SwayBlog

Pretty much every newspaper and tabloid used the coronation to write about the falling out between Prince William and Prince Harry. They arrived separately, with Harry walking into Westminster Abbey alongside his York cousins and their husbands (Edo Mapelli Mozzi even briefly put his arm around Harry as they walked in, a supportive gesture which did not go unnoticed) while William arrived (late) with Kate, Charlotte and Louis. The New York Times, People Magazine, the Daily Mail, everyone had their own spin on “the brothers did not interact.” The differences in the reporting was whether that refusal to acknowledge one another was purely driven by William’s incandescent rage, or whether royal reporters noted that Harry didn’t even seem interested in acknowledging William whatsoever.

So, in lieu of some breaking-news about what was really going on behind-the-scenes (I think we can safely assume that the brothers ignored each other publicly and privately), let’s focus on the other part of this – why were William and Kate so late to the coronation? They were supposed to be at the Abbey before Charles’s coach arrived. All of that made it into the Times as well:

Where were the Waleses? In the down-to-the-minute choreography of Saturday’s coronation, William and Catherine, the Prince and Princess of Wales, had been expected to arrive outside Westminster Abbey at roughly 10:45 a.m. They would be among the last guests to enter the church before the stars of the show, King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

Instead, Charles and Camilla pulled up to the abbey in the Diamond Jubilee State Coach and then, rather awkwardly, did not alight. Instead, the royal couple stayed put for about five minutes, as cameras caught an aide conferring with a perplexed-looking Charles about the apparent delay.

Were William and Kate running late? Or was it that the king’s coach had arrived early? None of the hundreds of journalists loitering by the broadcast booths outside Buckingham Palace seemed to know for sure. But for a while, it seemed the Waleses were AWOL.

“We frankly expected to see them before this moment,” Savannah Guthrie of NBC told her “Today” show viewers, although William and Catherine were always scheduled to be among the latest arrivals. “So we will see how all this unfolds.”

Eventually, a car zipped up and deposited William and Catherine and their children — George, Charlotte and Louis — at the abbey. There was no immediate comment from the relevant parties, and so the reporters were left to speculate. Some TV commentators said they recognized in William and Catherine the harried faces of parents who had just been corralling a brood. Others raised the prospect of a traffic jam, although the surrounding streets had been cleared of cars.

Hours later, it remained unclear if the Waleses had technically been delayed at all. But it wouldn’t be a royal occasion without some gossip.

[From The NY Times]

As everyone noted on Saturday, William and Kate had the look of two people who had fought in the car ride. And I do believe that they were late rather than “Charles was early.” His arrival had been timed and planned out to the very second. By all accounts, he arrived exactly when he was supposed to, and then his heir made him wait. My guess is that it’s getting harder and harder for William and Kate to “arrive together” for events when they clearly don’t live together.

CB posted this – Charles waiting for William and Kate, and he looked like he was mad as hell.

Charles looks like he's pissed off? I know he's probably practicing his speech but still pic.twitter.com/oZx06uotVD

— celebitchy (@celebitchy) May 6, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmcWlmZ4B4e9ahsJivlaeyoLzRoqWcnY%2Bstq24yJqkmKORqbKguMCtnJisn5TBqbG%2BnKarp56Wwaq7zZiYrZenmsC1ucinqq2dopSuo67EsmY%3D