They say it’s not Philip. I feel like that means it’s Philip. It would be totally in character.
I think this is an exceptionally well-written, well-reasoned post.
You sure you aren’t just saying this b/c she is female and of color? Or bitterly jealous? 
Tone it down. Please don’t make racist jabs or accuse each other of making racist jabs.
(leave that to the royal family)
Totally agree. He has no filter and just says and does what he wants. Good thing he has stepped back from any duties.
Totally
he was my first bet. now, i’m not sure.
Resulting in numerous assassinations by 69-year-old royalty.
On the other hand, that sort of remark from Philip doesn’t carry the same connotations that it would from most people. From most people, it would be from malice disguised as concern, but from Philip, it would be the bog-standard lack of a filter that he’s always displayed.
On the gripping hand, I think it is both interesting and very meaningful that the two oldest members of the Royal family–and thus the ones presumably most set in their ways–are the two that have consistently been portrayed as being very welcoming of Meghan.
There was a long article a couple of years ago, but I can’t remember if it was in The New Yorker or The Atlantic, or where (or if it’s even referenced earlier in this thread). It was about how the royal family is actually running out of people who can attend all the openings and commemorations and flower shows and nursing home anniversaries and other tedious public duties - which is the only real reason to keep the royals around nowadays. There are events scheduled several times a day that are expected by the public to be royally attended, but very few royals left to do these anymore. It’s becoming an actual crisis for the royals. They are keenly aware that if they aren’t fulfilling a useful function, then there’s no reason for the country to keep them around anymore. And they’re losing royals who are interested in living that kind of a life anymore.
Elizabeth and Philip are too old to do these anymore except for the most vital. Charles’ generation is down to him, Anne, and Edward and their spouses (with Andrew out of the picture). But they’re also getting too old, and have less inclination/ability to keep up with the demands. Anne had been the workhorse, which is why she became so popular with the public, but she’s 70 and can’t keep up like the old days. The next generation has a few - Andrew’s daughters, Edward’s kids, but for the most part, they’re having to rely on cousins that the public feel kind of cheated with - and Edward’s kids for the most part have made their own lives, as have many of the cousins. So Harry and Meghan leaving was really a huge blow, putting all of the burden back on William and Kate, who are already overly busy. It sounds like there’s not enough critical royal mass to support the monarchy any more.
This is reminding me of the Japanese royal family, too. Empress Masako didn’t really want to marry the emperor (then Crown Prince) because it meant giving up her own career. And she’s suffered from depression too. I don’t think the money and luxury make up for the pressure, the loss of freedom and the expectations.
Absolutely. I think being a royal is miserable, no amount of grand houses makes up for the complete loss of independence and the endless rounds of tedious public engagements. I don’t know why anyone would want to marry into it.
In many normal families, there is an elderly relative who periodically blurts out the most thoughtless, outdated or bigoted inappropriate comment - it’s pretty much a part of growing old in a world that is constantly changing. In most of those cases, it’s dealt with by saying ‘Grandad! you can’t say things like that!’, and eventually, the problem goes away all by itself, because nobody lives forever.
I’m not insisting this incident was definitely one like that - maybe it was something more insidious and deliberate, but I’m not sure any of this could ever have been improved by the addition of a voracious media circus.
I think this has been discussed before, but I can’t really find good info.
Does anyone have decent cites for the lifestyles various levels of royals live?
I know there are some sites suggesting income/wealth, but what are their lives like in real terms we could understand? Say Prince Edward and his wife. Or Princess Anne, her husband, and their adult children. Or even the direct heirs - Prices Charles and William.
-What level of income/wealth would you compare their lifestyle to in terms of Americans? Someone with wealth of $10 mill and annual income of $1 mill? More? Less? Are any of them beyond the queen at the point where they don’t even have to THINK of money?
-How much time do they spend on their official duties? Yhe equivalent of a 40 hr week? How much vacation do they get per year?
-Do they have jobs outside of their official duties?
-Do they have to do their own shopping? Cooking? Cleaning? Pay their own bills? Arrange for household repairs/maintenance?
