Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales, arrive to officially open the new Royal Liverpool University Hospital. Photo / AP
OPINION:
Five Kings, eight Queens, nine Princes, 13 Princesses, one Empress, one Grand Duke, a Grand Duchess and the Margrave and Margravine of Baden.
This week, if you had accidentally stumbled down central Athens you would have found yourself falling over nearly every senior crowned head, titled European and Hapsburg descendant to have been left in charge of a crumbling schloss or second-rate castle.
The reason was the funeral of King Constantine II of Greece.
It was by far and away the biggest gathering of men and women whose forebears took sides in the Napoleonic Wars since the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis’ annual blini’n’board game night or Queen Elizabeth’s sad farewell last year.
But look at the photos and there is something very obviously missing, or should that be someone, namely the late King’s own godson Prince William and his wife the Princess of Wales.
While this ‘who’s who’ of intra-married monarchies squashed into the pews of a church in central Athens on Tuesday, William, the most famous dog-bowl-destroying royal since Edward the Black Prince got annoyed with his poodle, was nowhere to be seen, only popping up on Tuesday at a London charity that, ironically, helps with youth conflict resolution.
For William and Kate their Greek no-show was a big mistake. Huge.
Let’s start with the obvious here in that this is hardly a great look right at the same moment that Prince Harry is completing his transformation from Lord of the Lager to the most famous figure of royal dissent since the Roundheads got together and started using the same barber.
For much of this year, thanks to his best-selling memoir Spare, the California transplant has been busy making the royal family out to be emotionally stunted and myopically self-interested.
For the Waleses, staying away from King Constantine’s farewell hardly does anything to counter that message.
On Sunday, Kensington Palace announced that Lady Gabriella Kingston, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, would officially represent William at the event, which is hardly a gesture of deep respect and affection for the late King.
In some ways, deputising the 55th in line to the throne, whose wedding the Wales did not even attend, to pop orf and fly the Wales flag is actually more a slight than sending no one at all.
(The eternally splendid Princess Anne, her signature steely pompadour in place and husband Sir Tim Laurence dutifully by her side, was there on behalf of King Charles.)
William not going just looks … lazy.
Imagine the cacophony of chuntering sorts who would be lambasting Harry right now if he had decided to stay in Montecito to loll about in their infra-red sauna re-reading Deepak Chopra or teaching Oprah how to play Halo rather than tootling off to one of his godparents’ funerals.
Beyond that, William and Kate really missed a trick in staying home and not making a quick dash to Greece.
The most damaging thing about Spare, if you get down to it, is not a specific incident of Palace fisticuffs or some frosty showdown in a royal garden among the topiary corgis but his overall characterisation of the Windsor famille as pathologically self-interested sorts with all the innate warmth of a freezer full of Paddle Pops.
Photos from the funeral show a visibly emotional Queen Anne Marie and Crown Prince Pavlos embracing Princess Beatrix of The Netherlands (formerly the country’s Queen), King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands, King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, Prince Joachim of Denmark, among others.
William and Kate being seen in this touchy, feely titled mix would have added a certain warm, humanising element to their image at exactly the moment they needed it the most.
And yet instead, they were nowhere to be seen.
So far, since the release of Spare, both Buckingham and Kensington Palace have maintained a complete and utter vow of monastic silence, refusing to comment as Aitch has been busy monetising his incipient messiah complex.
While the palace’s strategy has looked a case of cool-heads-prevailing so far, still, that doesn’t mean they should entirely be sitting on their manicured hands and naively hoping that the world might move on from Planet Sussex and the gravitational pull of their truth.
Rather, with the funeral of King Constantine, what William and Kate have done is look the gift horse of a golden PR opportunity in the mouth and wandered off in the other direction while Lady Gabriella was forced to hurriedly dig out a black hat.
For the Waleses, a quick injection of some pomp and grandeur would have been just the picture-perfect ticket this week, giving them the chance to rub regal shoulders and for headline writers to get to work on their repertoire of ‘Kate stuns’ staples.
Never underestimate the power of a photo of the 41-year-old wearing the hell out of an eye-wateringly expensive black coat and a handful of the late Queen’s priceless sparklers.
Moreover, after the last six weeks, going back to early December when Harry and wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s eponymous Netflix series was released, the Sussexes have dominated the narrative.
That’s why, what the Prince and Princess of Wales need so badly right now, more than a minibreak in Klosters or a fresh delivery of Tanqueray, is the chance to change the channel, rhetoric-wise.
Them going to the King’s funeral would have given them the chance to wrest back, even briefly some control.
It would have reminded the world that when William and Kate are not dropping the kids off at netball or trying to lower generational rates of depression, they are true states people who, generally, do a cracking job of representing the UK on the world stage.
Harry has been busy making (lucrative) hay out of his decades of – as he clearly sees it – mistreatment as the spare; what William should have been doing is the same thing essentially, and capitalising on his status as heir by hanging out with a clutch of Kings and Queens.
Sadly, this week, for the Prince and Princess, they have been suffering the after effects of a Greek tragedy.
Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.