A Tale of Two Tours: The Princes walking their own paths
PATRICK JEPHSON FOR THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Their recent trips have highlighted William and Harry's differing approaches to public emotion and Diana's legacy, says Patrick Jephson
Patrick Jephson was equerry and private secretary to Diana, Princess of Wales between 1982 and 1996. His book, The Meghan Factor, is available from Amazon
Two princes, two continents, two very different touring styles... and countless opinions on whether Team Cambridge or Team Sussex covered themselves (and us) in the greater glory. Perhaps honours are even — which would be nice. Even then, there's no concealing the growing gap in how William and Harry interpret their duty to represent the Queen on such high-level diplomatic missions.
Inevitably, there has been an unseen extra member of both squads. Diana, Princess of Wales has been brought into play not just by the media (for whom sentimental parallels and great pictures are always difficult to resist), but by the princes themselves, most directly in tomorrow's ITV special (9pm) with Tom Bradby, who accompanied Harry and Meghan on their Africa tour.
Diana's sons and their wives have literally and figuratively followed in her footsteps; even William's encounter with bad flying weather in Pakistan was foreshadowed by his mother's experience in 1991, when her Queen's Flight aircraft was grounded by a violent thunderstorm.
Family resemblance: in the Chitral district of Pakistan, Prince William wears a Chitrali hat like the one his mother wore there in 1991
Meteorology aside, perhaps the most revealing similarities and differences lie in how each prince has echoed their mother in revealing his feelings. These tours are hard work, intended to achieve tangible benefits for British interests. But the invisible rewards can be priceless, too — winning hearts and minds is a key objective, and that requires successful deployment of those most unstable royal weapons: public displays of emotion.
It would be a stony heart that doesn't go out to Prince Harry this week as he is seen, watery-eyed, telling Bradby that everything he does reminds him of his mother, or struggling, close to tears, to complete his speech at the Wellchild Awards. I attended many such events with Princess Diana, and losing control of your own emotions can be a serious occupational hazard, made no easier by office stress, new dad anxiety and the sleep deprivation that goes with both.
This is the same new father who recently shared with us the difficulty he sometimes feels getting out of bed because of the burden he carries worrying about the world's problems.
Predictably, such gloom earned a raspberry from commentators who suggested that a fit and wealthy young man, with — according, bizarrely, to Hillary Clinton — a "gutsy" woman for a wife and a bouncing new baby might lighten up a bit. It might be seen as a luxury, especially since his bed is in a house that taxpayers have just spent several million pounds to refurbish.
Better a prince who thinks too much than too little, you might argue. And many welcome our enlightened times in which a prince (a prince!) can reveal such vulnerability. What some condemn as a sign of weakness or self-indulgence, others see as proof of enlightened inner strength and sensitivity.
But, as we've recently seen, when royal thought is stoked by raw emoton, the results can veer unpredictably from endearing to mockable and finally to downright worrying. How else to describe the spasm of anger that soured the sweet success of Harry's Africa tour and now condemns him and his family to long-term legal conflict with half of Fleet Street? Hard-fought litigation could quickly put global warming in the shade as a cause of bad Frogmore mornings.
Public tears are a rarity in Windsor world. Many will remember the Queen discreetly dabbing her eye as the Royal Yacht Britannia was de-commissioned (and who can blame her?). Some may even recall the day Princess Diana visibly welled up when being addressed in fond and sympathetic words during an official engagement in Merseyside on the eve of her separation from Prince Charles. These examples show both women in a good light: the first, acknowledging the passing of a faithful servant — the second, an instinctive response to kindness at a time of great personal unhappiness.
Prince Harry's Wellchild display of emotion falls into a different category. Critics have suggested it was an overwrought attempt to steal air time, while supporters contend it was a welcome display of common humanity. Either way, it made as many headlines as what should have been William's star turn in a jewel-toned sherwani the same day.
Assuming, as we should, that the emotion was genuine and surprised the Prince as much as the rest of us, it resembles another occasion on which his mother wept. Significantly, though, that was in private. We were on tour in Africa; the last visit of the day — to a rural Aids hospice for young children — was over. The officials and media had left, leaving Diana and a small entourage to watch the toddlers being tucked in for the night.
