Palace Intrigue Presents: King William

William flies to Los Angeles to join Catherine ahead of the Golden Globes. The palace has arranged downtime before the ceremony. Then intelligence arrives that Harry is also in the city that week, and someone on William's team buys tickets to a Lakers game without checking who else might be there. William ends up in a private box behind glass, surrounded by security, watching Harry sit courtside in a dark jacket and open collar, laughing with players he knows by name. The press has a field day. The late night shows have a field day. The tabloids run both photographs side by side for a week.

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William travels to Washington for an official visit, the kind of trip that the language of the special relationship describes as warm and substantive and that generates photographs the press will call politely adequate. Everyone remembers how Charles's American visit went. William is aware they remember. He does everything correctly and produces nothing memorable. That evening, alone in his hotel at a time when it is two in the morning in London, he calls Catherine and says something he has not said out loud to anyone.

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Palace Intrigue - daily updates on the current British Ryal Family

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A call on William's personal phone connects him to a woman whose husband, a former soldier William once served alongside, is being detained abroad under murky circumstances. The Foreign Office is handling it through correct channels at Foreign Office speed. William must navigate the gap between what the constitutional framework permits and what the situation requires, without crossing lines that cannot be uncrossed. What follows sets the Washington visit in motion, and plants seeds that a backbench politician named Julian Carver will eventually use.

You may also enjoy these other Royal Podcasts.

Palace Intrigue - daily updates on the current British Ryal Family

Crown and Controversy - British Royal Family after the TV Series The Crown

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Crown and Controversy - King Charles

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The Duchess of Sussex's memoir publishes in December to the kind of anticipation that has been building for months, positioned by her publisher as the most candid account of royal life ever written. The palace war room activates. And the book is fine. Readable, occasionally insightful, and generating three days of respectful reviews before the news cycle simply moves on. William and Catherine sit in their private sitting room waiting for the second wave that does not come. Then William's personal phone rings, from a number he recognises after a beat, and the memoir is immediately the least important thing in the room.

You may also enjoy these other Royal Podcasts.

Palace Intrigue - daily updates on the current British Ryal Family

Crown and Controversy - British Royal Family after the TV Series The Crown

King William - The Crown in the Future

Crown and Controversy - King Charles

Crown and Controversy - Norway

Details from a private meeting between William and Harry appear in the press, framed warmly, presented as evidence of genuine reconciliation between the brothers. The coverage is the best possible version of a leak. William is furious anyway. The meeting was private, the contents were his to share or not share, and someone in Harry's orbit made that decision for him. Meanwhile Catherine's Golden Globe nomination sends palace officials scrambling for protocols that have never existed, and Princess Anne quietly declines her first engagement of the season. Nobody addresses it directly. Everyone notices.

You may also enjoy these other Royal Podcasts.

Palace Intrigue - daily updates on the current British Ryal Family

Crown and Controversy - British Royal Family after the TV Series The Crown

King William - The Crown in the Future

Crown and Controversy - King Charles

Crown and Controversy - Norway