The House of Windsor is at it again! Prince Charles and the Cambridges have yet again caused a flurry of scandal and additional work for royal courtiers. Prince Charles has caused a perfect diplomatic storm when he recently compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler, due to President Putin's recent territorial annexation of the Ukraine to Russia! Meanwhile, Duchess Kate of Cambridge has been facing trepidation over the knowledge that a photo of her bare buttocks is at the moment subject to a bidding war between private buyers! The alleged photo is of Kate's bare bottom is from her tour in Australia where she is reportedly climbing into the plane brought to escort her to their appearance at the Australian Blue Mountains.
This recent humiliation is only the most recent scandal surrounding the Duchess, who is now becoming increasingly notorious over her nude indiscretions and it's causing serious consternation among the royal court (specifically the courtiers) who have been under constant pressure to cover up the Duchess' failings and Britons are increasingly fed up with the pattern of behavior that Duchess Kate has established. Kate has begun to show an odd pattern of having one kind of exposure of her intimate parts or another and even at the beginning of her royal career in 2011 she ended up showing her bare bottom under a light yellow dress, the skirt flying up while she was at the airport, moving from one plane to another while traveling.
In New Zealand, while descending the stairs from her plane, she ended up having the skirt of her red military style ensemble fly up, almost revealing her private parts and then reportedly giving waiting delegates an eyeful. It was chalked up by royal watchers as yet another gaffe and caused minor annoyance, but it was quickly forgotten as she had a successful tour and the Australian branch of her tour went off without a problem. Yet now, there is news that the Duchess has to face the reality of someone owning a photo of her bare buttocks, either viewing it in private, or worse, selling it to a publication, which would syndicate it around the world. While the palace has supported the Duchess publicly, it is whispered among insiders that the Duchess is becoming resented for how she's doing less appearances and her behavior is becoming a part of a pattern.
The former Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson (commonly known as "Fergie"), had a reputation for being occasionally scandalous, but never in the history of the York marriage did Sarah ever have her private parts exposed during official appearances such as literally nude. During private vacations Sarah was caught with a lover, but in no way did Sarah go so far as to go without undergarments and wear dresses lacking weights at the hem to keep the wind from blowing her skirt up. If it had been a simple gaffe once or twice it would be easily forgivable and forgotten, but Duchess Kate was reportedly advised heavily by the Queen's official dresser to prevent such occurrences from happening. Either the news of Duchess Kate being advised was false, or Kate deliberately disregarded the advice and ignored the importance of the tour.
For Kate to disregard the advice of the Queen's dresser or perhaps ignore orders to have her dresses designed with weighted hems, it would mean that Kate is in fact ignoring the orders and dress requirements of her Sovereign. Kate has been oddly unwilling to change her behavior or take the needed precautions to ensure the protection of her modesty, which has come across as almost a determination to end up showing herself off and undermining the entire dignity of royal tours and undermining the dignity of the House of Windsor. The Windsors have had more than enough scandals; the royal family and courtiers hoped that the recent royal trip would strengthen the ties of Australia with the Crown and Britain, but this has in fact likely, yet again, made Kate the center of another nude scandal.
Publicly the palace is deploring this as an invasion of privacy, but the reality is that behind doors, the courtiers are beyond upset. The Duchess isn't new to royal life and expectations (having dated William for nearly ten years before their engagement) and she was thought to be prepared for the expectations, codes of conduct, but has in fact just made the royal household look like fools for accepting her into the royal family. The Queen had held reservations about Kate's suitability, but was brought around to it after the engagement announcement and gave her official approval. Since then, Kate has had serious problems meeting expectations about the dress code and there are a lot of worries that Kate's pattern of exhibitionism has been an open symptom of a deeper mental condition.
Kate's refusal to learn and listen to sound advice given to her by aides and courtiers who wish to see her as a success, but the Duchess' disregard is causing sympathy to change to serious concern, bewilderment, but now at this point, exasperation. The Palace has been having problems dealing with the easing of the York princesses to a more normal life and dealing with the recent diplomatic snafu caused by Prince Charles, Kate is in fact causing worries that she's on a self-destructive spiral. There is a serious possibility that if in fact Kate is unable to handle the pressures and standards of royal life, the unthinkable, a divorce might quietly be arranged. It's known that the Queen told her grandchildren to choose a spouse carefully, forbidding a divorce, but now the Queen might in fact be required to, for a second time, break a sacrosanct order.
The Queen is legendary for her respect for marriage, but in 1992 the Queen was forced to arrange a divorce between her heir Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. As a result of the instability and domestic chaos, the House of Windsor was left exposed and vulnerable. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair took advantage of this vulnerability and forced the Queen to give up the official royal yacht Britannia and the Queen is now required to pay tax on her income. If the Queen is forced, to preserve Kate's mental health, to require another divorce, it would mean that a second heir will be made into a divorce' and it would cause humiliation. The Queen had ordered Princes Harry and William to be doubly cautious about their choice of spouse, making it clear that a divorce would not be tolerated.
The series of nude scandals has caused the Queen to worry that it might result in escalation and Kate might lose control later, literally at an official engagement. For that to happen would mean a disaster, not just in terms of PR, but also in fact in terms of the family dynamics that have only recently begun to settle down. Already Kate has had full frontal photos of her naked published in international magazines (in 2012 a French magazine published photos of her cavorting on a private estate fully naked), causing no end of worries and chaos among the courtiers and British publications and went so far as to result in one editor of an Irish publication to lose his job after he ran the photos. It took hours of work and months of public relations work to make the scandal part of the past. The timely announcement of Kate's pregnancy in fact helped, immensely, but courtiers were forced to work overtime to get the public to move forward past it.
Aside from the recent exhibitionism of the Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Charles has just thrown diplomatic relations with Russia into chaos due to his recent off the cuff remark comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler. President Putin has been triggering an immense international backlash with his militaristic annexation of the Ukraine, flooding the Ukraine with Russian soldiers and causing concerns that Putin is emulating either Napoleon or in fact, according to Charles, Adolf Hitler. Apparently the Prince was comparing Putin's annexation of Ukraine with how Adolf Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia (now known as "the Czech Republic" the independent nation of "Slovakia) popularly referred to as the Sudetenland. The rest of the world, in an attempt to placate and neutralize Hitler's evident ambition, allowed it using a policy of appeasement.
Putin's actions have caused controversy in the world of politics and possible diplomatic chaos, with concerns that this military occupation and annexation could lead to further military action against other countries. Further occupation on the part of Putin would mean that his actions could go from annexation to open military conquest, triggering another world war. Diplomats around the world are working feverishly to maintain stability and know Putin's intentions, all the while maintaining a delicate balance between keeping any possible further annexations from happening while preventing a provocation with Putin that could lead to war. This comment was not made at a diplomatic conference, but while Charles was meeting a woman who had fled from Poland to Canada (her father was a pharmacist) and mentioned that Putin's recent actions are similar to that of Adolf Hitler's militaristic maneuvers.
British publication the Daily Mail reported the comment and other newspapers published the comment immediately. As a reaction, Russian ministers have lashed back out at Prince Charles, causing a huge upset in Anglo-Russian relations and ministers and diplomats have been working day and night to neutralize the anger and potential disruption of already fragile relations between Russia and Britain. The House of Windsor is supposed to remain publicly neutral about politics and be careful in private, but the gaffe by Prince Charles has now compromised the trust that public officials have felt towards the royal family and diplomats rely on public neutrality and private non-interference to ensure that a visiting dignitary is not offended by meeting members of the royal family at official visits, since the royals are required to be on hand to host heads of state. This will cause future complications with prominent Russians who visit Britain.
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