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catching up with the royals with rev richard coles s01e02
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00:00Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of Catching Up With The Royals with me, Richard Coles.
00:05And me, Emily Andrews. This is the podcast that takes you beyond the headlines
00:10and lifts the lid on what life is really like behind palace walls.
00:14We're taking a look into the Royals' relationship with the press.
00:17And they said, Emily, if you ever do anything like that again, you will not be invited on these engagements.
00:22We'll explore the history of this special but sometimes peculiar relationship
00:25and find out how it's changed over time.
00:28But monarchy only works if you shroud it in mystery.
00:31The royal family survives on births, deaths of marriages.
00:35Plus, we'll be chatting about one of the most turbulent times in the press' relationship with the royals, Princess Diana.
00:42Now, you actually knew Princess Diana.
00:44Kind of gave power back to the monarchy. We were still interested in that story.
00:53So, Emily, this is something you particularly wanted to talk about
00:57and are particularly well qualified to talk about.
01:00Oh, thanks, Richard.
01:01Well, yeah, I suppose I've been part of the Royal Rota for, I think, since 2011, 2012.
01:07Like, 15 years.
01:08Can I be that old?
01:10No.
01:10That's what you were going to say, wasn't it?
01:11No, I was going to say, what's the Royal Rota?
01:13Well, good question.
01:15The history of Royal reporting is that it was very, very sort of deferential.
01:20I mean, if you were reporting under the court of Henry VIII, you'd just have your head chopped off if
01:24you've been dared to question his policy towards France or whatever.
01:28And then if you sort of roll forward to the 20th century, it was still pretty much the same.
01:32I mean, we might have got rid of beheading, but the press's relationship with the royals was very deferential.
01:38I think you reminded me earlier that Edward VIII, when he was king and when he was Prince of Wales,
01:44no one even wrote about his relationship with Wallis Simpson.
01:47It really was kind of nolome tangeret.
01:49The royals were untouchable.
01:51Then, of course, the tabloid press rolled into town with Rupert Murdoch's Purchase of the Sun in 1969.
01:58And it all got a bit crazy.
02:00And there were, you know, everybody wants to know about the royals.
02:03Everybody wants to see the young, glamorous women, Diana, Sarah Ferguson.
02:08And it all got a bit too much.
02:09So between the palace and the royal correspondents on the newspapers, actually, they came up with what is called the
02:14Royal Rota.
02:14So how it works is each royal correspondent from the papers, and there are about four or five members of
02:21the broadcast press.
02:23That means that on every royal engagement and every royal job, there'll be a very, very small number of journalists.
02:30And it means it keeps the journalist numbers small, which is how the royals like it.
02:35And also, I suppose it kind of works for everybody, doesn't it?
02:39So then those people on the Royal Rota would share that material with other journalists.
02:44So it stops there being a feeding frenzy and also limits the amount of contact the royals have to have
02:49with press.
02:49Absolutely.
02:50On the latter point, yes, because the royals don't really like the press, even if they have to pretend that
02:55sometimes they do.
02:56When I first started doing Royal Report, it felt very counterintuitive to share information with my colleagues who weren't even
03:02part of the same newspaper.
03:04I wondered about that, because surely if you get something really juicy, your instinct would be not to share, wouldn't
03:09it?
03:09Yeah, exactly.
03:10And certainly, I mean, you know, I used to work on The Sun and The Daily Mail and The Mail
03:14on Sunday, all quite kind of tabloid.
03:17Well, they are tabloid newspapers where...
03:19You know the value of a story.
03:20They value a story.
03:21And I remember a news editor saying to me, Emily, bring me exclusives, not excuses.
03:26But the thing is, Richard, the benefit to the royal family of us being there is that often when we're
03:32invited, and we are invited, as the courtiers continually tell us, we're invited to cover these events.
03:39Actually, what you're seeing is nothing particularly salacious.
03:42You might be seeing, you know, the Prince of Wales, as then was Charles, you know, at a hospital.
03:47I remember seeing him, meeting him for the first time at King's College Hospital in South London, and I stood
03:54in the line-up, and he came up over and spoke to me and said, oh, hello.
03:59And who are you?
04:00I think he expected me, because it was the first time, one of the first jobs I did was the
04:04Sun's royal correspondent.
04:05I think he expected me to say I was an anesthetist or a nurse, maybe.
04:08And I said, hello, sir, good morning.
04:11I'm the Sun's new royal correspondent.
04:14Oh, he said, looking me up and down, things are looking up, which was very kind of him.
04:20And it's a dance, right?
04:21Because they've got their steps and you've got your steps.
04:25And the other thing that occurs to me, if you've got a royal rota, if there's just a handful of
04:28you, then all those comms people employed by the palace can concentrate their efforts, right?
04:33They can.
04:34And also, it is a dance, as you say, love.
04:37We've got to get as many strictly references in here as we can, by the way.
04:40I'd like to apologise to the world for my Paso Doble.
04:42I don't know, I loved your Paso.
04:43And we need to talk about your tango, but another time.
04:46Because the palace allow access and invite the journalists along, that means, of course, that they can control the message.
04:53You know, in times gone past, I have written things that the palace haven't liked very much, and they've threatened
04:59to throw me off the rota.
05:01They've threatened to withdraw my access.
05:04And that's quite clever, isn't it?
05:06Because it ensures the journalists remain compliant.
05:08See, I'm seeing Henry VIII having a kind of meltdown somewhere.
05:11But I'm sure, is it some steely-voiced courtier who sort of phrases things in a certain...
