Catching Up With The Royals - Season 1 Episode 1

Name: Catching Up With The Royals - Season 1 Episode 1
Uploaded: 2026-02-04T10:56:47+00:00
Duration: 44 min 29 s
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Description: Catching Up With The Royals - Season 1 Episode 1

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00:00Welcome to Catching Up With The Royals, the show that gives you a glimpse into what life is really like behind palace walls.

00:06Here for your royal lowdown and bringing you the secrets of the firm, it's me, Richard Coles.

00:11And me, Emily Andrews.

00:13Today on Catching Up With The Royals, I have travelled around the world with William and Kate.

00:18Off camera, they've always been very tactile.

00:20He's actually kind of, well, I think the word is hot.

00:24I would say the Prince of Wales is hot.

00:26We'll be discussing the latest on Harry's reconciliation with his father.

00:31I sometimes think with Harry, there's always a sense that he's a sort of knight of old on a mission.

00:35The king does want a relationship with his son.

00:38Delving into another fractured royal relationship as we discuss the latest on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

00:44What I have been told is that usually he hasn't cut her parents off.

00:49How do you solve a problem like Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor? I don't know.

00:53We'll be releasing new episodes every Thursday.

00:55You can listen wherever you get your podcasts and please do watch us on our YouTube channel.

01:01Plus, you can tune in every Saturday on 5 and stream us on 5 too.

01:07So, Richard, I think Catching Up With The Royals is going to be fab-u-lus.

01:14A go-girl, as I believe they say.

01:17Well, Richard, this is so exciting.

01:25It's lovely to see you, Emily. How are you?

01:27I am really well, thank you. I'm delighted to be catching up with the Royals with you. How are you today?

01:33I'm very well indeed, thank you.

01:35I've been away, so I feel slightly disconnected from the gossip, which I know flows through your devices like water through a stream.

01:43Where have you been?

01:45I've been in South Africa, having a lovely time.

01:48Lovely.

01:48But it seems very distant from the comings and goings of the British Royal Family.

01:53And there has been some comings and some goings.

01:55There certainly have. There's been some comings.

01:57From another Africa enthusiast, Prince Harry has been in the UK, of which more later on Catching Up With The Royals.

02:04But first, shall we start with the Prince and Princess of Wales?

02:08Yes, who are off-piste in terms of them being Prince and Princess of Wales, so they've gone north, haven't they?

02:13They've gone north.

02:15Kate and William had a bit of a royal reset, I think, last week.

02:19It was their first joint engagement of January.

02:22They went to Scotland and they had a day of engagements in Falkirk and Stirling.

02:28Well, how lovely for them.

02:31And for Falkirk.

02:34Well, it was lovely. I mean, look, the Royals love Scotland.

02:37Yes, I love Scotland.

02:38And it's totally genuine. It is a totally genuine love affair.

02:41Yeah, and also we forget, don't we, that the Royal Family thinks of itself as a Scottish thing, as well as an English thing.

02:48Yes.

02:48And as well as your Prince and Princess, as well as a Welsh thing, I think.

02:50But they are very much at home there.

02:51Very much at home.

02:52And then some of those are sensational coat.

02:54Yeah, you took... Richard, you took the words out of my mouth. I love you.

02:59I love Kate's clothing. Is that a bit geeky to say?

03:03And I feel like on my tombstone, maybe you could etch.

03:07Emily Andrews. She knew a lot about Catherine's wardrobe.

03:12Kate or... Oh, actually, let's... A quick, a quick, for catching up the Royals.

03:16Okay.

03:16Are we going to call her Kate or Catherine?

03:19I don't know. I think Kate seems to come more naturally to me now.

03:22Although, I don't know. What do you say?

03:24Kate Middleton still gets the most SEO, search engine optimisation.

03:29Oh, so in the public mind is...

03:29Which is why you still get a lot of online articles calling her Kate Middleton.

03:35Oh, I see.

03:36I know.

03:36And in Scotland, she's probably Kate, the Kate face, right?

03:39She's the Duchess of Rossi.

03:41Of course she is.

03:42That comes with...

03:42The Duchess of Rossi.

03:43So wherever they go...

03:45I've probably mispronounced that now, Richard.

03:47Any...

03:47It's Rossi.

03:48Rossi.

03:49Yeah. Well, that's what they say out there.

03:50Rossi.

03:51I was mooned there once, but that's another story.

03:53That's another story. You have to tell me that after.

03:54Okay.

03:55So there they were. Kate was wearing a lovely coat, bespoke.

03:59She is great at kind of diplomatic dressing.

04:02Yeah.

04:02Well, I thought it was really interesting, this away day up in Scotland,

04:06because they packed in, I think, three or four engagements,

04:10and they also did a walkabout,

04:12which is what William and Kate are very good at, I think.

04:15She's naturally quite reserved.

04:18Yeah.

04:18When I've met her in private, she's got a cracking sense of humour,

04:22but she is quite controlled,

04:24and you don't really see that side of her so much.

04:28But what I thought on that visit last week in Scotland,

04:32someone, she and William were outside,

04:34and they were chatting to the crowd,

04:36and someone called out Kate, I think, even, not even Catherine,

04:39and she sort of ran over,

04:41because there was a child who wanted to say hello.

