Last week, I suggested that Kensington Palace was unprepared for the backlash against Prince William for skipping his godfather’s memorial service in Windsor. KP thought it would be a local story which they could control with their sycophantic media allies, as William’s laziness and incompetence has largely been covered up in-house, in the British media, for many years now. The problem was that with his missing wife and his father’s cancer, William’s last-minute cancellation became major international news and some kind of turning point for how Kate’s absence/illness is covered.
I bring this up because I think Queen Camilla’s holiday might be another turning point, and one which the palace believed would be a local story. Over the weekend, Buckingham Palace briefed the rota that Camilla – whose last public event was on February 29 – was taking this week off and she wouldn’t be seen until March 11, Commonwealth Day. The story might have been “she needs a break, she needs to just spend some quiet time with her husband, who has cancer.” Except that palace officials also let it slip that Camilla was flying on a private plane to some undisclosed location for a holiday without her husband. Suddenly, people are like “wow, that looks bad, weren’t you just telling everyone that Camilla was Charles’s strength, it looks pretty cold that she’s jetting off to get drunk on a beach somewhere.” Enter one of Camilla’s many delusional biographers, Angela Levin:
A royal biographer believes King Charles “insisted” that Queen Camilla went on holiday as she “needs a break” from her royal duties. Queen Camilla has stepped up and taken on more royal roles following the King’s cancer diagnosis but according to Angela Levin, the monarch is burnt out and Charles is keen for her to take a break.
Angela Levin told GB News: “My view is that King Charles insisted that she has a break. She is working non-stop, she has done so much in this last week. She has also been there for him all the time. I think that it is a sign that he has improved quite well.
“He will say, ‘why don’t you take a break?’ Some people say that she might be spending it with her children and with Charles. Others think that she might be going to India, even though she hates flying, because there is a marvellous spa there and the can give her the one over in two days and she will come back a new woman. It is very good, she has been there before and she absolutely loves it.”
Again, I’m not saying a 76-year-old woman might need a rest. But the palace’s messaging has been, for months, that Camilla is a trooper, that she’s the last royal standing, that she’s the only one Charles needs, that she’s his rock. Now the sick king’s rock is getting spa treatments in India because she did eleven events in five weeks. ELEVEN. So, yeah, people aren’t buying it.
“She’s only done thirteen engagements… I do thirteen things before lunchtime, for heaven’s sake!”
Royal commentator Victoria Mather tells @RachelSJohnson ‘it is not a good look’ for Queen Camilla to go on holiday while the King is ill. pic.twitter.com/c64fVR4WMj
— LBC (@LBC) March 3, 2024
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.