Unofficial Royalty

After the recent deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother, and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, there are far fewer royal women than in the past. As the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York remain unmarried, the only senior royal women now are the Queen, the Countess of Wessex (Prince Edward’s wife Sophie), and the Princess Royal (Princess Anne). The royal women farther from the throne but still royal highnesses are Princess Alexandra and her sisters-in-law, the Duchess of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent (who does not perform royal duties), and the Duchess of Gloucester. Now that Princess Alexandra is a 68-year-old widow, she may choose to reduce her schedule in the near future. All of these ladies of the Queen’s generation are likely to have lower profiles as time passes and the younger grandchildren of King George V are pushed further away from the throne by the descendants of George VI.

While the older generation nears retirement, another generation of royal women should be coming on the scene soon. Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are almost grown up, and it seems likely that they will take on royal duties. During the 1990s it was said that in the future the number of active royals would be reduced, but at that time it was anticipated that the late Princess of Wales would remain active, and that Princes William and Harry would marry fairly soon, as well as taking on full schedules of royal duties themselves. Now it looks as though Prince William is reluctant to end his private life as a student and become a “working royal,” while Prince Harry shows every sign of intending to run wild for as long as he can. Most likely both princes will enter the military and remain single for several years. During that time the York princesses may decide to take on royal duties.

The New Year is a good time to think about royal duties, as the annual calculation of how many royal engagements were performed by each member of the family is about to be published. This tabulation is based on the royal engagements announced in the daily Court Circular. The Duchess of York complained in her autobiography that much of the charity work she did was not published in the Court Circular, and therefore was not considered in the annual “league table.” Also, appointments of only a few minutes are counted as if equal to spending an entire day at the same place, so the system encourages the royal family to be superficial in their work.

But what are these duties? Only the Queen’s duties as monarch could be described as mandatory. The senior royals have appointments as honorary heads of military divisions as well as numerous charities and other worthwhile organizations, and many of their public appearances are associated with these organizations. They also make “one-off” appearances at the request of other people or groups. These are built around the annual movements of the Court to Balmoral, Sandringham, and Windsor, as well as the events such as Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Sunday that are attended by the whole family. All of these appearances are flexible in terms of how many members of the family are full-time working royals at a given time.

If the family happens to have fewer active adult members than usual at a given time, some organizations have to do without royal patrons, but few people notice the difference. In the past, when royal and aristocratic women did not have the option of having careers, the public was less interested in whether royal women were pulling their weight by performing a full schedule of appearances. Now the trend seems to be towards making clearer distinctions between full-time senior royals, who live at public expense, and their royal relatives, who have titles and may choose to have philanthropic interests, but must earn their own money and not live in the state-owned palaces. These distinctions were not always observed by the generation of the Queen’s cousins, but for the generation of her grandchildren I think that royalty will be a job as much as a position – and not all of them will want or get the job.

- Margaret Weatherford
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