05:16How does it work?
05:17Well, sometimes it literally is a phone call.
05:20I remember I was in the garden at Buckingham Palace.
05:25So I had, you know, to be fair to the courtiers, I had been invited in to the late Queen's
05:29backyard, January 2020.
05:32And Harry and Meghan had announced that they effectively wanted to leave.
05:37And there's a protocol, an unwritten protocol, but you are there to observe these engagements.
05:43You're not there to speak to members of the royal family.
05:46You're there to observe.
05:47And then afterwards, you can go and speak to the people that they've spoken to.
05:50You're not even...
05:51I wouldn't be as close to the royals as I am to you now.
05:54Sometimes it depends on the engagement.
05:56Sometimes you're allowed to shadow the royal as they're going around meeting people or they might be doing something.
06:00Other times, you're literally kept quite a long way back.
06:03And Harry was doing a rugby engagement.
06:05So there was some rugby training going on in front of us.
06:08And there was a rope.
06:09And there were quite a few journalists.
06:11And I was with my friend Chris Shipp from ITV.
06:14And we did kind of...
06:15We were like, this is ridiculous.
06:17The biggest royal story this year, this five years, is happening with Harry and Meghan.
06:21We've got to ask him something.
06:23The Sandringham Summit had just happened.
06:25And then they were all trying to work out how Harry and Meghan were going to leave.
06:28So me and Chris cooked up a little thing.
06:30He and his producer filmed it as I shouted at Harry.
06:34Harry, sir, have you sorted things out with your family?
06:38Is something being decided?
06:39If looks could kill Richard, I would have dropped down dead on the Queen's Garden.
06:44And then afterwards, I was rung up and told off.
06:48Firmly?
06:49Firmly told off.
06:50There was no ambiguity about that.
06:52They were not messing around and they were not jocular.
06:55And they said, Emily, if you ever do anything like that again, you will not be invited on these engagements.
06:59And do you sometimes feel that they're just throwing crumbs from their table?
07:03And actually, sometimes you don't want to do that.
07:05Maybe you want to perhaps do something a bit more direct.
07:09But you have to do that without inclusion in that particular circle.
07:14So I think if you're part of the Royal Rater, it is a balancing act because you want to go
07:19to the engagements.
07:20You want to see the Royals.
07:21You want to see them doing their job.
07:23Often, well, I did.
07:25You want to give airtime and exposure to the charities or the causes.
07:30I do have a halo sometimes.
07:33Maybe working with you will improve that, Richard.
07:36Don't call it, babes.
07:37Well, please, come on.
07:38It's the only reason I signed up to do this.
07:41I want to get to the pearly gates, be a little bit more...
07:43I tarnish.
07:44Yeah, untarnish me.
07:46Untarnish me.
07:47Well, it's time for a quick break, but we've got a question for you to tide us over.
07:51What is the most expensive paparazzi photograph ever taken of a member of the royal family?
07:57Back after this.
08:07Welcome back to Catching Up with the Royals.
08:09I asked you a question just before the break.
08:11What is the most valuable paparazzi picture ever taken of a member of the royal family?
08:15Well, the answer is a picture of Princess Diana on Dodi Fayed's yacht.
08:20It sold for four and a half million pounds in 1997.
08:25It was the one of her sitting on the end of the diving board.
08:27It was taken not long before they both tragically died.
08:31Four and a half million quid.
08:32Wow, that is a lot of money.
08:33I remember it's such an iconic image, probably because it was one of the last taken before her death.
08:40And I can't let us talk about Princess Diana, Rich, without asking you.
08:43Now, you actually knew Princess Diana.
08:45Well, yeah, I met her a few times.
08:46We were involved in the same charity, actually.
08:49So I remember the first time I met her was a charity thing.
08:52And we were all terribly excited about...
08:53What was the charity?
08:54Well, the charity we were involved with was actually HIV-AIDS, which is where we worked together.
08:58Well, it's one of her big passions, wasn't it?
09:00And it was a game changer.
09:02I mean, it's an extraordinary thing.
09:02I was very much involved with the beginning of campaigning around that.
09:07And one of the really big issues was that people felt so frightened and sometimes so hostile towards gay people,
09:13who were one of the groups that was most affected by it.
09:16There was this kind of sense almost of revulsion around it.
09:19And Princess Diana, who understood a little bit about what it was like to be marginalised, I think, ironically,
09:26from the most looked-at person in the world, she came and visited a unit and she shook hands with
09:31someone who had obvious symptoms of HIV.
09:34And it was a game-changing thing.
09:35And she just really had a natural affinity, I think, for people who were suffering and marginalised.
09:41And she could close the distance between a maybe indifferent, even a hostile public and the reality of those people.
09:47And for that, eternal thanks to you, I think.
09:50And it's just interesting to see the way she did it.
09:52Because what was her clever about her?
09:54People often say that she wasn't, you know, the joke about not being very smart.
09:57Absolute nonsense.
09:59And I think you really saw how clever she was.
10:01She looked like a princess.
10:03She wore diamonds.
10:04It flashed.
10:05It sparkled.
10:05She looked great.
10:06But she undercut it at the same time.
10:08She'd make a joke about herself.
10:10And you immediately felt both dazzled by her and reassured by her.
10:14And I think that was part of why she was so effective and also potentially so difficult for the royal
10:21family as it worked out how to address the world in a new era.
10:25Exactly.
10:26Because in the 80s, they were really having to change and to become more modern.
10:32I mean, the sort of stereotypical picture of the royals with a stiff British upper lip.
