refusing

Pre-pandemic, Queen Elizabeth II was already moving over to Windsor Castle, a relocation born out of necessity given the costly renovation project for Buckingham Palace. It’s a decade-long restoration, renovation and modernization for a drafty, outdated old palace, and the whole project costs the British taxpayers £369 million. Currently, King Charles is still based out of Clarence House when he’s in London, but he conducts events at BP, like garden parties and meetings with diplomats and politicians. Charles’s convenient line is that of course he’ll live in BP when the renovations are done, but until then (2027), he’s just staying put in Clarence House. The way Prince William and Kate are making it sound, they simply have no plans to live in Buckingham Palace or even use it for state events when they’re king and queen. Sources have indicated that William thinks BP should be open to the public full-time, all while he lives in his multiple forever-homes, Forest Lodge and Anmer Hall and Kensington Palace. Now Ingrid Seward claims that everyone always knew that William will refuse to move into BP.

“William was never going to move into Buckingham Palace,” Ingrid Seward, royal biographer and Editor-in-Chief of Majesty Magazine, tells HELLO! in this week’s edition. “He has never had any fondness for it, and he probably hasn’t spent much time there. The Queen and Prince Philip were devastated when they had to move out of Clarence House; Winston Churchill told them that the Queen had to live in a palace. But that was then, and this is now. Maybe Buckingham Palace will open to the public all year round, rather than only in the summer, and they will use Windsor Castle for banquets.”

Royal insiders say that their new home’s location will enable the Prince and Princess, who regularly do the school run, to remain “hands-on” parents. Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, ten, and Prince Louis, seven, currently attend nearby Lambrook School in Berkshire. After his 13th birthday next July, George is set to move schools, with Eton College tipped to be the frontrunner.

“I think William will be a hands-on father as well as a monarch, which is quite difficult, but I think he will manage it by changing the way that things are run, including being more self-sufficient and not being reliant on the taxpayer,” Ingrid tells HELLO!. “He is quite visionary, and can see that the monarchy has to change in order to survive.”

[From Hello]

“He is quite visionary.” Trying to make a silk purse out a sow’s ear. It’s not “visionary” to be lazy and entitled! And what I keep coming back to is…if it was common knowledge that Charles doesn’t want to live in BP and William was always going to refuse to live there, why the costly restoration? If everyone knew that BP would just be used as a museum and maybe for a handful of state occasions, why not just live with the ruins? Make some updates so that it’s up to whatever building code (does BP have to adhere to building codes??), but the whole point of the restoration was to make it HABITABLE. To make it more functional for the monarch in residence and the staff needed to run the palace as a home.

Choices were made with this Hello cover.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of Hello.