the worst of the bad old days.”
The pair have been friends for many years. Picture: Paul Grover – WPA Pool/Getty Images
Because of course it was not just the King out glad-handing his way to a nice publicity boost last week but Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex too who took himself off to Toronto to do that thing where he stages his own ‘DIY ‘royal’ outings in jeans.
(He’s not a regular duke, he’s a cool, Amer-I-Can duke.)
That the Sussex camp announced Harry’s Canadian sortie just as William was touching down in Brazil seemed about as subtle as a grouse fork to the eye, however, reportedly, Harry’s side said the timing was due to security considerations.
Faced with both his father and brother supposedly incidentally doing their part to scupper his big moment, does anyone else imagine poor old William stewing and seething in his Rio hotel room with just a minibar Toblerone to cheer him up?
The Beckhams and the Royal Family have always been close. Picture: Finnbarr Webster / POOL / AFP
Per Sykes thought, the Harry part of this is “old and familiar” with he and his wife Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex having now spent years announcing/launching/arriving and staging big reveals and outings of their own at key royal moments.
No, “what stung William much more,” Sykes reports, “was the betrayal from inside the tent.”
A former courtier told The Royalist: “David Beckham had waited fifteen years. And they had to do it this week? When you think of how gracious William had been, paying tribute to his father’s work in his speech, it’s a slap in the face. I’m afraid Charles still can’t bear not to be the center of attention. If he couldn’t be at Cop30 himself, then nobody else was allowed to have the moment.”
Those on Team Charles, however, have argued that it was not some deliberate bit of needling, with a friend of the King telling Sykes, “His Majesty is immensely proud of his son’s work. Investitures are scheduled months in advance.”
I feel a ‘hmmmm’ coming on.
William was in Brazil when David Beckham was knighted. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images
If you’ve heard this father versus son tune before it’s because for nearly a year now, Sykes has been leading the reporting on, according to his extremely good sources, the increasingly tricky relationship between the cancer-battling King and his eldest boy and the shifting balance of power between them.
As the friend of Charles put it to Sykes: “The change of reign is happening in real time, whether they admit it or not.”
Look no further for proof of William’s increasing influence than the ouster of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from royal ranks earlier this month, the first person to be deprinced in over a century. (And even then they were German-born grandsons of Queen Victoria who were fighting on Team Kraut during World War One.)
Sir David Beckham poses with his wife Lady Victoria after he was made a Knight Bachelor. Picture: Andrew Matthews – Pool/Getty Images
While Charles has spent the last few years inviting Andrew and erstwhile duchess Sarah Ferguson to Easter and Christmas to break munificent bread, his son has reportedly been pushing for Andrew’s defrocking over his long friendship with the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Charles now faces his 77th birthday on Friday with, reportedly, complicated, troubled relationships with both of his sons and Queen Camilla having forgotten to get a mud cake in. Looks like it’s not just princes who don’t always get what they want but Kings too.