Diana, characteristically, wanted to help. I'll never forget the image of her kneeling by each bed, accompanied only by a nun with a lantern, comforting each little occupant. As she straightened after the last bed, I saw tears shining on her cheeks. By the time she rejoined us, they had been wiped away by the professional princess already back on parade.
A son's tribute: Prince Harry, left, walks through the minefield in Angola, where his mother famously trod in 1997, right
There were no tears in Pakistan this week when Prince William agreed with a young well-wisher that he, too, was "a big fan" of his mother. But who could doubt the infinity of sadness concealed by such brief, good-natured and modest words. It seems William has adopted that most British of attitudes: that emotion makes a good servant but a poor master.
He and his brother are destined by birth for a weird public existence in which strangers can pick over their most private emotions. How they cope has been on worldwide display these past few weeks and it’s fair to say their methods are different — perhaps different enough to prevent them and their wives ever living up to Meghan's early description of the foursome's work as "unity at its best".
When Princess Diana made her own first visit to Pakistan in 1991, she was introduced to the work of the revered Pakistani poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal. Much of it struck a chord with her. She painstakingly copied a verse and gave it to me after the tour, and another might have been especially written for princes navigating a life like no other: "Destiny is the prison and chain of the ignorant."
Our system has put William, the future king, in that prison. To his infinite credit, he is turning it in to a place in which to do his duty, while still being a committed father and family man. As he said in Lahore, when told how he and Kate had "radiated joy" wherever they had been: "We are very happy people." It shows.
Harry's prison has an open door, and no gaoler but of his own making. His undoubted gifts of empathy, compassion and charm flourish in sunlight and wide horizons. They are a far better — and happier — riposte to an unfair world than anything his lawyers can muster.
They should have never let Catherine take the blame for the photo altering. Even if she did alter it herself, it only adds to everyone’s suspicion. I think she felt the need to put a photo out quickly and it backfired. Why didn’t the RP cover for her photo blunder?
Right. Literally anything would’ve been better than her of all people personally taking the fall for this! William would’ve been better, a random, unnamed intern would’ve been better, one of the kids fucking with the computer lmao idk. Just such a strange strange tweet to send out.
Someone should call KP and tell them we’re on mega thread #4 over here and we can’t have our mods getting sick from the “stress and fallout”, so just trot her out for a second or an audio message or even just a true statement sans doctored photos. And if she’s too unwell for that well gee maybe a smidge of transparency would gain them public support back . Nobody wants her medical info , just them to stop acting shady and disrespectful. She can have her privacy and also stop the shiftiness and theatrics. Unlike Reddit mods, the BRF gets paid.
I think Kate is refusing to play ball. It's entirely possible she's had setbacks in her recovery or drew a line in the sand and said "I'm out until x/y/z date, so quit pushing," but this is a woman who's been in the public eye for 20 years. She knows how the media vultures and gossip mill operate. The speculation has now turned dark. We're getting everything from she's passed and they're covering it up, to she was injured in an 'incident.' Papers are running articles on William's rage issues. Kate could easily clear this up but she's choosing not to. It leads me to believe she's pissed at her husband and is enjoying watching him squirm.
Just found out my best friend has independently fallen down the rabbit hole—which just illustrates how out of control this has gotten.
we’re both thinking it’s just a series of ‘own goals’ but are seriously hoping Catherine makes an appearance at Easter. If not, I think KP will have to make yet another announcement, and given how inept they’ve been, it’ll probably just make things even worse.
I’m just hoping she’s chilling with her kiddos, and is either not paying attention to the whole debacle or is highly amused by the shenanigans.
I would think that she is making an appearance at Easter but then wonder why KP wanted it to be known that she isn’t confirmed the attend Trooping of the Colour? Which was stupid on their part tbh
Princess Diana’s former private secretary on the matter from a CNN interview.
Social media is in knots over Kate’s absence from the public eye, and it’s only getting worse.
He’s kinda repetitious but still clear enough. He comes out critical of William for poor communications. Williams’s office created the vacuum of information which fueled the interest which fueled the out sized interest and the conspiracy theories.)
They definitely mishandled this situation. Supposedly Prince William just got a new private secretary. Hopefully they get a proper PR team again soon. While I’m not on team conspiracy theories and believe what has happened is exactly what we heard (Catherine had major surgery and is now recovering), they were way in over their heads in how they handled this.