04:44And I thought that really showed a real kind of ease with the job

04:52and a real kind of ease with what she was doing.

04:55William and Kate were visiting the National Curling Academy,

04:57because, of course, we've got the Winter Olympics next month.

04:59Very exciting.

04:59And Team GB, hopefully, are going to get us some curling medals.

05:03And I have four wind curling.

05:04Do you?

05:05Yes, I have.

05:05I was once asked to leave the ice rink at Perth curling,

05:09because I was too intoxicated, they felt, to wield a curling stone.

05:13This is a bit of background.

05:14It's not helping us, is it?

05:15Well, I hope it helps Team GB in the curling in the Winter Olympics.

05:19But it was a front-page picture.

05:22That picture of the Princess of Wales, she had a go at curling,

05:25and she was wearing a very long skirt.

05:27She'd taken the tartan coat off by this point,

05:29and she had a rather nap with a rather cool little knitted vest.

05:33I heard that she passed the coat in a rather casual way to her husband,

05:37who took it like a beautiful husband,

05:38rather than there being, I don't know, a kind of groom of the coat waiting.

05:42A flunky.

05:42The other thing that's probably about it is that they're quite touchy-feely, aren't they?

05:45They do seem kind of warmly at ease in each other's company in that very public way.

05:53They do, and what's been really interesting is to sort of see the evolution of that on the public stage.

05:58I'm quite lucky, having covered the Royals since 2013,

06:03I have travelled around the world with William and Kate.

06:07So I've seen them sort of, I mean, they're always on duty when there's a journalist around,

06:10but I've seen them off-camera a lot.

06:12And actually, off-camera, they've always been very tactile.

06:14William is a proper gent.

06:16He opens doors for her.

06:18He allows Catherine to go in front of him.

06:21He always is kind of checking to make sure she's okay.

06:24Out of the two of them, he's been born into this institution.

06:27He's been doing the job, so to speak, since he left university, really.

06:31And he's always tried to sort of help her in any way he can.

06:34But what was interesting was that we never saw that when they were on camera.

06:38They wouldn't hold hands.

06:39They wouldn't be tactile.

06:40Tactile, the most that would happen would be they kind of look at each other.

06:44And that would be, you could kind of read it, but it never really kind of translated on the moving image.

06:49But what's been interesting recently is that they seem much more comfortable in showing that more tactile side.

06:55You might see them holding hands, or you might see William's hand in the small of Catherine's back.

07:00Do you think this is new year, new reboot, new look?

07:04There's a sense of something being done differently?

07:07I think it's a bit of a royal reset, yes.

07:10Because I think Catherine has had a pretty torrid two years.

07:13Well, to be fair, so is William.

07:15I mean, he talked about 2024 as being the most difficult and brutal of his life.

07:20Which, when you consider his mum died when he was 15, that's quite something for him not to say that 97 was the worst year of his life.

07:28And obviously, Catherine, when she got that she went into remission and then she got the all clear from her cancer this last January,

07:36Kensington Palace and her team made it very clear that she would have a very slow return to work.

07:41And in fact, that was a very sensible, I think, path, because you remember, you were at Ascot last year, weren't you, when she didn't come?

07:51Yes, I had an encounter with the Prince of Wales.

07:55Did you now? Tell me more.

07:57Well, I accidentally walked into his box.

08:00Accidentally?

08:01No, I did, because I'd been in it earlier before he turned up.

08:04And then I walked into it and the bloke said, outside said, oh, have you been in here before?

08:08And I said, well, yes, I have. Indeed, I had.

08:09And I walked in and then there was a sort of inside guy and he kind of ushered me out.

08:15And he saw you coming.

08:17Well, I just, it was him and his pals.

08:20And he looked at me and I looked at him and he kind of nodded.

08:23And that is the full extent of my relationship with the Prince of Wales.

08:25I have to say, though, he's very, you know how some people look very different from how they appear on telly?

08:33He's actually kind of, well, I think the word is hot.

08:37I would say the Prince of Wales is hot.

08:39Is that okay to say that?

08:41Well, I'm saying it.

08:42But I mean, you know, he's always kind of formal and proper and everything.

08:46But actually, he's got a sort of physicality about him, which I'm not sure the camera necessarily picks up.

08:52Not only is William charismatic and funny, he is quite physically imposing.

08:58He's slim and tall, but with these broad shoulders.

09:02Now, I don't want to objectify anybody, at least of all the Prince of Wales.

09:06But when you chat to him and he is, yeah, he has a real attractiveness that I think, you know, people often say, don't they, that when he was young, he had the hair and he looked like his mum.

09:19And now he's kind of lost his looks.

09:21I completely disagree.

09:22He has a magnetism in real life.

09:24I think so.

09:25I mean, he has a charisma that comes with the job, I guess.

09:27But he also has a physical charisma, which was quite a surprise for me.

09:30Yeah.

09:31Ooh.

09:31Ooh, matron.

09:33Now, we're coming up to a break.

09:35And I want you to ask, there's a question that I wish to be considered.