10:37And here we were in the 80s, the decade of excess and champagne and city boys and girls, you know,
10:43spending all their megabucks and the media age.
10:47Do you think that it was a problem that she was such a modernising and modern face of the family?
10:55I think she cut through in a way the other members of the royal family didn't.
10:58And I can quite see how, if you were the Prince of Wales and you had all the responsibilities that
11:02come with that and the destiny that awaits you,
11:05to have all of a sudden cameras turn away from you and turn on to your new glamorous, exciting wife,
11:09who was obviously at ease in a world of kind of pop music and celebrity and glamour.
11:15That must have been quite tricky.
11:16She was almost like the poster girl for the age, wasn't she?
11:20I mean, it's easy to forget now, but she was only 19 when she first started dating Prince Charles.
11:24I think they had something like a handful of dates before they even got married.
11:28Their wedding is still one of the most watched TV events.
11:33750 million people worldwide watched.
11:36Yeah, I mean, I've married a lot of brides and I've always felt a sort of, you know, the pressure
11:42on the bride because you're not just, it's not just you.
11:45It's all the expectations of everybody around you.
11:48And we're talking about a dynastic thing.
11:50I think what's really hard for people to grasp now is they don't just fall in love and marry.
11:55That's a lovely story, isn't it?
11:56It's about dynastic.
11:57Who's this person?
11:58Are they going to be able to do the job?
12:00That's the critical thing.
12:01And I think with Diana, who, of course, grew up the daughter of an earl and grew up in an
12:05aristocratic world, in fact, grew up at Sandringham because the Spencer family grew up there before they inherited, altered their
12:13family seat, that they kind of knew what it looked like.
12:17But once you're in it and once you're carrying all that dynastic expectation, the politics of that, that's really tough.
12:24You encapsulated that brilliantly and you said, you know, when she met members of the public, she looked the part,
12:31she looked like a princess, but she kept it real by being so approachable.
12:36Do you think she used the press or the press used her?
12:40I think it's a symbiotic relationship, which is a posh way of saying I think they ate each other's vomit
12:46in a way.
12:47Well, yeah, I mean, parasitical.
12:48I mean, I'm sure that the members of the royal family and William and Harry would have a very, well,
12:52they do have a very definite view and that the press were the parasites and they got rich off the
12:57back of their mother.
12:58But I think also it gave Diana power, and especially as she became a bit more remote from the royal
13:02family and she started to have a vision about what her life might look like and also the life she'd
13:07want for her boys, of course.
13:09I think one of the ways she acquired power was through that relationship with the press.
13:14You know, if you were a comms person for the royal family and you had Princess Diana come along and
13:18all of a sudden she was having her own relationship with journalists, you would feel that was a very potentially
13:24threatening situation to be in.
13:27Because, you know, they manage those messages so carefully.
13:30This is not just a family.
13:31This is not just a soap opera.
13:33This is the head of state.
13:35This is what holds together our notion of who we are, our place in the world, our place in history.
13:40Those are really, you know, significant things to have to carry.
13:43And it's a brand that has to be protected at all costs.
13:47In fact, it's funny.
13:48I was talking to my 10-year-old daughter yesterday and about, you know, what we're going to be talking
13:53about today.
13:54And she was like, Mummy, she said, no one at school even knows who Princess Diana is.
13:58And I thought that was fascinating because to you and I, she is such a seismic figure.
14:04I think to everybody, whether you're a royalist, whether you're interested in the royals or not, she, there is that
14:10kind of sense of Marilyn May.
14:11I think she was 37 when she died, so young.
14:14But the generations that are coming after us, will she keep her place?
14:20I think she'll always keep her place in royal history.
14:21There should be another mysterious sculpture standing in a public park somewhere that people think, I wonder who that was,
14:27you know?
14:27Their shelf life, this is a terrible way of talking about someone.
14:30But, I mean, as kind of royal figures, I think is quite short.
14:33Because the whole point is new ones come along, right?
14:36Yeah.
14:36They refresh the product all the time.
14:39It's interesting, isn't it, about, you know, everyone who was around then remembers where they were when they heard the
14:45news.
14:45It was a huge, huge story, and it was terrible, too.
14:48And people were very moved by it in all sorts of ways, in sometimes quite odd ways, I think.
14:54I thought that maybe royalty, the royal family, the monarchy, was losing power and losing its grip on our imagination
15:01and our interest.
15:02I think the irony is that Diana, who perhaps many in the court circle thought of as dangerous, actually kind
15:10of gave power back to the monarchy.
15:12We were still interested in that story.
15:15We were interested in her because of who she was, who she married, who she mothered.
15:20That was what was interesting to us.
15:21In a way, I think it gave power to the monarchy.
15:23Well, I guess what happened two years before her death, that unprecedented interview with Panorama in 95, we'd never really
15:30heard a royal speak, be interviewed, and certainly be so open with their emotions.
15:38You know, there is still, even now, in 2026, there's this, you know, stiff, the royal stiff, huffer lift.
15:43I mean, I think William and Harry have done a lot to dispel that, and to be fair, you know,
15:47Charles himself.
15:47But before that interview, no one had really sat down in front of a camera and spoken, and spoken and
15:53been so open.
15:55Was that a game changer?
15:57I think it was, actually.
15:58And I think it's an interesting one, because I remember at the time thinking, they're going to go into meltdown
16:02over this.
16:03It's just not what you do, right?
16:04It's completely off.
16:06There's no precedent for that.
16:08Actually, I think they are quite like that.
