One of my favourite royal stories of all time goes like this – when King Charles and Queen Camilla go overseas on official tours, they travel with their own supply of booze.
His Majesty fancies a gin and tonic after a hard day’s hand-shaking; Her Majesty is a shiraz gal.
The ostensible reason – it’s for security. (Right … because the chances of ISIS striking at the heart of the British establishment by poisoning One’s tipple seems highly likely. Threat level: Vin Rouge?)
Whatever the reason, according to a new report, Berry Bros & Rudd, purveyors of royal plonk for more than a century, should be expecting an imminent order of vast quantities, because the House of Windsor is orf overseas. Orf to try and have a go at a spot of “soft diplomacy”, according to a new Mail on Sunday report, and orf to try and keep the Commonwealth vaguely, kinda glued together.
And key to this effort will be none other than William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales, two people who I doubt have ever kept a foreign ambassador awake playing Sheena Easton or Toya at 2am amid the sound of gin-soaked giggling.
While for the last three years the Crown Inc has been forced to stick largely close to home, and with their re-entry into wider international gallivanting delayed by the death of Queen Elizabeth, all that is soon set to change, the Mail has reported.
“State visits are back,” a palace source has said, a sentence I’m imagining was uttered with a certain degree of relish.
But no matter the gin orders incoming or the malaria tablets being stockpiled or the fact William has spent the better part of the last week trying to find his favourite Aston Villa neck pillow, this is news that should be making two people with underused passports, Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex nervous.
Get-out-the-Ashwagandha, extra-camomile-tincture nervous. (Or if no one is looking, a couple-of-belts-of-that-Casamigos-tequila-leftover-from-the-wedding nervous).
It was not that long ago, back when Megxit had yet to enter the popular lexicon and Harry had no idea what the Californian tax rate was, that it looked like some sort of unofficial divvying up of the world had taken place.
William and Kate, as future King and Queen, would devote themselves to putting the ‘great’ back into Great Britain, posing patiently for selfies with the goggling masses from the Isles of Scilly to John o’ Groats.
Meanwhile, the still-on-the-books Sussexes would be dispatched to charm the Commonwealth and charm them some more. The hope seemed to be that their youthful verve and the duchess’ ready supply of homemade banana bread might keep far-flung realms like Australia quiescent and still sold on having an unelected, foreign head of state who lived a 22-hour flight away.
But those best laid plans were then hit by a) Harry and Meghan going the full bolter (any Nancy Mitford fan in the room?) and then b) the pandemic clipping the entire world’s wings.
But even then, it still seemed like the Sussexes would turn out to be the natural heirs of Diana, Princess of Wales’ legacy as the go-getting, jetsetting, world-stage-dazzling members of the royal family.
Unfettered by rules or Foreign Office diktats, Harry and Meghan could go anywhere and take on any cause. Refugee camps, remote health outposts and animal conservation projects from the world over would be their patch in what seemed destined to be a caring-krieg like never before.
It would – could – have been glorious, but it never came to pass.
The farthest afield from Montecito the Sussexes have ventured to do some good was when they flew to The Hague for Harry’s Invictus Games in April 2022 with a Netflix crew in tow, when he travelled to Mozambique and Rwanda in August last year in his capacity as President of African Parks and in September, when they jetted back to the UK for what was to be a series of events with organisations they had continued to support after leaving. (Her late Majesty’s death meant they were cancelled).
And yet conversely, while the duke and duchess’ efforts have proven to be a tad underwhelming, we now seem to have the Waleses and the royal family eager to grow their international footprint.
Last year, Kate undertook an unusual solo international trip, hitting Denmark for a couple of days in conjunction with Her late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee and the princess’ Early Years work, before William took his Earthshot Prize to Boston in December.
Next month, William will be back in the States, specifically New York, for the annual Earthshot Prize innovation summit and to finally see if he can get a table at Balthazar. (He had been scheduled to do the same last year until Her late Majesty passed away).
Later in the year, both the prince and princess will jet off to Singapore with their matching battery-powered handheld fans for an entire week of Earthshot events and finding out how lightweight wool serves in South-East Asian humidity.
(I think it’s likely that Australia will get a look in sooner rather than later, with either William and Kate dispatched to stop us becoming too restive or Charles and Camilla venturing onto our shores when they head to Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in October, 2024).
With Earthshot, William has chosen not only an issue with a worldwide reach and impact, but has set up an organisation whose funding and sweep circles the globe. There is not a single soul on the planet whose life will not be affected by our rapidly changing climate and the prince is having a jolly good crack at doing something about it.
Which is to say he is positioning himself perfectly to take his place on the world stage, the crinkle-eyed, caring prince who is doing nearly exactly what his sainted mother did – picking a cause that matters to them deeply and then hitting the road to try and agitate for it to be fixed.
And yet while the Waleses’ are dialling up their international do-goodery, the inverse seems to be happening over on the West Coast, with the duke and duchess having only undertaken two in-person charity engagements each all year.
In March, the duchess marked International Women’s Day with a visit to LA’s Harvest Home; in May, both of the Sussexes observed Mental Health Awareness Month by visiting a local Santa Barbara youth group, and in June, Harry joined alumni of the Diana Award in Los Angeles as part of a program called Conversations for Change.
(Side note: their Archewell Fondation has, during this time, supported other initiatives and has been ticking away on, most recently, a report from Equimundo which works to promote gender equality).
Meanwhile, in the last eight months the Sussexes have managed to head to the Big Apple twice to pick up awards for their charity work.
Perhaps what this all comes down to is hours in the day.
William and Kate, when they are not doing the school run and Googling “normal family activities”, can devote all their time to their charity work.
And Harry and Meghan? Their plates are full to overflowing.
In the last few months Harry has twice flown back to the UK for his various legal fights with sections of the British media; the couple’s contract with Spotify has gone kaput, reportedly costing them millions and Netflix has told the couple they have to “come up with more must-watch shows” if they want to earn the remaining $76 million of their contract.
Between all this and the couple’s run-ins with the paparazzi, it’s hard to see how they even have the time in the day to fit in a quick transcendental meditation sesh, let alone have a go at doing much world-saving.
So, will William and Kate’s (and Charles and Camilla’s) worldwide push save the Commonwealth?
Will Harry and Meghan dust off their passports to have a crack Diana-ing?
And can Berry Bros & Rudd call in enough staff to do overtime before the King and Queen’s next overseas jaunt?
Stay tuned for the next episode of the World Is Not Enough.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.