09:39Okay.

09:40Is this going to tax me?

09:42Probably.

09:42No, I don't think, I think you'll get this, but it's for the benefit of people.

09:45I feel pressure, Richard.

09:46Don't feel pressure.

09:47Okay.

09:47Don't feel pressure.

09:48It's a good pressure.

09:48Who is the most popular royal, according to a recent YouGov survey?

09:54Okay.

09:55Answer after the break.

10:06Welcome back to Catching Up with the Royals.

10:08And you can catch up with us every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts, or on YouTube, or every Saturday on 5.

10:16Before the break, I pose the question, Emily, who are the most popular members of the royal family?

10:21I know you'll know this.

10:23I think Richard, the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Catherine.

10:26You're right.

10:26And do you know how many of us say we like them?

10:28I seem to remember reading 77% approval rating.

10:32On the nose, 77%.

10:34Makes you wonder what the other 23% are thinking, but that's for another day.

10:38Now, a royal couple who perhaps don't enjoy those numbers would be Harry and Meghan.

10:43Of course, Harry has been back on this side of the Atlantic.

10:46He has.

10:47Last week, he was in London for the third of his court cases against the British press.

10:54So there's been the case against the Mirror, which he partially won, and then the Sun that settled.

10:59And then last week, it was against the publishers of the Daily Mail, which Harry and six other claimants,

11:05very high profile, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, Baroness Lawrence, Stephen Lawrence's mum.

11:09They allege that the Mail and the Mail on Sunday have written a number of articles through phone hacking and illegal information gathering.

11:18Important to say that Associated deny any illegality.

11:22And it was interesting because I wondered whether, on the very steps of the High Court,

11:28there might be a settlement worked between Harry, Elton John, Sadie Frost, the other claimants, and Associated.

11:36But Associated, both sides, wanted to fight this case.

11:40It's nine weeks, projected cost of £40 million, Richard.

11:45Yeah.

11:45And Harry had his day in court last week.

11:48How'd it go?

11:48Well, I think he found it very tough.

11:53I've got a lot of time for Prince Harry.

11:55I know you have too.

11:56He's an emotional man.

11:59He has talked in the past about wanting to slay the dragon of the British press.

12:04Fair enough.

12:05And he was questioned for a number of hours by Associated King's Council.

12:12And he had to be told off by the judge a couple of times because he was kind of giving, he was doing David Sherbin, his barrister's job, for him.

12:20And I think he just, he really...

12:22Hang on, David Sherbin?

12:23Wasn't that the Wagatha Christie guy?

12:25Well done.

12:26It was.

12:26You're on this.

12:28He acted and won for Colleen Rooney.

12:31Harry's complaining about a number of articles that he says can only have come through phone hacking or illegal information gathering,

12:37of which Associated completely deny.

12:39But I think it's really got to him, you know.

12:42I think it's really got to him because at the end of Wednesday, he almost broke down in tears.

12:50Sherbin, his, David Sherbin, his barrister was asking him about how it affected him.

12:55And Harry said something along the lines of, you know, the worst of it is I've had to come to court, relive all this,

13:02and they have made my wife's life a complete misery.

13:07Most of the articles that Harry was complaining about concerned his relationships with Chelsea Davey or Cresta Bonas,

13:15his two sort of most serious girlfriends.

13:17But inevitably, unfortunately, Prince William has been dragged into it as well.

13:24Oh, dear.

13:24And yes, which I don't think is going to help fraternal relations.

13:29Anything to read in Prince William and Catherine choosing to be at exactly the other end of the country at the time that Harry was in London?

13:38I think that was probably a considered decision, Richard.

13:43But of course, you know, the king was also supposed to be in Scotland.

13:46Supposed to be?

13:47Well, yes, he was supposed to be, and he was, but he actually came back to London for the day when Harry was in court, but he didn't see Harry.

13:57Right.

13:58So, what do we think about hopes for reconciliation with his father?

14:02Because, of course, the last time Harry saw his father was in September last year.

14:07They hadn't seen each other for 18 months.

14:09They hadn't spoken to each other.

14:11This was the big olive branch.

14:12This was the cup of tea at Clarence House and a slice of chocolate cake.

14:15But then this time, the king didn't see his son.

14:18It's all getting mixed up in my mind now with the dramas of the House of Beckham.

14:22Oh, yes.

14:22Because there's a similar kind of thing happening, isn't there, with sort of Brooklyn, who seems to be at war with his own parents and his own family.

14:29It's a dynasty thing, isn't it?

14:31Yeah.

14:31And I wonder, too, if there's, you know, he has that thing with Prince Harry, if you sense of someone who's kind of searching for an identity,

14:37when it's hard to do that because the identity is sort of handed out with the jaw.

14:41I think it must be really difficult for both men, for Brooklyn and for Harry, because they've both grown up, had childhoods where they have, you know, very high-achieving parents,

14:50and obviously, in Harry's case, grandmother and, well, and grandfather, and you've got to live up to the name.

14:57I feel very sorry for both men.

15:00I mean, the Brooklyn-Beckham thing was kind of extraordinary, but it is also following the Prince Harry playbook, isn't it?