Crazily, her secretary, Patrick Jephson, was my neighbor 8 years ago, super nice and very genuine guy. I definitely put stock in his POV.
This has been extremely poorly managed by KP. They’ve done irreparable harm to their image. The pressure they are now under for the next step/stage/messaging is immense. This is a defining moment for the royal family. Charles is not well, to what extent is not known. Kate is MIA and now three very questionable ‘proof of life’ photos have been released. The state of Will and Kate’s marriage is under a serious spotlight. It’s an information black hole. VERY rocky overall.
Charles and Kate are unwell. That is all. Kate is obsessed with her looks and image and she doesn’t want to be pictured looking anything but perfect that’s all. She will be back once she is looking like her old self.
I honestly don’t believe the marriage in trouble stuff. Kate will never leave William that too so close to becoming the Queen? No chance.
Is it possible, in light of everything that has occurred so far, that Charles is letting Will have enough rope so Charles can use this PR disaster as his excuse to shutdown Kensington Palace office so everyone falls under his office at BP? Get rid of Will's staff and his vanity projects so he has to get on with the everyday drudgery that being a royal entails? It's not just film premieres and photo ops. It's hands on in the community at events with little or no fanfare. Service rather than PR grandstanding.
With no more competing offices, Charles can have his people oversee everything. That at least might get some consistency.
I kind of doubt it. William has the duchy money now. He can spend it however he wants.
I believe the most significant thing is that - at the very beginning of this whole story- the surgery wasn’t planned at all… she had the agenda full of duties, included a trip to Italy… The narrative from the Palace was inconsistent from the first day.
Reposting, because I think my comment got removed.
My takeaway from all the conspiracy theories floating around out there is that no matter what the truth is, look at what the main themes have become. Essentially, there are several theories about Will's behaviour and being a less than stellar husband. Also, the feeling that KP cannot be trusted. No matter what the truth is, the fact that these are the themes that have emerged is interesting.
William has based his entire reputation on being a nice protective family man. He doesn’t really have any other accomplishments or character traits that the public cares about. He put all his eggs were in the good dad/husband basket. Somehow, the Harry & Meghan crisis only bolstered that image. Now Stephen Colbert is doing bits about his alleged affairs, and all the normies know about his anger issues. Now personally, I’m the kind of person who thinks where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But even if there aren’t any flames here, Kategate has done some massive damage to Will’s reputation.
KP PR team is giving toxic boymom energy. Anything to protect their precious son.
Is anybody else getting annoyed at all the normies acting like Rose is William’s Camilla? I mean, maybe she is. Maybe they never even slept together. We don’t really know. But the assumption is getting on my nerves. Not every side chick is a Camilla!!
My mum calls my dads best friend (another straight male) his Camilla.
I was filling in my husband about this mess, and his comment was that he thinks maybe the PR team WANTS this drama unfolding because it keeps the royals in the news. Like essentially, "all press is good press." What does this community think? I was inclined to think that as the figurehead of a political state and a future king, Charles and William really can't afford this type of bad press, especially about DV. Obviously, the royal family do bring in money and tourism for the country, and part of that has always been an uneasy relationship with paparazzi and gossip rags, but given that QE II is gone and there are a lot of people who find them irrelevant and an unfair state subsidy, I think this would be a terrible PR move. Thoughts? Could their PR team be milking this?
Their PR team are likely pulling their hair out. "All press is good press" applies to celebrities who need to keep their names front and center to remain celebrities. The Palaces never want bad press.
I think the issue is that William is incredibly stubborn and won't listen to their advice.
I've never been the type of girl to need closure when things come to an end, but if the season finale to this saga doesn’t answer every single question and include some bombshells I’d never even consider, I’m going to cry.
“She deserves her privacy, though!” Shut up, we’re all here for the same reason.
I just find it hilarious that the most interesting thing Kate has ever done in her life is disappear.
The whole ''she went shopping and we saw it, trust me bro'' thing is bad for them any way you look at it.
