The mood is far from the scene of 2012, when the late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was marked by a photograph of that much-touted slimmed-down Royal family in action: Elizabeth II, the then Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.
Rumbling for years, the “slimmed down” policy has long been attributed to the King, who was conscious of the cost of what seemed at the time to be an ever-expanding Royal family.
As the transition to his own reign began, the future was very clearly intended to be the direct line of succession: Prince William and his nuclear family, with self-proclaimed “spare” Prince Harry and family included. The departure of the Sussexes, as is well known, changed everything.
Since the King and Princess of Wales have taken time away from public duties for cancer treatment and preventative chemotherapy, so concerns over the “slimmed down monarchy” theory have continued.
Insiders reject the idea that it has ever been an official policy, or that there is any plan to reverse it. Often, one of them says, the Royal family acts as any other family, inviting relatives along without any grand theory behind it.
“They’re very willing to step up and do more at this current time, to help,” said one royal source, of the younger generation. “They’re very fond of their cousin and their uncle, and they want to do everything they can to support them. And they believe in the institution they grew up in.”
Peter Phillips, and Zara and Mike Tindall, are doing so on an ad hoc basis, when asked, and are sure to continue the tradition of Royal Ascot in a few weeks’ time. Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who have full-time jobs, are regularly rumoured to be on the cusp of being elevated back into the royal centre-stage.