15:06I kind of hope their friends are that somewhere there are some blurred snaps that Brooklyn's taken of Harry kind of making one of his beef burgers.

15:13Yes.

15:14You think that could happen?

15:14Or maybe, maybe Meghan's made her and Nicola and Harry and Brooklyn some of her famous cocktails with some dried flower sprinkles.

15:24Or what about her jam that's not jam?

15:27The jam that's not jam, the raspberry spread, maybe she sent some to Brooklyn and Nicola.

15:31They don't live far away, I think, because they live in LA, don't they?

15:34And the Sussexes live in Montecito.

15:35They've got to overlap, don't you think?

15:37I have a feeling it was the Paramount boss, who Meghan is good friends with, brought them together, or there was some dinner party that they were all at.

15:43Well, think of the jam, that's not jam.

15:45The jam.

15:46The spread being handed out.

15:48Yes.

15:48Hamptons and hamptons and hamptons of raspberry.

15:50Hamptons and hamptons like jam.

15:51Non-jam.

15:52I sometimes think with Harry, there's always a sense that he's a sort of knight of old on a mission, and that he is kind of going to joust away at the press.

15:59Yes, and actually the language that he's used in the past is quite Arthurian.

16:03He's literally talked about slaying the dragon.

16:06And that is how he, so in that kind of medieval imagery, you know, you can see him with a, you know, perhaps that, in Windsor Castle, there's that suit of armour that fitted Henry VIII.

16:15You can almost see Harry kind of putting it on in the helmet and the visor down and getting the sword.

16:21Whenever I've spoken to Harry, sort of off camera, so to speak, he's absolutely someone who wears his heart on his sleeve.

16:28He's a very emotional guy, which I say is a positive.

16:32And he said to me, you know, Emily, I get out of bed every morning and I think, how can I serve?

16:37What can I do?

16:38How can I make things better?

16:40Which is brilliant.

16:41I mean, like, what an amazing kind of way to start your day.

16:44What an affirmation.

16:45He wants to kind of reform the British press.

16:49It's twofold.

16:50I think he wants to reform the British press.

16:52But which, you know, frankly, the British press don't have any money anymore.

16:57I mean, he's kind of fighting a case.

16:59The dragon's already dead.

17:00The dragon's dead.

17:01They've got no money.

17:02I know Leveson 2 didn't happen, but the British press are pretty well behaved and very much at heel because they have to be.

17:13But the other thing for Harry is that it's a personal mission, not just to try and help everybody else, but also because of his mother.

17:22In his evidence and in his witness statement, he talked about effectively how he believes the press killed his mother.

17:29And he doesn't want the same thing to happen to him or, more importantly, his wife.

17:35Look, what Harry and William as children went through at the hands of the paparazzi was horrific.

17:41And I don't think we will, well, I hope we'll never, but I don't think we'll ever see that happen again.

17:48You know, Harry, it's instrumental that William and Catherine and their three children can go about their private life.

17:55And we know nothing about it.

17:57It's even more impressive in the age of the smartphone that nothing is on social media.

18:02You never see pictures printed of Charlotte, George and Louis.

18:06I think I can totally understand why Harry feels the way he does.

18:12The press killed his mum, how he feels that he doesn't want anything to happen to anyone else again.

18:15But I really do feel that he's fighting a fight that is 15 years out of date.

18:22And also it's a risky fight in the sense that royals in the witness stand is an uncomfortable situation to be in, in lots of ways, isn't it?

18:31I mean, I know, I'm trying to think, you hardly ever get that, don't you?

18:35Yeah, it's interesting because he said in his witness statement and in his evidence, you know,

18:39I was part of the institution that never complained, never explained.

18:43But that's not true, Richard.

18:45It's interesting.

18:46Yeah, I mean, look, it's, I quite like his kind of, or who maybe Sherbans or the solicitor's theatrics of, you know, invoking that famous, you know, never complain, never explain.

18:55Unlike us, Richard, with catching up with the royals, we always explain.

18:59I quite like to complain.

19:01You complain.

19:02You complain.

19:02I'll explain.

19:03But he said that he was part of this institution, never complained, never explained.

19:08But actually, I mean, as recently as last year, the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Catherine, sued a French magazine for printing pictures of them on a ski holiday in Colchevel in France.

19:20Famously, when a paparazzo photographer took pictures of Kate sunbathing topless in her, in, you know, in a private chateau that belonged to Viscount Lindley, they sued the French and the Italian magazines that printed those pictures.

19:39Charles, Charles, now king, now king, but when he was Prince of Wales, he sued the men on Sunday for invasion of privacy when he, when they printed his personal, those infamous black spider letters.

19:51So there is form for the royals to take recourse to the courts.

19:58It's just that it doesn't happen very often.

19:59And it was a bit of a, bit of a PR spin, I thought, from Harry to try and suggest that the institution never complains, never explains, because that's just not true.

20:10King can't do it now though, can he?

20:12And that was the reason, I think, why the king didn't see Harry while Harry was in London last week.

20:19Unusually, Buckingham Palace briefed that the king would not be seeing Harry.

