MAUREEN CALLAHAN: A soul-crushing image of the Royals in peril

The slimmed-down monarchy that King Charles so longed for is now, fairly rapidly, in disaster.

The absence of Prince William at Tuesday’s memorial service for his godfather, King Constantine of Greece — introduced simply 46 minutes prior to William’s scheduled arrival — sheds a blinding mild on this unfolding disaster.

Charles is present process therapy for most cancers. The Princess of Wales is recovering from belly surgical procedure and isn’t anticipated to renew public appearances till at the least after Easter.

It has been left to William to hold the mantle, however his sudden withdrawal from Constantine’s service, for unknown ‘personal reasons’, is an additional crack.

What’s extra, it’s understood that William’s absence had nothing to do with the sudden dying of Tom Kingston, the 45-year-old husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor (Charles’s second cousin), introduced simply hours later.

Without William’s anticipated attendance, a gap has been blown huge open within the House of Windsor.

It’s one factor for Charles to be out of fee, and under no circumstances surprising. He is an older man coping with well being points.

Kate’s absence, nonetheless, is extra keenly felt.

She is indisputably probably the most charismatic and glamorous member of The Firm. William, for all his dignified and cheerful dutifulness, merely appears dulled with out her.

It is Kate who offers William true glamour. It is Kate, greater than her husband or every other royal, who signifies youth and futurism.

And with William on modified obligation, the monarchy not solely feels rusty and dusty — it feels imperiled.

Look no additional than the disgraced Prince Andrew, apparently viewing this sudden energy vacuum as a possibility to emerge from banishment and lead the royal household – or what was left of it – into Tuesday’s memorial service. Jeffrey Epstein and intercourse scandal payoffs be damned.

How may Charles enable this?

In the wake of these current studies that the prodigal Prince Harry was searching for a means again into the royal fold, and that there was a faction within the palace open to reconciliation, it renders Charles mushy.

Too mushy, maybe, and too hopeful.

If solely Harry and Meghan weren’t the ingrates they’re. If solely they weren’t so resentful and distrustful.

If solely they’d stayed put, serving the Crown and doing the whole lot to make sure the way forward for the monarchy. They would have had the total religion of the British folks, who would have embraced them as by no means earlier than.

For Harry and Meghan, their time would have been now. They would have been entrance and heart, the understudies known as as much as the lead roles, taking the place of the Waleses as they navigate Kate’s restoration, Charles’s sickness, and the elevating of their three kids.

Meghan, in the end, would have had her Norma Desmond second, transferring ever nearer towards the digicam beneath a everlasting white-hot highlight.

The stage would have been all hers. Alas.

Harry and Meghan’s tried rebrand in simply the previous week — that relaunched Sussex web site with Meghan’s royal crest and the demand out of Canada, throughout Harry’s Invictus promotions, that she be known as ‘ma’am’, plus Harry’s ‘GMA’ interview wherein he spoke about his current journey to see Charles — stays additional proof that every one they’ve received left to hawk is their connection to the royals.

A connection that grows extra slack by the second, to the very royalty they paradoxically search to destroy.

Do Harry and Meghan even understand what they’ve misplaced? What price that is to their very own kids? To the British folks?

In an alternate universe, Tuesday’s service would have seen the Duke and Duchess of Sussex main the way in which, normal bearers for an intact monarchy, slim however highly effective, padded with key gamers of vim and vigor, fashion and star energy.

Instead, we had been made to endure a shameless Prince Andrew in full cock-of-the-walk, chest thrust ahead, smiling broadly, emitting an aura of utter confidence because the royal alpha male.

What an insult to Prince William. What an insult to Princess Anne, trailing behind her besmirched brother. Her sheer workload and devotion to monarchy deserves higher.

It was all slightly maudlin and colorless, regardless of Andrew’s beaming white grin — which felt, frankly, fully inappropriate.

Where does this depart the royals? The way forward for a monarchy dimmed by the lack of Queen Elizabeth and additional diminished by the withdrawal, for the second, of Kate?

Could the dissipation of the as soon as strong royal household, its multigenerational energy displayed yearly on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, grow to be an existential risk?

Charles is 75 years previous. He is ailing, and although we’re informed his prognosis is sweet, it’s unclear when he might resume a full schedule.

Queen Camilla does her half, however she lacks star energy.

Princess Anne is 73. Her esteemed work ethic however, she doesn’t draw world media consideration. She’s not a topic of fascination. She is the workhorse of the Windsors, and one wonders how lengthy she will be able to stick with it.

What of Prince Edward and Sophie? He isn’t seen, and it appears Sophie — in any other case so distinguished throughout funeral providers for Queen Elizabeth, so shut was she to the late monarch — has been informed to face down.

And so it’s left to William and Kate, the lone A-listers among the many royals, to make sure the survival of the monarchy.

And if we’re actually sincere about it, Kate is a very powerful determine: The most glittering and — regardless of her origins as a commoner — actually probably the most royal of the royals.

William on the BAFTAs final week did his finest. But his lonely {photograph} with Tom Cruise known as to thoughts the 2022 Top Gun premiere, when Cruise provided his hand to assist Kate, beaming in her strapless black-and-white robe, up the crimson carpet stairs whereas William, considerably haplessly, regarded on.

That second stated all of it: Kate is the star, and everybody else — even Tom Cruise — is background.