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When friends and relatives gathered at a church in eastern England the other day for a memorial service honouring Robert Fellowes, they were remembering a Buckingham Palace courtier who served as private secretary to Queen Elizabeth during the turmoil the House of Windsor faced in the 1990s.

Fellowes, who died on July 29 at the age of 82, also had a family tie to the royals, having been married to an elder sister of the late Princess Diana.

Yet when reports of the memorial service surfaced in the media — mainstream and tabloid — much attention focused on two particular attendees who are estranged.

Princes William and Harry were both reportedly at the service for their uncle, but if some headlines are to be believed, they kept their distance and weren't seen speaking with one another.

It was yet another example of how often these days the rift between the two sons of King Charles has become a narrative that can overshadow other Royal Family business.

"We see this personal estrangement between the two brothers trickling into articles about otherwise unrelated topics," Toronto-based royal author and historian Carolyn Harris said in an interview.

It's not a new phenomenon — royals' personal conflict distracting popular attention from what members of the Royal Family are otherwise doing in the public eye.

"King Charles III had the same experience in the 1990s, when he was in many ways ahead of the curve in terms of promoting organic farming and sustainable development," said Harris. 

"But all of the headlines, unless he was being interviewed for the National Geographic, tended to emphasize the breakdown of his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales."

There is little doubt that the rift between William and Harry is deep.

"It seems pretty total," said Craig Prescott, a constitutional expert and lecturer in law at Royal Holloway, University of London, in an interview.

"It seems … at least for now, [Harry is] out and there doesn't seem to be any chink of light of reconciliation or anything from William's part."

Various factors appear to be at play in the estrangement.

"Both William and Harry are quite protective of their privacy, distrustful of the press and very protective of their spouses," said Harris.

"So Harry's decision to discuss his private relationship with his father and brother in his memoir, Spare, the way he has spoken about the Royal Family in the Netflix documentary Harry and Meghan and the interview with Oprah — it's very clear that relations between the two brothers are extremely strained and they are not speaking with one another."

Harris attributes the enduring media focus on William, Harry and their estrangement to how the public watched them grow up — seeing them first as children; then mourning the death of their mother, Diana; getting married; and becoming fathers.

"Their entire life cycle has unfolded in the public eye," Harris said. "There are many people who speak of them as though they're people they know."

And that can manifest itself in different ways.

"We see William and Harry becoming part of cultural discussions," said Harris. "When Spare was published, there were a lot of opinion pieces written about adult brothers and how they relate to each other."

That phenomenon played out again in recent days when observers started to mention William and Harry in the same breath as Noel and Liam Gallagher, the famously feuding brothers who are coming back together as their rock band Oasis goes on tour next year.

"At this moment in 2024, the tenor of some of the discussion in Britain is that if Oasis can reunite, is there a way for William and Harry, at least on a personal level, to be able to speak with one another, even if there's no hope for Harry to ever return to a public role within the Royal Family?" said Harris.

There is little to indicate publicly that a reconciliation between William and Harry — who now lives in California with his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and their two children — might happen any time soon.

And if that's the case, the rift does raise larger issues.

"The significance is that fundamentally you've lost … a member of the Royal Family who … had a particular skill in engaging with young people … and that really there is in a sense a Meghan-and-Harry-sized hole in the Royal Family in terms of its public work," said Prescott.

Harris sees personal conflict casting a shadow over the public image of the monarchy.

"Some may argue that that it humanizes them to some degree, that just as people have looked at Charles's life and the difficulties he's experienced with divorce and now estrangement from one of his sons, [that shows] he's a very three-dimensional human being who's experienced some challenges in life despite that life of privilege being the future king and then the king," she said. 

"But it could also be argued that as long as this estrangement [between William and Harry] is dominating the press headlines, it's going to overshadow everything else that they are doing in the public eye."

Already, there has been discussion about whether Harry would be invited to William's coronation when the time comes, even to sit in the back row.

"And that's certainly, one can assume, not the kind of discussion that William will want in the future when he eventually succeeds to the throne — to be viewed in the press through being in this conflict with Harry, rather than being viewed in his own right," said Harris.

More than the money

The recently released Sovereign Grant report laid out some pretty big numbers for the monarchy — including the groundwork for a 45-million pound funding boost in 2025-2026 from profits resulting in part from offshore windfarms held by the Crown Estate.

But the annual publication also served as something of a catch-all for courtiers and a way to lay out wide-ranging details regarding the operations of the monarchy — from how refurbishment of Buckingham Palace is coming along to diversity in the royal workforce (the proportion of ethnic minority staff in the Royal Household increased from 9.7 per cent of total employees in 2022-2023 to 11.4 per cent in 2023-2024) and a decision to buy two new helicopters.

"These reports, I think, are a really interesting combination of part PR, part accounts, part corporate strategy, and you get a real sense of Buckingham Palace as an organization and as an institution," Prescott said.

"I think there's a sense that they have to get this information out and that this is the one opportunity in the year where they get to sort of just explain everything, deal with the cost, deal with something like getting two new helicopters….

"And so I think it's a sense of getting out perhaps those more awkward stories and then they're out there, they're done."

Much of the focus of the report is of course the money. 

The Sovereign Grant, which is a proportion of profits from the Crown Estate and covers the Royal Family's operating costs, will rise to 132 million pounds in 2025-2026, up from 86.3 million pounds in the coming year, according to media reports.

Anti-monarchy group Republic said in a release that the grant continues to rise at an "astronomical rate, yet this is just a small part of the appalling cost of the monarchy."

"We do not owe the royals a living, we do not owe them palatial homes, private helicopter travel or lives of leisure and luxury," Republic CEO Graham Smith said in the release.