20:24I think, you know, at the beginning of January, we all knew that Harry was going to come over and be there for the first week of the trial, stand shoulder to shoulder with the other claimants.

20:34Yes, but Buckingham Palace briefed that the king wouldn't see his son because the king didn't want to get kind of caught up in any of the court battles.

20:45And for me, the battles that Harry, Harry has been using the British court system, both to try and get his security reinstated, his taxpayer funded security, and for his battle against the British press.

20:58He's been, he's been using the British court system to complain and complain vociferously, as is his right as a private citizen.

21:06But the monarch, he's head of the British judiciary, he cannot be seen to be taking sides.

21:12And he, the king, I think, in his sort of role as head of the institution, not as paterfamilias, not as father, but as paterfamilias of the institution, took the decision that he could not see his son whilst Harry was engaging in all this litigation, because it was just too dangerous.

21:29It's another, you know, we sort of agonised with them over their horrible family relationships and how difficult it is.

21:34But of course, there is this always, this constitutional dynastic element in it.

21:39It's not just people, is it?

21:40There are also roles, and those roles are absolutely fundamental to the way our state functions.

21:47Totally.

21:48And I think on a personal level, you can have a huge amount of sympathy for Harry, for William, for Charles.

21:53I mean, this is a, you know, personal family psychodrama writ large, and apparently it's now very fashionable to kind of cut off your parents or cut off your family.

22:03Brooklyn has seemed to be working hard on that front.

22:06I know, and apparently it's a real trend in America to sort of, to estrangement.

22:11But my sense, and what my sources tell me, is that the king does want a relationship with his son.

22:17He does want to see his grandchildren.

22:19I mean, I think he's only met Archie twice and Lilibet once.

22:23Harry, we know, has publicly said he wants to make up with his family.

22:28So there's a real kind of sense that, certainly for the king and, and Harry, that they, they do want to reconcile and they do want to see each other.

22:36But as you say, there's always that, that issue for Charles, that he's not just a father.

22:43He's not just a grandfather.

22:45He is the representation of the institution.

22:49D.O.M.

22:49God, am I right, he is, you know, the head of the firm.

22:55And that probably always top trumps being Harry's dad.

22:58Can you imagine them drawing a line and just sort of resetting and just think, okay, all this turbulence in the past, we'll just consider that all done.

23:07Let's just try and move on and reconcile and try to find a way of being together.

23:14Well, it would be lovely to think, wouldn't it?

23:17I'd hope so.

23:18Yeah.

23:18I mean, I think also with, it's very easy to become a casualty of an institution like the monarchy, I think, or the royal family, certainly.

23:27You just hope there's a place where you could maybe heal a bit.

23:31Charles is a very spiritual man and he takes great solace in faith.

23:36And, of course, what does, well, forgive me, Richard, you are the expert here, but my take on faith, one of the great tenets of any religion, is forgiveness.

23:44Yeah.

23:45So.

23:47Well, I mean, I just hope there's a way that they can work that out because I think it would be better for everybody.

23:52I mean, the House of Windsor, it keeps on giving with the family drama.

23:56So after the break, we're going to move to another of the king's relatives who's been in the headlines, Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor.

24:04But before then, now, Richard, do you know, if you want to catch up with the royals, where on social media would you be going?

24:11Well, I'm very glad you asked that.

24:13I would go to all the places on social media where I would connect with shows such as this.

24:18Do you know I can do that on a Thursday?

24:20Or YouTube.

24:21Why not go there?

24:22Yeah.

24:22Or.

24:23No, all the usual places, but also, of course, on five on a Saturday.

24:26I know.

24:27On five on a Saturday, which is pretty cool.

24:29I have a question for you.

24:31Okay.

24:31Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor, as we know, in Disgraced, the former Prince Andrew, he's moving to the Sandrum Estate, but he's not allowed to take a certain thing with him.

24:45What do you think that could be?

24:47So, Richard, I'd like you to cogitate.

24:49All right.

24:49And come up with some answers for me after the break.

24:52Well, I've sketched some already.

24:54So, Richard.

25:06Yeah.

25:06I can't wait for your answers to the question that I posed before the break, which was, what one thing is Andrew banned from taking or keeping when he moves to the Sandringham Estate?

25:21I've got two.

25:22Oh, go on then.

25:23The first one is his 72 teddy bears, because now, in his reduced circumstances, who's got time to arrange his 72 teddy bears?

25:30He can't have the housekeeper to do it for him.

25:33The other one, though, and I think I read this somewhere, is that the Queen has no cats rule.

25:37The late Queen had no cats rule at Sandringham.

25:40So, does that mean you can't take the cat?

25:41You're absolutely right.

25:43You cannot have a cat on the Sandringham Estate.

25:46It's the private estate of the royals.

25:49So, it's owned by the Windsor family, unlike Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace, which is owned by the state for the monarch.

25:56And, yeah, no cats.

25:57Why?

25:58I think it's because of the pheasants, because Sandringham is a big shooting estate.

26:02Right.

26:02And, obviously, the cats would stalk the pheasants and kill them.

26:06You can eat all you want buffet for them.

