Buckingham Palace made a very big deal about this weekend as “Easter Lite,” meaning there were special arrangements made to limit King Charles’s exposure to crowds and to scale back the guest list to only a handful of family members. In Easters past, the whole Windsor clan – including royal cousins and royal-adjacents – were all invited to the Easter service in Windsor, and after church, there would be a lunch at Windsor Castle. Not so much this year – Charles kept the guest list right, just his siblings and their spouses, and there was no lunch, apparently. Since Prince William and Kate weren’t there, Charles didn’t want any of his nieces or nephews there either (only one nephew came). He apparently sat somewhat isolated from the rest of his family in church too.
You would think with this lean and mean guest list, it would have been the perfect opportunity to NOT invite Prince Andrew. You would be wrong. Prince Andrew was there, as was Sarah Ferguson. Their daughters were not there. I hope Eugenie and Beatrice spent Easter far away from their parents, honestly. Princess Anne was there with her husband Tim. Prince Edward and the Duchess of Edinburgh were also there and they brought their son James (the new Earl of Wessex). James is the youngest of all the king’s nieces and nephews – I guess they didn’t want the optics of purposefully excluding a 16-year-old.
Yeah, again… this would have been the perfect moment to say “Andrew is not welcome.” I’m sure Charles’s rationale is the same as always, which is that Andrew is welcome at family events but not state events (except the coronation, whoopsie). But when the family is making such a major, visible effort to include a credibly accused rapist and trafficker in their exclusive-guest-list events, it speaks volumes.
Also: the dress code for women seemed to be “dress in shades of green.” So it’s weird that Sophie was the only one in purple. She also looked like a 1970s stewardess.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.