Now two of the princes who were supposed to help share the burden of the plot have gone Awol. “It’s all very well,” one royal photographer once said to me, “but at the end of the day, he’s just another bald, middle-aged bloke in a suit.” Prince William, happily married this past decade, father of three and now heir, is 40, staid, reliable, unglamorous. King Charles is rapidly approaching his mid-70s, but his mournful, equine face has been familiar for 60 years. No convulsions: the monarchy doesn’t like surprises, even if the media do, and there is no Camelot fairytale in the offing, not at least until young Prince George, now second in line to the throne, comes of age. ![]() What now, then? Refinement, of course, but not a full rewrite: all the characters are well known. When Diana, Princess of Wales died 25 years ago, the tabloids feared that would be an end to filling their front pages with photographs of her, but somehow it didn’t make any difference: people still bought papers with her face on the front and the plot line still had strands to endure for the best part of a decade. On The Archers or EastEnders they know how to cope with actual or scripted death and media editors know they have tributes and retrospectives aplenty to bulk out the plot. ![]() ![]() So the central figure in the royal soap opera starred in this week’s episode but can only be a reference in future scripts. ![]() Other monarchs have died suddenly, falling off their horses (William the Conqueror, William III), sitting on the toilet (George II), murdered (Edward II), catching dysentery (Henry V) or even a quick dose of morphia to hasten the passing in time for an announcement in the morning papers (George V), but this is a modern media age where we don’t expect to be taken by surprise.
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