The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have all but alienated their subjects with their determination to live as 'normally' as possible and keep exploring new ideas and taking 'transitional years' and has caused their subjects to become horribly alienated from them. Each time the ducal couple makes a series of appearances, it is only overseas and it has left charities and businesses seeking promotion and fundraising, the dearth of assistance has been having a negative result. It's no secret that Prince William has an antipathy of press, but his dismissal of his British subjects has made a lot of them resentful. William and Kate are living a low-key, 'normal' life, but the more he and the Duchess refuse to cooperate with courtiers who are invested in the success of the monarchy, it is certain that soon even the courtiers will be resigning their positions en masse and leave the royal family exposed and unguarded. The courtiers are the backbone of the monarchy, determined to protect the royals, but as of late their patience has been strained to the limit and they are currently coming to a consensus that William might not be salvageable.
As a rule, the courtiers often have one view of the born royals, but a much different one for people outside their social class entering the royal family. