Being of royal blood is not always enviable.
Prince Andrew’s slate will never be clean again, but plenty of royal mistakes have been efficiently swept under the carpet.
Prince Albert of Monaco
Fathering not one, but two illegitimate children without making any moves to marry and find an heir to the throne, did not make the now middle-aged playboy Albert a dream candidate to become the prince of the principality. His nickname Prince Carnival was telling, although he himself maintains “that it wasn’t that bad”. Anyway, it wasn’t chic. However, the damage was not irreparable. When Albert succeeded his father Rainier, he cleaned up his act remarkably quickly: the illegitimate children Jazmin Grace and Alexandre were recognized and embraced, Albert made his girlfriend Charlene Wittstock his official girlfriend and turned out to be a statesman, so that at the age of 47 he still became fashionable. . Now we are married and have adorable twins, and Albert is now more of a friendly and fatherly prince than a royal villain: no one talks about his wild years anymore.
Prince Laurent of Belgium
This is more or less the case with Prince Laurent, the younger brother of King Philippe of Belgium. Laurent managed to make the newspapers for years with speeding, controversial statements and hassle with money – a lot of hassle with money. And whatever happened to him, it was never Laurent’s fault. He always blamed everything on his ‘difficult childhood’: “You don’t know what that does to a child, being treated differently than your older brother.” After years of whining and ducking away from his own responsibility, the Prime Minister on duty handed out a figurative corrective blow in 2017 and cut Laurent’s allowance.
Queen Camilla
Camilla did not have to count on much goodwill for a long time, in the late eighties she was the most hated woman in England as Mrs. Parker Bowles (she was booed and pelted with sandwiches when she went shopping). That whole process was just getting started when Diana died in an accident. Although Camilla could do nothing about it, all the old hurts came back to the general public and she could barely walk the streets. She never responded to the hostilities, but she had to be patient: it took until 1999 before Charles and she showed themselves to the public together.
Princess Märtha Louise of Norway
Princess Märtha Louise would probably advise Camilla against it. Norway’s royal will-o’-the-wisp is highly sensitive, clairvoyant, spiritual and open about her conversations with angels and guides. The down-to-earth Norwegians didn’t really know what to do with her, and the feelings were mutual. “Many girls dream of being a princess, but when your parents are king and queen, you want nothing more than to be normal,” says Märtha Louise. That ambition seemed to be more or less fulfilled when she lost her heart to her ‘twin flame’, the not entirely uncontroversial self-proclaimed shaman Durek Verrett. That was until then, but she overplayed her hand by using her princess title in their spiritual (and commercial) workshops such as ‘The Princess and the Shaman’. Not the joys, nor the burdens. It caused a huge uproar, after which even her father thought he had had enough and summoned her to the palace to make new arrangements. Since then, Märtha Louise has stopped using her title for her work and she went the extra mile by also giving up her state allowance.
Princess Beatrice
Another princess with a good sense of the spirit of the times is Beatrice of York, who filled front pages for years with parties, trips and her 28 vacations a year. Vacant jobs didn’t make things any better, nor did her blind loyalty to her munching mother Sarah Ferguson and freebie-hunting father Prince Andrew. Because dad Andrew kept pushing his daughters Beatrice and Eugenie for roles as full-time royals to keep their House of York in the picture, the image emerged of a good-for-nothing princess with no sense of reality, who didn’t want to work and spend her days on expenses. from the Queen… to a royal bright spot. That was no longer possible: Beatrice had the sense to distance herself from her parents. She took her work more seriously than her vacations for a change, got engaged to nice entrepreneur Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi who was far too busy to jet-set, and turned out to be a nice stepmother to his son Wolf. Without complaining, she also decided against an expensive Royal Wedding due to the corona restrictions and provided a sweet bright spot in gloomy 2020 with her modest private wedding, in a vintage evening gown from her grandmother, the Queen. It was sober, it was personal, it fit seamlessly with what was going on. She was also generous with snaps and suddenly everyone loved Yorkie Bea.
The Oranges
Since the autumn of 2020, King Willem-Alexander has been aware that he cannot switch his exemplary role on and off at will. Going on holiday in Greece during corona times while the rest of the Netherlands could not yet go to the Greek restaurant on the corner, was really a huge mistake. The trip showed little awareness of what was really going on in our own country in terms of concerns about jobs, incomes, loneliness and other pandemic misery. It also detracted from the many valued (video) conversations that the Oranges previously had with people in healthcare or who were affected by all the restrictions. For the first time in seven years, after a fairly flawless run as king, he did not have to deal with familiar murmurs about money, but with widespread disapproval.
View this post on Instagram
That was a bit of a shock. An excuse came that was not an excuse, with the announcement that the holiday would be interrupted. A few days after returning, Willem-Alexander made an unprecedented knee jerk in a video, while Máxima silently gave a masterclass in two minutes of contrite viewing. It was so serious that the tone on Twitter quickly changed from ‘off with their heads’ to ‘sand over and on again.’ That’s another way to do it.
Source: Ella Vermeulen | Image: NL Image, Instagram