How far down the line do you have to go until you get to folk who are living the lives of reasonably normal, reasonably wealthy individuals - say earning $500k/year, owning and maintaining their own homes, not maintaining personal staff…?
https://writeroyalty.com/royal-work-statistics-2018-annual-edition/
Besides official engagements, they have private engagements and meetings for their personal charities, projects, etc.
That’s an interesting site. So the BUSIEST royal - Anne - works just under 200 days a year. And only 4 total work more than 150. Other than Charles, that included Andrew and Edward.
After that, even the queen and William work only @ 120 days. The rest of the time, they are free to do whatever they want behind pretty luxurious doors/gates - where they are free to read the media or not as they wish.
Wow - I can SEE how onerous that would be! 
Most civilians work about 225 days a year, and fewer in England where they get more than a couple weeks vacation.
Anne is 70 years old. Do you think she should work more than 200 days? Other younger royals, outside of the main core group, largely have real-world careers.
I’m not sure how many days a year you think Queen Elizabeth should be working at 94 years old. 120 days isn’t enough for you?
The big problem in the monarchy is there are hardly any left who want the job anymore who aren’t past retirement age. The younger generation has decided on their own careers. That’s why Harry and Megan’s departure was such a blow.
That site lists public engagements - times when they are on show, meeting people. It’s like meetings for the rest of us - how many days worth of meetings do you conduct a year?
They do a lot more than shake hands with people - they are all patrons of many charities, which means many hours of behind doors stuff. And of course the Queen, at 94 years of age, has daily mountains of paperwork to go through from government.
I have no idea what the actual work hours for any of them is - but the idea that they’re loafing around sipping champagne in their diamonds and pearls is a bit off the mark.
Some details on Prince Charles income:
Charles received £21.7 million, or $28.6 million between March 2017 and March 2018, a 5 percent increase year over year. That money goes to fund Prince Charles’s “public, charitable and private activities and those of his family,” including not only the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children, but also the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
That income comes from the Duchy of Cornwall (of which Charles is Duke) - a very wealthy estate in the South West of England which always goes to the first born son of the Monarch. It’s a private estate, not ‘Crown property’ - ie, it isn’t owned by the Government. It will pass to William when Charles becomes King. So no, he doesn’t have to really think about money.
What is meant by “a wealthy estate?” Is it like Downton Abby where they have sharecroppers working for them? How does the Duchy of Cornwall generate income?
As others have noted, that site lists only the public engagements. The Queen, for example, receives and processes a despatch box (the famous “red boxes”) every single day except Christmas Day and Easter Sunday: documents requiring her signature, papers to brief her on upcoming meetings and events, and so forth. Back when she made international trips, the red boxes were sent by diplomatic courier to wherever she was staying that day, and returned to London the same way.
In 2019, the Cambridges made an official trip to Pakistan. The actual trip was only five days, but the preparations would have been ongoing for months. William and Kate, for example, would have had numerous meetings briefing them on how they were meeting, what to say (and not say), what they could expect to happen, and what to do if something unexpected happened (the latter a particular concern in a country with a security profile like Pakistan’s). Then, too, both of them were expected to dress the part, and especially for Kate, her normal working wardrobe does not necessarily meet the cultural expectations of Pakistan, so she’d have had to meet with her team and outside designers to select and be fitted for appropriate tunics and kurtas and so forth, plus a shalwar kameez for visiting the Badshahi Mosque (William wore a formal sherwani from a Karachi-based fashion house for dinner one night–I’ve fairly confident that wasn’t part of his pre-trip wardrobe). None of those meetings were ever included in the count of “working days” but they all counted as work nonetheless.
In 2019, Kate unveiled a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show that she’d helped design in conjunction with several landscape architects: the unveiling was a public occasion, but the meetings and phone calls and visits to plant nurseries and trips to meet the workers building the treehouse and swing and other design elements were not public engagements and didn’t get counted either.
Your source is grossly misleading you as to the amount of work actually required behind the scenes.