26:08Exactly.

26:09Yeah.

26:09Exactly.

26:09But dogs are allowed.

26:11So, because, of course, Andrew and Fergie had the late Queen's two corgis.

26:17Yes.

26:18And so, I genuinely don't know who is going to be taking the corgis.

26:22I imagine, I'm told that it's likely that it'll be Andrew who's taking the dogs.

26:26Because he has been stripped of everything.

26:28I mean, a quick recap.

26:29I'm sure people don't need to be reminded.

26:31But, obviously, you know, he was the second son of the monarch.

26:39The favourite son.

26:40The favourite son.

26:41He was the spare, the original spare.

26:44He was good looking.

26:45He served in the Royal Navy with distinction, fought in the Falklands, came back with a rose between his teeth.

26:50Had the, you know, she was jolly hockey sticks, Sarah Ferguson.

26:54The marriage didn't work out, but they were held up as, you know, really good parents to Eugenie and Beatrice.

26:59And, yes, Fergie had her issues with persona non grata with Prince Philip.

27:06But Andrew represented Britain around the world.

27:11He was a working royal.

27:13He had all these charitable interests and represented the armed forces, various regiments.

27:20And then, Geoffrey Epstein's scandal, he was imprisoned.

27:25And, really, it took kind of 10 years for the disgrace, the full disgrace of the man formerly known as Prince Andrew.

27:34Nonetheless, of course, the allegations against him he completely denies.

27:36Last year, after Virginia Dufresne's very tragic suicide and the publication of her autobiography was kind of the final nail in the coffin.

27:51And actually, the royal family, I think, dealt with it very, very badly.

27:54I think they were desperately trying to contain this.

27:58And it's been going on and reacting.

28:01But, actually, you know, the way it was handled last autumn was an absolute playbook in how not to do PR.

28:08Because I think people might have forgotten, because now, of course, he's been strict with his titles and his home and everything.

28:13But, actually, what happened two weeks before that was that Buckingham Palace put out a statement in Andrew's own words, saying that he was voluntarily not using the Duke of York title.

28:27I mean, he wasn't being strict with anything.

28:29He was just saying, I'm not going to use the title.

28:32But, crucially, he didn't say anything about the victims.

28:36Andrew said he would essentially dedicate his life to good works and to try and help victims of sex trafficking and domestic slavery.

28:46And, of course, we haven't seen that at all.

28:49How's that going?

28:50Exactly.

28:50And that is very problematic for me, because that was just a carapace, wasn't it?

28:56It was his lawyers who just, or whomever, at the expense of PRs.

29:00So, extraordinary lack of self-awareness, extraordinary lack of insight.

29:03It's going to have, I imagine, some stretches of time in front of him where he's going to eventually have to confront that stuff.

29:10Absolutely.

29:11And it's problematic in two main areas.

29:14One, it's problematic for the reputation of the royal family.

29:17I mean, the king didn't act decisively, in my opinion.

29:21But, at the end, he did draw a very firm line under it by de-princing him.

29:29It's internal exile.

29:30Yeah, I was going to say rusticated.

29:32He's been exiled in his, rusticated.

29:34I know, I didn't even go to boarding school.

29:37He's been exiled in his own country.

29:38What I don't understand here, Emily, is why doesn't he just go to Abu Dhabi and play golf all day?

29:44Because he would find, I think, a home there, wouldn't he?

29:48Yeah.

29:48And he can just, you know, he would be out of the...

29:51Do you think that his desire to stay in the UK is partly that he does still want to respond to these allegations to restore his reputation?

30:01Do you think he wants to see his family, his daughters and his grandchildren?

30:05Eugenie's got two young sons.

30:08Beatrice has got two young daughters.

30:10And, in fact, interestingly, this week there were some new pictures published of Beatrice horse riding with her father and her elder daughter, Sienna.

30:21You know, Sienna was on horseback, Beatrice was walking and her father was riding out in front.

30:26And that was some...

30:27That was very, to my mind, very staged royal choreography because there's been stories...

30:33There was a story a couple of weeks ago in The Mail on Sunday that Eugenie completely cut her family off, her parents off.

30:40It's done a bit of a, you know, a Brooklyn.

30:42She's the younger daughter, right?

30:43Yes, Eugenie's the younger one, the brunette, and the elder one, Beatrice, the redhead.

30:48She was kind of trying to tread a fine line between staying in with the royals, as in, you know, the king and Prince William, her cousin, but also sort of, you know, being there for her family.

31:03I think, in reality, what I have been told is that Eugenie hasn't cut her parents off and that she has seen her father recently.

31:12But obviously, it is tricky for both girls because they have got reputations to bolster and look after as well.

31:23And a commitment to charities that are particularly concerned with the victims of that kind of sexual predatory behavior.

31:29Well, usually, usually in 2017, set up the Anti-Slavery Collective.

31:33Do you think this is a scene that is going to be exhausted as far as the media is concerned?

31:38Or do you think this one is going to run and run and run?

31:41What do you think?

31:43I don't know.

31:44I think it's going to be very difficult to manage.

31:46I just, how do you, how do you solve a problem like Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor?

31:50I don't know.

