William’s obsession weighs a “heavy danger” on the monarchy

William has never made my own desire to protect his family from public views.getty/watson

The announcement of the imminent move of the Prince of Wales and his family in a mansion isolated from the Windsor Great Park arouses concerns among certain experts in royalty.

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“The happiness of some makes the misfortune of others,” could say the saying. While the small family of Kate and William must probably be delighted with the move that awaits her by the end of the year, in a coquet manor of eight rooms located in the heart of a green park of several hectares, Forest Lodge, others are concerned about what implies this posted withdrawal.

Forest Lodge, the new house of Wales, in Windsor Great Park.Image: Hulton Archive

Indeed, the assumed goal of this “house forever”, as William nicknamed, is none other than to preserve his private life and that of his family and to move away from the tumult that inevitably follows the prince and the princess of Wales wherever they go.

An understandable choice, to a certain extent, since he stems directly from the tormented and dysfunctional childhood of William, marked by the open war of his parents in the British tabloids, then by the death of her mother, Princess Diana. The devastating experience of his wife’s cancer and the media pressure that preceded the announcement of his diagnosis last year also probably played an important role in this distance.

However, the choice, “deeply disturbing”, could also prove to be perilous for the monarchical institution, according to a forum by journalist Amanda Platell in the Daily Mail. The columnist wants it for example for Queen Elizabeth II and her famous adage: “We must be seen to be raw.”

The monarchy survival creed.

William, with his obsession with several years of protection from his family, seems to take the opposite tangent. Rarely seen (he only made 71 commitments last year, against 372 for his father, however suffering from cancer), he already returns the image of a man who puts his life as a husband and father before that of heir to the British throne.

This is all the more true in the era of voracious social networks, which demand more than occasional shots of royal offspring or a tender video of Kate tightening a tree in her arms.

Forest Lodge raises questions about the kind of monarch that William plans to become. It is obvious that no official audience will never be invited to the family manor, unlike most official royal residences, such as the castle of Windsor or Clarence House, the current main house of King Charles.

However, William should not forget it: because of his title, the Prince of Wales benefits from exorbitant advantages – including a duchy of Cornwall worth nearly a billion pounds Sterling, from which he draws a huge “salary” of 23 million pounds Sterling per year.

“I fear,” writes the columnist for Mail“That a future part -time king, entrenched at Forest Lodge, on the Windsor estate, does not cause an even more marked collapse of support among his subjects”. By its accession to the crown, in fact, the population could be mainly made up of generation Z-of which only 29% think that the monarchy is “good for the United Kingdom”.

The way in which the future sovereign will reconcile its own privacy requirements while being at the head of one of the last royal dynasties flourishing in the world remains a mystery. One thing is certain: the prince will have an important decision to make in the coming years that he will spend hidden in Forest Lodge before climbing the throne.

The author of the chronicle, she hardly seems convinced of the outcome for the monarchy. “After decades of reign of King William, I fear that the royal family would look like all the other minor European royal families: insignificant, without brilliance, occasionally appearing in the interior pages of hello magazine! – and simply banal. “

The announcement of the imminent move of the Prince of Wales and his family in a mansion isolated from the Windsor Great Park arouses concerns among certain experts in royalty.

“The happiness of some makes the misfortune of others,” could say the saying. While the small family of Kate and William must probably be delighted with the move that awaits her by the end of the year, in a coquet manor of eight rooms located in the heart of a green park of several hectares, Forest Lodge, others are concerned about what implies this posted withdrawal.