"The only reason the price tag for the royals is so high is because the monarchy is corrupt. They abuse the taxpayer's trust day in, day out, taking our money to spend on their own private lifestyles."

As much as the report lays out numbers, getting a true sense of royal finances is not easy.

"It's all very weird and all very confusing," said Prescott.

"I suppose the benefit of it all is that there is an element of transparency. You do get this report. You do see where the money goes and how the figure [for the Sovereign Grant] at least is arrived at, whereas before with the Civil List, this was up for renegotiation every now and again between the monarchy and Parliament, and that was always a little bit tetchy."

King Charles has had a longstanding interest in sustainability, and that was reflected in the Sovereign Grant report, which noted among other initiatives the first solar panels installed at Windsor Castle. The new helicopters, which will be purchased in 2024-2025, can partially operate on sustainable aviation fuel.

But greenhouse gas emissions "increased slightly from the previous year, rising by four per cent during 2023-24 due to an increase in travel and electricity use," the report said.

Out and about — but not as much

The release of the Sovereign Grant report also revealed a marked decrease in the number of public engagements carried out by members of the Royal Family in 2023-2024.

That there is a reduction is in some ways unsurprising. Both King Charles and Catherine, Princess of Wales, were out of the public eye while receiving treatment for cancer. Charles has resumed many public-facing duties, but Catherine's public appearances have been rare in recent months — just Trooping the Colour in June and Wimbledon in July.

Overall, the number of official engagements in 2023-2024 was 2,327, down from 2,710 the previous year.

Harris said the reduction in engagements stood out to her.

"We are seeing that the income for the Royal Family's official life is increasing even as this year they're not undertaking as many public engagements. And this is going to lead to debate and discussion of, is the current funding model the most appropriate funding model at this time, when we're seeing fewer public engagements or fewer overseas tours," she said.

The more public engagements there are, Harris said, the more people have personal memories of meeting a member of the Royal Family.

WATCH | Catherine, Princess of Wales, takes part in Trooping the Colour:

Princess Catherine joins other royals for military parade

Catherine, Princess of Wales, attended the Trooping the Colour parade in London on Saturday, delighting members of the public who turned out for her first official appearance since her cancer diagnosis earlier this year. Other members of the Royal Family took part in the ceremony, including King Charles, who is also being treated for cancer.

"When there's fewer public engagements, more people come to view the Royal Family in abstract terms or as people they see on television or see on the internet, rather than people who are there in their community opening public buildings or engaging with local philanthropy." 

Prescott doesn't think this past year's reduction in the number of engagements has had an impact. But that could change down the road.

"Where I think it will have an impact is that … if a monarchy isn't around and the monarchy isn't seen to be believed and gets involved with fewer organizations, I just think over time that could lead to a gradual slow decline in support rather than a massive drop," Prescott said.

"Just anecdotally, fewer people will meet them, fewer organizations will have them as their patron or to open a new building or whatever it was."

One engagement many observers will be watching closely is a trip to Australia by King Charles and Queen Camilla in October.

"That will be the biggest moment of the year in many ways," Prescott said.

"The timing has worked out well, in that there's no moves towards a republic in Australia now … so this is an opportune moment to go and for the King of Australia to be seen in Australia."

New portraits for Canada — and other Commonwealth realms

Our friend in the CBC politics bureau in Ottawa, J.P. Tasker, had this report about Canada finally getting an official photographic portrait of King Charles, more than a year after his coronation.

The portrait shows Charles wearing some of his Canadian insignia. A portrait of Queen Camilla also shows her wearing the maple leaf brooch.

"The medals and the jewelry very much referenced the Royal Family's relationship with Canada," said Harris.

"We have Charles with the Order of Canada that he received and Camilla wearing the Maple Leaf brooch from the 1939 royal tour [of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Canada]."

While the portraits have those unique Canadian elements, they are also remarkably similar to the official Australia and New Zealand portraits of Charles and Camilla — the photos appear to have been taken at the same time in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace in June, with just the insignia and jewelry changed. 

Portraits of Queen Elizabeth for various Commonwealth realms also showed a similar pattern.

"You could totally imagine it being an assembly line," said Prescott. "And of course that means that all the crowns are treated equally as well.... They wouldn't want to have two radically different poses or images for different Commonwealth realms, I would imagine."

Royally quotable

"He is doing very well."

— Queen Camilla, regarding her husband, King Charles, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. Camilla made the comment on Tuesday while she was in Bath, England, to open a cancer centre.

Royal reads 

1. In an edited extract from A Voyage Around the Queen, biographer Craig Brown finds that those presented to Queen Elizabeth "found the experience discombobulating. Though it may have been the first time they had ever set eyes on her, they were often more familiar with her face than with their own." [The Guardian]

2. Just weeks before her death, Queen Elizabeth took one final ride on her beloved pony, Emma, knowing it would be the last time they met. [Daily Mail]

3. King Charles and Prince Andrew have never been particularly close, so it's no great surprise to see reports that Andrew's private security, funded by the King, is being stopped before the end of the year. [ITV]

4. A Belize-born composer is the first Black woman to be appointed Master of the King's Music. Errollyn Wallen's work includes 22 operas, and her pieces are among the most performed of living musicians. [The Guardian]

5. Prince Harry and Meghan may no longer be working royals. But on their recent visit to Colombia, they still received a stately welcome. Primarily, they say, the visit was about promoting their charity work trying to make the internet safer for children. [BBC]

6. She is the clairvoyant daughter of one of Europe's longest-serving monarchs; he is a self-styled sixth-generation shaman from California. The wedding of Princess Märtha Louise of Norway to Durek Verrett wasn't your conventional royal affair, but that didn't stop spectators lining the overcast streets of a western Norwegian town in the hope of catching a glimpse of the bride. [The Guardian]

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