16:10They often are quite outspoken.
16:12They often are quite direct.
16:13They are people who, I think, can, through force of personality, change the way we perceive them.
16:18I mean, I think of, you know, the royal family, the Dock, made, what, 1969?
16:22Yeah.
16:22Prince Philip's idea.
16:23I think you let the cameras in for a year.
16:24Yeah.
16:25It was very, very polite.
16:27I mean, the most exciting thing that happened was that Charles' cello string broke, you know?
16:31Or they burnt some sausages on a barbecue.
16:33They couldn't find the dressing up at Balmoral.
16:35I thought that was funny.
16:36And I remember there being, well, I was only a kid when it happened.
16:38I remember being absolutely fascinated by it.
16:41And we all watched it.
16:41We all wanted to see.
16:42And in retrospect now, I think a lot of people would say that monarchy only works if you shroud it
16:48in mystery.
16:49Okay?
16:49If you shine light on that, if you open the window, you lose something that takes some of its power
16:55away.
16:55And I'm not sure about that now.
16:57I think you energize it a bit that way.
17:00And then maybe you withdraw again.
17:01And again, why this sort of constant change of personnel is a good one.
17:05And you would think, in a way, what Princess Diana enabled was Catherine Middleton.
17:10But I think Catherine Middleton, the Princess of Wales, as she is now, in a way, is picking up a
17:16narrative which is more like the late Queen, right?
17:18And I think for the royal family, with the media, we do want, don't we want to be let in?
17:24Don't we want to see?
17:25But I don't think we want too much, do we?
17:27I think we want impossible things.
17:29I think we want them to be contradictions, right?
17:31We want them, on the one hand, to be accessible and available to us.
17:34On the other hand, somehow to embody something that's separate from us.
17:37So the mystery, the history, the authority.
17:40I mean, lots of people don't like that.
17:41And they're perfectly entitled to that view.
17:43But I think if you think monarchy does bring something of value, then it does need to be kind of
17:48ring-fenced a little bit.
17:50So it's, I'm saying, a contradictory thing.
17:51On the one hand, we want access.
17:53On the other hand, we want them also to be a bit separate from us too.
17:56Because we want them to be like us so that we can identify with them.
18:00But we don't want them to be too like us.
18:02Because then the mystique goes, and what's the point of them?
18:04And why are we paying for them?
18:06And also, why would you do it if it were you?
18:09I mean, I often think if, you know, I imagine, I think there was a period with Prince William for
18:16a while ago when he sort of realised the awfulness of the destiny that lay ahead of him.
18:21The enormity.
18:22Because nobody in their right mind would choose to do that, right?
18:25Absolutely.
18:25You get born into it.
18:26You get trained for it, unfortunately.
18:28But I can quite see why you might think I would much rather just go and, I don't know.
18:33Farm my estate and live the life of a simple landowning aristocrat, right?
18:38Totally.
18:39And I guess what happened with the press and Diana during the 80s and then the 90s with the War
18:46of the Waleses.
18:47And look, let's be honest about this, Richard.
18:49There was briefing from both camps.
18:51There was briefing from Diana's side.
18:53There was briefing from Charles' side.
18:55He had the kind of...
18:55Just explain what that means to the benefit of...
18:57Oh, sorry.
18:57Briefing.
18:58Yes, we know from Diana telling us in 95 that Charles had an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
19:04Now, it was pretty well known by that point.
19:07But I think when no one knew about it in the press, it was briefed that Charles was having an
19:15affair with Camilla.
19:15What does that mean?
19:16It means that people who were sympathetic to Diana would tell sympathetic journalists.
19:22Then photographers would follow Charles and Camilla.
19:26Obviously, there was that infamous incident with people listening in to phone calls on a radio transmission.
19:33You know, Princess Diana had partners as well.
19:36And it became very acrimonious written about in the press.
19:41And so if you are seeing that your point is not getting out or you're being unfairly victimised, you might
19:47let it be known or get your staff to let it be known to newspaper editors or proprietors or friendly
19:53royal journalists so that they can print your side of the story.
19:57But also, the intensity, the focus on her.
20:01The Princess of Sales, I believe, as journalists refer to her.
20:03Well, yeah, because her pictures could command such high prices for the photographers who were following her.
20:10I mean, there was that awful – I think she only ever sued once because they were taking pictures of
20:15her inside her gym.
20:17She was a member of the Harbour Club in Chelsea.
20:19And I remember reading that they had to build up all these huge walls because the photographers were training their
20:26lenses in.
20:27I mean, I say that would never happen now.
20:28But, of course, you know, Kate Middleton got pictures taken of her when she was sunbathing topless in a very
20:34private French chateau where photographers should never have been anywhere near.
20:37And the value of those pictures, of course, created such a market for her.
20:41I mean, there was somebody I know who was a good friend of hers, was with her when she left
20:45the building once and they were perhaps outside.
20:47And it wasn't just, you know, that familiar thing of lots of people saying, Diana, Diana, and taking pictures and
20:51flash.
20:52They were saying stuff deliberately intended to antagonise her because they knew that there had been incidents when she'd just
20:59kind of, you know, lost it.
21:00Remember that thing when she was going through an airport and she was just being pursued by –
21:03And she put the handbag up.
21:04Because those pictures have got real value.
21:07So they would often deliberately say things which were really, really very shocking things to say.
21:12And to kind of go out for dinner and step out onto the pavement and be greeted with that day
21:18after day after day, well, I would be volatile.