31:51So I, I've never met Andrew Richard.

31:55I've been on engagements with him.

31:56Have you, have you, I've observed him.

31:58Have you ever?

31:59I have.

31:59I was at Pitch at the Palace.

32:01Oh, were you?

32:01The whole Pitch at the Palace thing.

32:03Yeah, no, I was there.

32:03And I mean, I said hello.

32:05And then he made a surprisingly good speech, actually.

32:08But this, of course, was before there were any allegations of this kind of misconduct around him.

32:13Although there was already a sense that his work as a trade envoy had not always been entirely in step with what the Foreign Office or various government departments wanted for him.

32:24If necessary, he could always run to mummy and mummy would say, okay, infamously, that's what happened with the Newsnight interview.

32:32Emily Maitlis interviewed him in Buckingham Palace and the Queen, and no one said, you cannot do this.

32:38A lot of courtiers thought it was a very bad idea, but no one did because he just said, oh, I've spoken to mummy.

32:44I mean, well, what can you say?

32:45Her son shines on you, but actually, in the wider court, in the wider family eyes of the world, you've not got a clearly defined role.

32:53Maybe that does kind of drive you bananas after a while.

32:56Well, I guess we've got Harry's words, haven't we?

32:59Harry's words as, you know, spare.

33:02I think the problem, and it will be, and it's a problem I know that William and Catherine really think about a lot for their three children.

33:09The institution is very set up for the next heir, in this case, George.

33:18But what about Charlotte and Louis?

33:21And those feelings of kind of, I mean, you know, Diana tried to raise both her sons equally.

33:25That was a very noble thought, but Harry and William were never equal and were never going to be equal.

33:32And there's a point, I guess, where they both realise it, that, I mean, sibling relationships are difficult enough,

33:40but if one of them all of a sudden is told, your destiny is to sit on the throne and wear this crown and have this golden stick,

33:47and the other one thinks, what do I get?

33:50You can ride a horse.

33:52Yeah.

33:53You can go visit Slough on a wet Wednesday.

33:56Well, we're going to have a break now.

33:57Don't forget, you can catch up with us, Catching Up with the Royals, every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts from,

34:02on YouTube, and every Saturday on 5.

34:04But we're going to leave you with a question, and it's this.

34:091992.

34:11It was a terrible year.

34:12Three royal marriages burned down, and so did Windsor Castle.

34:15The Queen famously described it as being what?

34:18What was 1992?

34:20Back after this.

34:27Welcome back to Catching Up with the Royals, and the answer to the question we posed before the break,

34:36the Queen called it her Anus Horribilis, dreadful year.

34:41How's this year going to look, do you think?

34:43Well, I hope it's going to be an Anus Mirabilis.

34:46That would be good, wouldn't it?

34:47That would be good.

34:47We could all use a bit of a miracle.

34:48We could all use a miracle.

34:50That's what you're here for, isn't it?

34:51Well, I mean, I feel even, I kind of feel a bit, it's kind of beyond my remit, this one, because it's such a tough one.

34:56But there are some remarkable things that could be happening.

34:59I mean, I'm thinking in particular of the handling of the President of the United States.

35:04Careful.

35:05Yeah.

35:05It needs to be careful handling.

35:07Yes, well, the King and Queen are scheduled to be visiting the States in April as part of the 250 anniversary celebration,

35:19commiseration of American independence, when they chucked all our tea in the river and said,

35:25oi, you, you English people and your royal family, get lost.

35:29Other histories are available.

35:30Other histories are available.

35:33And so, yeah, it's rather bizarre, isn't it, that the King and Queen should be going to celebrate the fact that they were chucked out of the American colonies.

35:45But to go back to your point about Trump, he is in his second term as US President, and he loves the British royal family.

35:54I mean, we saw that lavish second state visit and the banquet at Windsor Castle last week.

36:01The first state visit was pretty lavish, too.

36:02I know.

36:03And he's, as he said, an unprecedented honor.

36:06I'm not going to do the accent.

36:07It's too cringe.

36:08The protocol is, Richard, is that if you get a first state visit, well, a first, there's only one.

36:14And even if you get a second term.

36:17They dial it down a bit.

36:18They dial it down.

36:18You come and have a cup of tea.

36:19But obviously, we had to pull something out of our arsenal.

36:23And so we invited Trump for a second state visit.

36:24But the thing is, Trump is, I think, unpredictable would be one of the words we could use.

36:31It's a good word, yeah.

36:32And he shoots from the hip.

36:33Yeah.

36:35But it's been quite tricky, I think, this proposed visit.

36:39At the moment, it's still going ahead.

36:40The recce has been, I think I mentioned earlier about how officials go and do sort of like a recce for tours or engagements.

36:48So they go and kind of run through, say, 100 engagements.

36:51They whittle those engagements down to maybe 20 or 30 that the royal will do.

36:57And it's problematic because, of course, the king is not just king of the UK.

37:03He's king of Canada.

37:05And Trump has said that he wants to annex Canada as the 51st state.

37:10So the more belligerent Trump gets towards Canada, the more difficult it is for the king of Canada to go and make nice.