Either she wasn't really seen shopping and the story was completely fabricated with colaboration from the media, which would be pretty sinister and in line with everything else we've been getting lately, and at the least it would be a very North Korean-esque way of deceiving the public.
or
She actually did went shopping, was in ''public'' no matter how limited and controlled the public was, which means that she's physically capable + her face isn't bad or disfigured or whatever, as some people have suggested. Which portrays her as very irresponsible and weirdly uninterested in keeping up her image and popularity. Amidst all those very damaging rumors that could directly influence and traumatize even her children (forget about adults and public), she has time and will for shopping but not for a 10 second video, which is everything needed to dispell all the rumors once and for all?
All in all, terrible PR one way or another. The clusterfuck continues.
Do they actually think it’s a good look that she went shopping on St Paddy’s Day? She’s involved with the Irish guards and cancelled her appearance at their annual event… so she can’t work but she can pop out to the shops with Willy? Sure, Jan. Just fuck the Irish guards then right?! I mean, not that I remotely believe she went shopping. But another terrible PR bungle. These KP PR people are fucking idiots and I don’t understand why they still have jobs when they’re so clearly incompetent.
Even if she wasn't capable of attending a quick video message expressing her good wishes for the Irish guards etc etc would have worked wonders in terms of restoring good feeling towards them from the public and simultaneously would have quieted the conspiracy theorists. I don't buy she wasn't well enough to do a simple 1 minute video but was perfectly happy with a trip to the shops and watching sports with the kids where she would have been seen and possibly photographed.
My personal view is that the trip to the shop didn't happen. There's no way that there's not a SINGLE snap taken on a mobile phone that's made it's way to social media.
I'm continually amazed at how badly the Waleses are botching all of this.
To be clear, I've been a royal watcher since they got engaged in 2010, and I'd definitely fall into more into the "fan" camp than not.
I've thought the conspiracy theories about all of this are nonsense. And even now after "Photogate", I STILL think they're nonsense and that what is happening is what they said - Catherine had serious surgery and needs time to recover.
But the artificially constructed Mother's Day photo is such a huge unforced error, made worse by Catherine then taking the fall for it.
Catherine's clearly not ready to show her actual face as it looks right now, and that's fine.
But then don't fake a picture! Post a quick video of William and the kids making breakfast in bed for Catherine for Mother's Day, or making cards or something. It'd still have the conspiracy theorists buzzing about why we're not seeing her, but it'd have been SO much better received by the general public than what they did.
She's absolutely entitled to her privacy, especially while she recovers. But the deal that the Royal Family has had with the press for decades now is that they get privacy most of the time in exchange for occasional, official, REAL pictures. It's clueless at best - and outright deceptive at worst - to do something like this and think no one will notice or care.
With the farmer’s market story, I’m even more convinced that Kate’s story is a red herring and there is something else happening they don’t want people to notice or know about.
This is still so odd. Either something is up (and I have no knowledge and make no inferences as to what or why) or a lot of people are profoundly bad at their jobs. Ok, the photoshop happens. Then they lie about it, even when they are trying to apologize for it. Why not put out a quick official and genuine photo of just her. If she isn't ready for camera's yet, put out a voice recorded statement saying, "I appreciate everyone's interest in my well being. Rest assured I am recovering well and I look forward to returning to my royal duties as soon as I am able". They could so easily kill all of this speculation and non-sense if things are as they say they are (she is taking car rides and shopping and up out and about). It would literally take 1 hour of her time at most, and instead KP's continued silence invites more speculation. You know what happens in physics why you make a vacuum? It gets filled. The same happens in the media/press. So again I say, either something is up (and I have no grounds with which to speculate what it might be) or this is the absolute worst PR advice and self-made crisis in recent memory.
Edit: Grammar
I joked about this in one of the earlier megathreads, but what if the *plot twist* in all of this is that Kate handles her own PR.
I just remember when they got married how one of the little factoids that came out was that Kate did her own makeup for the wedding day. Like, royals! They're just like us!
Can someone answer why Royal Rota media are publishing these pics if there is a deal that they don't publish unauthorized photographs or was this a planned pap walk LOL? Is there a thread somewhere talking about this. I was listening to the Times (UK) Radio on YouTube today and the Assistant Editor for the paper (Kate Mansey) was unfairly criticizing listeners as strange people who are conspiracy theorists and says there isn't a pact or agreement that the family has with the media...yeah right LOL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIKUvQB2Z_M). Have these people read about the Royal Rota and the unprecedented-in-the-modern-era pacts the royal family has made with the British media.