21:21And also, I think it's easy to forget now, but the effect it had both on William and Harry.
21:28Look, we don't want to be armchair psychologists because I hate all that, you know, body language, psychologist rubbish.
21:32But Harry and William, in their own way, have spoken a lot about how the experience with their mum impacted
21:42them, the way that they deal with the press now.
21:45And obviously, you know, the brothers are still not – I mean, it's very, very sad.
21:48The brothers are still not speaking.
21:49But we can talk about that another time.
21:52Because of such indelible memories from their childhood, neither Harry or William really want to engage with the press.
22:00And I think it's very interesting with William now.
22:04He is leaning in more to his destiny.
22:07I think you're right.
22:09I think he's more comfortable now with becoming king.
22:12But you're absolutely right.
22:12There was a period when he really, really didn't want it at all.
22:15Isn't that interesting?
22:16Because the one thing they perhaps had in common was that united, shared loathing of the media, whom they both
22:23understandably blame for hounding their mother.
22:28And perhaps one of the reasons why the division between them widens rather than narrows is that, as you say,
22:33William is more and more conscious that the role that he inhabits now and will inhabit is one in which
22:40he's going to have to engage with the press more.
22:42I think that Harry's road has been to litigate, to litigate, to sue.
22:47William's road has been to understand that he can use the press.
22:55He doesn't want to answer any difficult questions.
22:58Time for another break.
22:59But after, we'll be taking a look at the royal family's biggest PR disasters and how they navigate a so
23:05-called crisis.
23:06But before we do that, we have another trivia question for you.
23:09And it's this.
23:10In her lifetime, how many corgis did Queen Elizabeth II own?
23:23Welcome back to Catching Up with the Royals.
23:26And you'll remember before the break, I asked you, how many corgis did Queen Elizabeth II own in her lifetime?
23:31Well, the answer is more than 30, and all descended from the corgi she got on her 18th birthday, which
23:38was called, in a very Elizabeth II way, Susan.
23:42Love that.
23:43Corgis, corgis, corgis.
23:45I don't think there's been a huge press PR disaster around corgis, has there?
23:50But there have been a few.
23:51And I'm thinking, I was in Lowestoft the other day.
23:54Were you?
23:55What were you doing in Lowestoft?
23:56I was doing a book festival in Lowestoft.
23:58Charming place.
23:59Do you think of...
24:00I've never been.
24:01Well, it's a lovely little place.
24:02We should go.
24:03We should definitely go.
24:04We wouldn't be the first to go, because 90 years ago, almost to the moment, actually, there were two temporary
24:10residents of Lowestoft.
24:11Wallace Simpson, the wife of an American businessman, and King Edward VIII, who was having an affair with her.
24:18He was about to abdicate perhaps the greatest royal scandal ever.
24:23Just in living memory.
24:25And the reason was that he wanted to marry her.
24:28And the deal was that he could only marry her, because she was a divorcee twice, I think, was if
24:32he abdicated the throne.
24:34Now, to establish the facts of a divorce in those days, you had to sort of do this little thing
24:40where you were seen together at an hotel or somewhere.
24:43Oh.
24:43And they chose Lowestoft, of all places.
24:45There's a charming hotel at Lowestoft.
24:48You can stay there now.
24:49I highly recommend you a lovely tea.
24:50And it was there that Mrs. Wallace Simpson stayed.
24:54And there that the king was also, so that the...
24:58Was seen.
24:59They were seen together.
25:00But he used to go to a pub, actually, and used to stand people drinks in the bar, I was
25:05told, while I was there.
25:06Which tells you something, I think, about, well, you could never do that now, because the press would be all
25:10over it.
25:11Well, everyone would get their mobile phones out as well, taking all those pictures.
25:14But, I mean, it's hard to overstate, I think, the impact the abdication had.
25:18It was all...
25:20I mean, you thought sort of Diana's interview on Panorama was shocking.
25:24Well, the king coming on the wireless and saying, I am unable to fulfill, maybe, unless I'm married to the
25:29woman I love.
25:30I mean, it was just startling.
25:32It struck at the heart of state, church, monarchy, government.
25:38Stanley Baldwin, the prime minister, was involved.
25:40The archbishop of Canterbury was involved.
25:42All these really tricky negotiations.
25:44And it ended up with Edward VIII abdicating, going off into a life with Wallace Simpson of kind of awful,
25:50sterile luxury, I guess.
25:53And it meant that George VI, who never intended or wanted the job, ascended the throne.
25:59The queen mother, as we know her, his wife, Queen Elizabeth, never forgave him for it, because she'd think it
26:05killed her husband.
26:05Not unreasonably.
26:07Net benefit to us, we ended up with Elizabeth II, who did a pretty brilliant job as monarch.
26:11But it was a moment that it's hard to, you couldn't really overstate just how significant it was.
26:17Totally.
26:18And I still think it is the defining royal moment of the 20th century.
26:22And it still has ramifications today in the 21st, because when Harry and Meghan were trying to negotiate their withdrawal
26:30as working royals,
26:31that spectre of the abdication still hugely hung over the whole discussion.
26:39And the late queen, as we now must call her her late majesty, Queen Elizabeth, as the courtiers call her,
26:44the whole course of history was altered because of her uncle forsaking his duty for the sake of an American.
26:51And here it was, was history repeating itself.
26:54Fine.
26:55Harry's not the heir.
26:56He's the spare, as he always likes to remind us.
26:59But the royal family see their job as duty.
27:06And you never, ever give up on duty.
27:09You know, the queen famously never retired.