37:17Absolutely.

37:18And I'm told by sources that Charles has not held back with his opinion.

37:24And I think that whilst, obviously, our royal family is kind of, you know, the ultimate Trump card,

37:31because I don't think any other country in the world can offer what we offer.

37:37I mean, other royal families are available, of course.

37:40But the British royal family is kind of preeminent in terms of kind of status and bling.

37:45And Trump's mother was a Scot.

37:46And Trump's mother was a Scot.

37:48So we do have that.

37:52But, you know, when Trump came out and made that statement about NATO and said that the European partners in NATO were like behind the line and we didn't fight effectively.

38:05I mean, that was deeply, deeply disrespectful.

38:09Prince Harry was one of the first to respond to it.

38:11And I thought that was really interesting because 457 people died in Afghanistan when we answered America's call after 9-11.

38:21And as Harry pointed out, and I thought it was very interesting that Harry even issued that statement,

38:27because, of course, had he still been a serving member of the royal family, he couldn't have said anything.

38:32Because that's a political statement against an elected president.

38:37And whatever you think about Trump, it is, you know, it is politics.

38:41And so the other thing that was very interesting is that it was let known or journalists found out that the king's opinion and displeasure was effectively communicated to Trump about what he said about NATO as well.

39:00Because within 24 hours of his comments, he'd spoken to our prime minister, Keir Starmer, and he had then been told about the king's displeasure, about what he had said.

39:15And the dilemma it put him into.

39:16Yeah, and the dilemma.

39:18And he completely climbed down.

39:19He came in sort of on his truth social, was suddenly saying that, you know, the UK was amazing, that our troops were fantastic, that we'd, you know, been very brave, et cetera, et cetera.

39:28It's interesting, isn't it, that with someone who is so powerful and yet so volatile and so unpredictable, what works?

39:34Stroking him.

39:35Stroking him.

39:36You stroke, stroke, stroke.

39:36It's like Blofield's cat.

39:38And there's no stroker like the British royal family, is there?

39:40So this is an interesting, potentially powerful thing.

39:45Well, lovely stroking, if I may say so.

39:47But we've got a special thing now for everyone who's joining us.

39:50More stroking?

39:51Well, no, what we want to do is know your questions.

39:53What would you like to know?

39:54Email them to us, royals at spirit-studios.com.

39:59And we will put them in a box and produce them.

40:02And then we'll ask them and we'll find out the answer to your question.

40:04Now, we haven't had time.

40:05It's our first one.

40:06So we've been asking around the office and you've got the box.

40:08Okay.

40:09So, yeah, we'd love to hear from you.

40:11Even if you've just got some questions for Richard or I, it's royals at spirit-studios.com.

40:19And you could be in the box.

40:21So I think Olivia in the office, we did a little bit of a, we did a bit of a whip round.

40:27So let's see.

40:28Oh, hang on.

40:28Here we go.

40:29Here we go.

40:30It's a prop.

40:31I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

40:34I can't get the question out.

40:39Okay.

40:39It's like the Brits.

40:40I know, it's like the Brits.

40:41Right.

40:42Okay.

40:43Here we go.

40:44So, right.

40:45So, Olivia in the office wants to know, given all the drama we've had over the last year

40:50with Andrew and also Harry, I wanted to know, can the monarch remove someone from the line

40:57of succession?

40:58What do you think?

40:59Well, you know, the answer is always no.

41:02And then it turns out to be yes.

41:04But these have to be done.

41:05There's a thing called Let Us Patent, which I think the monarch can do on his or her initiative.

41:09Yeah.

41:10But there's also something that can only be done by statute and act of parliament.

41:13Yeah.

41:13So, normally, if something needs to be done, they'll find a way, right?

41:16You're absolutely right.

41:18It's always a yes and no answer.

41:19Technically, it's a no.

41:21The monarch can't remove anyone from the line of succession because that has to be an act

41:26of parliament.

41:28But the monarch can change things without, as you say, a Let Us Patent.

41:33The last example of which was when Catherine was pregnant with, as we now know, Prince George

41:41and the late Queen issued a Let Us Patent to say that regardless of the baby's gender, he

41:50or she would keep their line in succession because before George's birth, had George been a girl and then a boy been born as Kate Williams, number two, that boy would have left frog the girl in terms of being heir.

42:07Male primogeniture.

42:08Male primogeniture.

42:09Exactly.

42:10And I think there was also a Let Us Patent about, there was a law which, as we know, because of Henry VIII and the session, a session from the church in Rome in the 16th century, in the 15th century, Emily.

42:24In the 16th century.

42:25In the 16th century.

42:27Oh, thanks, Richard.

42:28What would I do without you?

42:29In the 16th century, Catholics were banned from marrying into the royal family.

42:37And I think you're not allowed to be Catholic and be obviously head of the Church of England.

42:42But the Let Us Patent was changed so that you can be Catholic and marry into the royal family.

42:49There are examples of people previously having to convert to Church of England.

42:54Well, Richard, I have to say, I've had such fun with you today.

42:59It's been a revelation.

43:01Well, it's been a pleasure as well.

43:03Oh, thanks.