Tom Sykes

Tom Sykes

Kate Skipping Earthshot Event Doesn’t Mean She’s Lazy, Friends Say

Paul Grover/Pool via ReutersRoyalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.Friends of Kate Middleton have once again been forced to defend her against accusations of dereliction of duty and laziness after it emerged she will not travel to the final of the Earthshot Prize in Singapore later this month, leaving her husband, Prince William, to do the honors instead.Kate’s decision not to travel is likely to be officially announced in the coming days, a report in British tabloid the Mirror said, adding that she has made the decision to prioritize her children’s routine during term time. Her children are aged 10, 8, and 5. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Prince Harry Reportedly Snubs King Charles—but Charles May Offer Him U.K. Home

Piroschka Van De Wouw/ReutersWelcome to this week’s edition of Royalist, The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.Harry must give ‘suitable warning’ for royal accommodationWhere can Prince Harry call home in the U.K.? That is the preoccupation of a weekend of feverish reporting—first, a reported snub by Harry to King Charles over staying at Balmoral; another story has Charles offering Harry a residence for when he stays in the country, while a third claims that Harry will have to give notice when he wants somewhere to stay.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Harry and William’s War Just Keeps Getting More Vicious

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyPrince Harry and Meghan Markle have aced their Dusseldorf relaunch, but Prince William and Kate Middleton’s emergence as the Crown’s steely enforcers shows the war is far from over.In recent years, observers have grown accustomed to Harry and Meghan’s expressions being fixed into hurt scowls of anger and outrage as they have vented about their resentments toward, and the perceived indignities foisted on them by, the royal family.So it has been extraordinary, over the past week, to see the couple in positive and jolly form as the stars of the show at Harry’s paralympic-style event for wounded veterans, the Invictus Games, in Dusseldorf, Germany.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Prince William and Kate Middleton Sabotage Prince Harry’s Invictus Launch

Chris Jackson/Getty ImagesRoyalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.Attentive followers of the royal soap opera have got used to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sabotaging Prince William and Kate Middleton’s big set pieces in recent years.When William had an event for his charity Earthshot in the diary in Boston last December, for example, up popped the trailer for their new show Harry & Meghan. Meghan’s famous ‘Are You OK?’ interview was released the same day as Kate set off for a tour of Pakistan. And just this week, minutes before William and Kate were due to lay a wreath for the queen on the one year anniversary of her death, an emotional -ooking Harry was spotted paying tribute to his grandmother Queen Elizabeth on an oh-so casual visit to her burial place in Windsor.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Prince Harry Blows Up Royal Choreography With Shock Visit to Queen Elizabeth’s Grave

Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty ImagesRoyalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.Prince Harry dramatically upped the ante in his war with the royal family Friday as he upstaged his estranged brother Prince William by making a shock visit to the late Queen Elizabeth’s grave on the one-year anniversary of her death.He was snapped by a member of the public emerging from St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, where the queen is buried, just minutes before William and Kate were due to attend a service in her memory.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Charles Makes Surprise Appearance to Mark Anniversary of Queen’s Death

Paul Campbell/PA Images/ Getty ImagesRoyalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.King Charles made a surprise public appearance Friday to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of the late Queen Elizabeth, in a dramatic break with the precedent established by his mother, who always spent her Accession Day out of the public eye.Sources at Buckingham Palace said early on Friday morning that the king had decided to attend a church service at Crathie Kirk at around 10 A.M. local time Friday, despite earlier briefings that the king would spend the day in quiet and private reflection, which strongly suggested he would not be seen in public.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Meghan Markle Hits Beyoncé Gig, Twice, and Sends a Carefully Curated Message to the Royals

Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood/Getty ImagesRoyalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.Maybe Meghan Markle just really, really likes Beyoncé.Or maybe, by attending her concert twice in three days, on Friday and Monday, she’s trying to tell us something.Read more at The Daily Beast.

What Really Happened the Day Queen Elizabeth Died

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Wikimedia CommonsRoyalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.Despite years of planning for the fall of London Bridge, as Queen Elizabeth II was codenamed, her actual death, a year ago on Thursday September 8, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, caught her family and the nation largely by surprise. The most graphic illustration of this was that only two of her children—Prince, now King, Charles and Princess Anne—were with her, with the rest of her children and grandchildren stuck on various planes and automobiles as they raced, in vain, to see her one last time.Anne and Charles had both been, by sheer good luck, in Scotland in the days before her death, and both made it to her bedside a few hours before she passed away. Anne had stayed overnight at Balmoral on Wednesday, but, incredibly, on Thursday morning left the castle to fulfill an engagement at nearby Blairgowrie, where she was attending a Riding for the Disabled Association event.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Mohamed Al Fayed Blamed Himself for Diana and Dodi Crash, Confidant Says

Bruno Vincent / Getty ImagesA confidante of the late Mohamed Al Fayed, the Egyptian businessman whose son, Dodi, was dating Princess Diana and was killed with her when their car crashed in a Paris underpass in 1997, has said that Al Fayed blamed himself for his son’s death in the immediate aftermath of the crash.Andrew Neil, a well-known British journalist and former editor of the London Sunday Times, also said he was warned by the photographer Terry O’Neill: “Never get in the back of a car with [Dodi]. He does nothing but shout at the driver to go faster. It’s scary.”Neil had worked for Fayed when the billionaire was seeking to establish a toe hold in British publishing, and remained friendly with the mercurial Harrods owner afterwards.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Prince William and Kate Middleton ‘Nervous’ About Prince Harry’s U.K. Trip

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersFriends of Prince William and Kate Middleton have said the couple are “nervous” that Prince Harry’s visit to London next week could overshadow the one year anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, especially if the exiled prince stirs up controversy in interviews to publicize his new Netflix series, Heart of Invictus, and the Invictus Games themselves which start next week.However a friend of the king said that Charles was “proud” of his son for establishing the Invictus Games, and added that headlines saying that Harry had used the series to attack his father for neglecting his mental welfare as a teenager after his mother died were exaggerations.Sources have previously told The Daily Beast that William and Kate are “irritated” by the fact that Harry is due to make a speech at the WellChild Awards on Thursday night, the eve of the anniversary of the late monarch’s death but accept there is nothing to be done about it.Read more at The Daily Beast.