27:11Charles will never retire.
27:12We're not going to see some European monarchies like Denmark, the queen of Denmark.
27:18Lightweight.
27:18Lightweight.
27:19She abdicated in, you know, so that her son could become king.
27:22But the queen of Denmark effectively gave up the throne to retire.
27:25You're not going to see that here in the UK, partly because, in my opinion, of the legacy of abdication.
27:33Because even when the late queen Elizabeth was really seriously ill, she still believed that she had a job to
27:41do,
27:42partly because it was God.
27:43God had chosen her, Dio et mon droit, and God on my right.
27:47And that it was her God-given job to fulfil to the state.
27:52But I think maybe Meghan didn't quite realise what it involved walking away as a working royal,
28:00and all the history that went with that.
28:02It's fascinating.
28:03I always wondered that moment at which someone who comes into the royal family realises what they've actually let themselves
28:08in for.
28:09It's so interesting that so few of those marriages survive, let alone seem to prosper.
28:15I do sometimes wonder about Camilla Shand, then Parker Bowles, now Queen Camilla.
28:22You know, Harry's accusation that she always wanted to be queen, she left bodies on the floor in her way
28:30to try and rehabilitate her image.
28:32Did she actually want to be queen?
28:34Yes, she loved Charles, I do believe that.
28:36But, you know, to marry into the royal family, I think she was quite happy to be his mistress.
28:42I think she does what she can to maintain a life that's separate from it.
28:46So she can sometimes take herself off and try to live a life where, obviously with a barricade around it,
28:53where it's her and a dog, you know, and a smelly old horse and all that kind of stuff that
28:57they seem to like.
28:58She can kick her shoes off, have a glass of red wine, roast a chicken. She used to be a
29:02smoker.
29:02The sacrifices one makes in the country.
29:04The sacrifices you make to have to marry into the royal family.
29:07I've got a good story about her.
29:09Go on, tell me.
29:10Can you share it?
29:10Well, I can.
29:11It's the actor Dominic West, as you remember, played Prince Charles in that season of The Crown,
29:16which was about the marriage to Diana.
29:18It must have been so difficult for the royal family to have to watch.
29:22Oh, yes.
29:23They hated it.
29:23Well, it was announced that Dominic West had got this part, and then his wife, who lives in Ireland,
29:30has a big gardener, and Camilla is also into gardens.
29:34And it was when Camilla was Duchess of Cornwall, and they had a reception at Clarence House
29:37for all these gardening people to come.
29:39And anyway, Dominic West's wife came, and Dominic said, can I come too?
29:42And the wife said, no, you can't.
29:44No way.
29:44You've just been announced.
29:45It's not going to happen.
29:46But he cajoled her into it.
29:48So anyway, he turned up.
29:50There they were at Clarence House.
29:51The Duchess of Cornwall walked in, came straight over to him, and he went, oh, good evening,
29:56your royal highness.
29:56And she went, good evening, your royal highness.
29:59And Camilla passed.
30:01But that rehabilitation of Camilla, I mean, after the death of Diana, when everyone was
30:05so deeply affected by that, and the whole thing was just too awful for words, to gradually
30:11all of a sudden start appearing in public life, and then to be accepted as a sort of palace
30:16insider, and then to be rehabilitated in that way, I think is a very well-executed thing.
30:24It was.
30:24And I think that, obviously, there's a lot of comms people who are employed at the palace,
30:29paid for by us, Richard, paid for by the British taxpayer.
30:32But that was Mark Bolland, who, in my opinion, really kind of supercharged the PR offering
30:41at the palace.
30:42And when I say the palace, I mean, it's called Operation PB, the operation, the manoeuvres
30:50to rehabilitate Camilla Parker Bowles.
30:54And maybe that's what Harry means when he accuses Camilla of doing it, but maybe what he meant
30:58to say, it was Mark Bolland.
31:01But I think Mark was very, very canny, because he made relationships with newspaper editors,
31:07with proprietors.
31:08He knew that Camilla was also interested in the media.
31:11He set up meetings, and he famously, when they first appeared together, Camilla and Charles,
31:19it was leaving a party at the Ritz.
31:23And it was kind of, the photographers all knew that it was going to happen, but it did have
31:27that element of, it wasn't a set-up, and it was a set-up, but it wasn't a set-up.
31:31And it was kind of, though they were just leaving and getting into their car.
31:34I think at the time, Charles was really worried about whether it would be okay, whether it
31:41would work.
31:42Even when they got married, they were worried about that.
31:44The other thing, of course, is nobody really knows anything.
31:47I remember talking to someone who was involved in the funeral of Princess Diana, and talking
31:52about everybody kind of lining up outside Buckingham Palace, as the hearse arrived to
31:57begin the long walk to Westminster Abbey.
31:59And there were millions of people.
32:00You remember how volatile that week was?
32:02Public opinion was here, public opinion was there.
32:04Everyone was crying.
32:04The government was over it.
32:07Imagine that, about having to set out on that particular journey, not knowing what the reaction
32:12of people was going to be.
32:13I just think that must be the most terrifying thing about that job, is that you step out,
32:17and you have no idea what the reaction is going to be.
32:20Do you think that the royals need disasters just as much as they need success?
32:25Because there's this sort of off-sighted anecdote within royal reporting that the royal family
32:32survives on births, deaths, and marriages.
32:34Because the level of interest in Princess Diana's death was even more than that of the late
32:39queen.
32:39Do you think the royal family need those disasters?
32:42Well, I think births, marriages, deaths, divorces, and scandals, too.