If the British media are posting it its because they got the ok to do so.
Their PR team needs to pick a lane. On one hand they're selling that Kate is healthy enough to be out and about twice in one weekend, walking around a farmer's market, watching her kids play sports, but on the other she's unwell to the point she had to fake a Mother's Day pic and pull out of an event in June? Which is it? Their messaging is all over the place.
I hope that if we all take away one thing from this whole ordeal its that no matter how bad at your job you might think you are, you're still probably doing better than the KP PR team over the last couple of weeks so give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done and don't be so harsh on yourself.
what gets me and i know royal fans will call me a conspiracy theorist is that it's kinda obvious there's a story here. the impact or actual matter of it isn't what i'm questioning, but the motivation behind so many blunders. i am a writer/journalist and this entire story feels weirdly on edge of being something, anything.
like yes, let's presume kp was truthful from the beginning and she had abdominal surgery that took too long to recover from. great, but why throw her under the bus? or if all of this is a distraction, overplayed to the nines, what for?
i am sure any tea is probably regular people tea to the max, like relationship dynamics, family stuff and whatnot. it's not like i believed she was killed and it was hidden, but usually when there's smoke there's fire and i'm curious about what fire, you know?
i would love to be a fly on the wall and know what they disagree about, their relationship with staff and other royals.
i find kate stylish and their wedding hype was charming, if a little gauche. i am against royals in general, not specifically them, but they could be great philanthropists if they wanted.
the thing with Kate's personality (in public) is that it's nonexistent? i suppose that's the ideal, princess-like behavior that's expected from her. but i do wonder what happens behind the scenes with that. how curated it is x how many other blunders happened before.
The story seems to be that Will and Kate are going to find it much, much harder to be the center of the slimmed down monarchy than they realized. Though if it turned out that they’d never really thought about how that was going to work on practice, I would believe you. There aren’t as many working royals so the attention is on them, whether they want it to be or not. The disappearing and the stonewalling isn’t super unusual for Will and Kate, though not previously to this extent, but we’ll see if they make any changes moving forward. Judging from how this debacle has dragged on, I am guessing they won’t.
Well, I for one am very impressed by Kate's ability to emerge from her grueling 3 month surgical recovery looking like a radiant, bouncy 25 year old yoga instructor who doesn't have a care in the world.
Any study of the Royal Family’s problems must begin with some of its members’ heedless pursuit of easy financial pickings. They seek the company of billionaires and breathe the heady air of the international Gulfstream set. They borrow yachts, planes and villas and seem quite at home among celebrities, oligarchs and greed- is-good high-rollers.
Few Royal people understand money, but they do enjoy its company and they demonstrate a familiar human failing of always being on the lookout for ways to get more of it.
That’s unfair, comes the reply. Royal financial gain is all for charity. And it’s true: from film premieres to rock concerts and Duchy Organic Original Oaten biscuits, the Royal Family are impressive fundraisers for their favourite causes. Indeed, Prince Charles’s press office hails him as a ‘philanthropic entrepreneur’ in tribute to his ability to conjure charity money from the Royal brand.
But good intentions are only part of the story. To Royal people, having inherited all the personal wealth they are ever likely to need, raising money for noble causes is a tangible way of measuring their usefulness, especially in the macho world of the ultra-rich.
~ Patrick Jephson, former equerry & private secretary to Diana (1988-1996).
We can feel empathy for many things. The York sisters will always be taken care of one way or another. You cannot choose your parents, and I feel some empathy for the sisters on that. But otherwise they have jobs and families and trust funds i am sure so its never going to be dire for them. I can also feel bad for Eugenie with her scoliosis but I don’t feel sorry for her for doing stupid interviews like her dad. I think it does show though that she has joined her parents’ stupid pr scheme.
Eugenie needs to take the advice of Patrick Jephson, one of Diana’s former private secretaries, and keep her mouth shut.
But even as the flak starts flying, the golden rule must stay the same: don't make a bad situation worse, especially by answering questions you haven't been asked.
[...]
So what would the Queen Mother say, hopefully between sips of heavenly gin and Dubonnet?
Probably nothing at all, at least in public. Which may help explain why she is remembered as one of the most widely loved and admired Royal figures of all time.