32:46Because it intensifies the interest, doesn't it?
32:49It is the fuel which engages, you know, fuels the engagement of all our interests.
32:55And without that, is there such a thing as bad publicity?
32:58Well, I think perhaps recent royal interviews.
33:02Andrew Moffat and Windsor springs to mind.
33:04But that's probably for a different episode.
33:06Well, now, listen, folks.
33:08Time for a break.
33:09We're going to be opening our royal red box to answer some of your questions.
33:13But before then, time for one last royal question.
33:17True or false, the royals aren't allowed to play Monopoly?
33:21Answer after the break.
33:22Dun, dun, dun.
33:32Welcome back to Catching Up With The Royals.
33:34Now, before the break, Richard asks you, is it true or false that the royals can't play
33:41Monopoly?
33:42And, go on, Richard, what do you think?
33:45It's hard to imagine them not playing Monopoly.
33:49But I can see how, if there's delicate family politics happening, you might not want to get
33:54too stuck into a ballgame.
33:55And also, they already own Regent Street.
33:57Well, they already are in Regent Street.
33:59Exactly.
34:00So, it is absolutely false that they are not allowed to play Monopoly.
34:04Of course, they're allowed to play any board game they want.
34:06In fact, they do a lot of parlour games and board games at Christmas at Sandringham.
34:10But apparently, Harry once said that they don't play Monopoly too often because it gets
34:13very competitive.
34:15Interesting.
34:15I wonder if Prince Charles, as was, always said, he, as the Duke of Cornwall, had to have
34:20Regent Street.
34:22See, if it's part of the duchy.
34:24I wonder if you were playing Risk, for example, those former parts of the British Empire,
34:28they might go for that a bit more than a normal person.
34:31Yeah, maybe the late Queen might have liked that.
34:32But I think maybe, I mean, I can't imagine Meghan, as the Duchess of Sussex, would have
34:37enjoyed that very much on her first Christmas at Sandringham.
34:42That would have been a very long weekend.
34:44And, very exciting now, Richard, we have viewers' questions.
34:47I love this bit of the show.
34:49And we've got a red box, look at that.
34:50We've got a red box.
34:51I somehow think this makes us more important than we actually are.
34:55My only thing I want in life is to be more important than I actually am.
34:58Our red box.
34:59Shall I tell you what questions we have today?
35:01Yes, please.
35:03So, Meghan from Montecito.
35:07I know, I know, she's already emailing in.
35:10No, I think it's Meghan without an H, thank goodness.
35:13Otherwise, can you imagine?
35:14Although I do know that Meghan did used to read a lot.
35:18Anyway, more of this in a minute.
35:18So, Meghan, without an H, but we don't know from where, Meghan is emailing, asks,
35:23do the royals have normal day-to-day hobbies like the rest of us?
35:27Well, actually, yes, they do.
35:29Although their version of normal might be a bit different from ours.
35:31For example, shooting pheasants, for example.
35:34Straight forward shooting weekends.
35:36Well, that kind of thing.
35:37But there are interesting ones.
35:38I mean, Prince William, interestingly, is into motorbikes.
35:41Really?
35:42The Princess of Wales.
35:43What do you call her?
35:45Kate or Catherine.
35:47Catherine, what do you think?
35:48I don't know, Kate, Catherine.
35:51Kay Middy.
35:52Kay Middy.
35:53Kay Middy.
35:54I think we, yeah, Kay Middy.
35:56Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales.
35:57Whatever.
35:58Wild water swimming.
36:00But where do you do, I suppose if you're in North Norfolk, you can get to the sea there.
36:04But I can imagine the palaver.
36:06I mean, maybe they have to have like a mini submarine with security people.
36:09Sort of the periscope goes up, just to check.
36:12The Queen apparently likes Wordle, which sort of fits with what we know of her love of literacy and everything.
36:18She likes a bit of Wordle.
36:20I mean, there have been some famous hobbyists.
36:22I mean, George V, he was a great stamp collector, which is a very kind of typical of that era.
36:29You know, we're talking about the early 20th century.
36:32Did I, who came along and related to it, said I had a stamp collection.
36:35It was a big thing.
36:36Did you?
36:36As a kid or as an adult?
36:38Even I'm not that nerdy.
36:40Although I have got a thing for World War II fighter planes.
36:44And for Christmas, my partner gave me a schematic of a Mark I Spitfire.
36:47Don't start me on that.
36:48Wow.
36:49So, yeah, nerdy.
36:49But I don't have a stamp collection anymore.
36:51But the Royal Stamp, because this is an interesting thing, their hobbies.
36:53You know, everyone collected stamps.
36:55The Royal Stamp collection is worth in excess of £100 million.
36:59Wow.
37:00Because if you are King George V, you can, you know.
37:03Well, the Royal Mint will just send you, you know, a whole first, what do you call it?
37:08Is it called the first edition?
37:09Is it a first?
37:10First day cover thing.
37:11First day cover, that's it.
37:12Well, I mean, he just, and also some of the rarest, in fact, the rarest stamps are in the Royal
37:17Stamp collection.
37:18I just like the thought of them getting into a sort of like cabbage patch dolls or trivial pursuits.
37:23I mean, I suppose one of the things you, I remember going to Sandringham once, and in the sort of
37:29drawing room there, somebody opened a little cupboard-y thing, and inside there was a telly.
37:36And so, apparently the Queen Mother used to watch the racing.
37:39Yes.
37:39And the late Queen, Queen Elizabeth, loved a bit of TV.
37:44Apparently she used to watch Coronation Street.
37:46And one year there was some Coronation Street special, and maybe she was doing her day job, which was going
37:52to church on Christmas Day at Sandringham, and, you know, addressing the nation at 3pm.
37:57But apparently she knew that she was going to miss the scheduled Coronation Street Christmas special.
38:03So she got one of the flunkies, sorry, courtiers, to videotape it for her, and then she had it sent
38:10up to Balmoral when she went up there so that she could watch it.
38:14I was in a pop band in the 80s.
38:16We used to have Brookside tapes and couriered out to us.
38:20Did you, when you were touring?
38:21Yeah.
38:22I had to keep up with Brookie.
38:23Yeah.
38:23And the other thing I heard is that the Queen used to vote on Strictly.
38:27Really?
38:27Yeah.
38:28Do you think she voted for you?
38:29Doubted it very, very much.
38:31I bet she did.
38:32I doubted very much.
38:33I'm sure she didn't.
38:35So I'm assuming, oh, are they just like us, really?
38:37Well, yes and no is the answer.
38:39I mean, lots of the kind of things that we like to be swashbuckling.
38:42Polo, for example.
38:44Harry, William, Charles always likes to go to polo, which is not what we call a regular sport, I guess.
38:50I mean, you have to have the big bucks, I think, don't you?
38:53A, to have the horse rising lessons in the first place, and then B, to even be part of a
38:58polo team, to have the polo ponies.
38:59Because I think every, it's got a chukka, a chukka, the length of time that they play.
39:05And then I don't think they have like seven or eight chukkas, and they're changing their polo ponies all the
39:09time.
39:09I mean, that's a lot of equine money, isn't it?
39:12I don't think you get to do it in a comprehensive.
39:14I don't think you do.
39:15Not really, do you?
39:16I don't think you do.
39:17But I mean, they must do things like Prince George, or Prince Louis, or Princess, I've forgotten her name, Charlotte.
39:24Prince George, Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte.
39:25But even they play video games like everybody else, don't they?
39:28Do you know what?
39:29That's a really interesting thing, because recently Prince William said that all three of their children weren't allowed mobile phones.
39:36And I wondered then, were they allowed on gaming devices, like a Switch or an iPad?
39:43And I think that they are, but that their parents really kind of regulate the screen time.
39:49But what I thought was really interesting, I saw a picture recently of William landing at Kensington Palace with George
39:56and Charlotte coming off a helicopter.
39:58So I think they just come back from Norfolk, and they chop it into London.
40:04And George was carrying a book.
40:05And I thought, how great was that?
40:0813-year-old boy reading a book?
40:10And they have very normal hobbies, I think, the kids.
40:13And you're right, they have the extraordinary ones that only the very rich can buy for their children.
40:21George is learning to fly.
40:23So he's getting his, I don't know how old you have to be to have your pilot's license, but whenever
40:27he's old enough, he's learning to fly.
40:28He's learning to fly, yeah, he's had flying lessons.
40:31Well, I guess his dad is a very keen flyer.
40:33I mean, William has kept up his pilot's license.
40:36And in fact, the late Queen used to get very irate with William, because he used to pilot the helicopter
40:43of his family with Kate and the kids.
40:46And so she was very worried that if there was an accident, that would mean all five of them, but
40:53he liked would go.
40:55But he kept up and has kept up his pilot's hours by being their taxi driver, so to speak.
41:01But yes, George has been having flying lessons.
41:03So there are those hobbies or sports that only the very, very rich can afford, which that's one.
41:10But then also, George likes to do triathlon.
41:12And so, you know, that's a bit more, you know.
41:15He's going to go on with his dad to watch Villa as well, hasn't he?
41:17He goes with his dad.
41:18Oh, yeah, cool, football.
41:19Yeah.
41:19We didn't even talk about football.
41:21I think it's interesting.
41:22I'm a Brummie.
41:23And, you know, you're either a...
41:25Are you Villa?
41:26Yes.
41:26Well, I'm from, I went to a Villa school.
41:28I went to a Villa school.
41:29You're either Villa or you're Birmingham City.
41:31My mum's a blue nose, Birmingham City.
41:33I'm Villa.
41:33I think it's interesting that William takes George to the Villa games because he's so protective of his children's privacy.
41:41But it's obviously something that they love doing together.
41:46It's a hobby.
41:47Yeah, doesn't everyone love football?
41:49We've got a prime minister who loves Arsenal.
41:51I know.
41:52Whilst it's a really nice thing for them to be able to do together, is that also not part of
41:58their brand?
41:59Is that not, look at what a great dad I am.
42:01I'm hanging out with my son.
42:02I mean, you couldn't...
42:04I'm a Chorley fan.
42:05And I'd love there to be a Royal fan at Chorley.
42:08But it's not really set up for that kind of security operation.
42:12I mean, you would have to be...
42:14Because of Cape Photography.
42:16Yes, famously.
42:18Well, that was a good one, wasn't it?
42:19I'm enjoying these questions.
42:21More of them, please.
42:22Don't forget, you can send your questions to royals at spirit-studios.com.
42:29That's all for today from the show.
42:30That never complains, but always explains.
42:34And don't forget, we're with you every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts, over on our YouTube channel and to
42:40stream on 5.
42:41And if you like what you hear, please do follow and subscribe.
42:44It's completely free and helps us ensure that we can bring you the best possible royal news, views and analysis.
42:52Same again next week, Richard.
42:54Same again next week, Emily.
42:55It's a date.
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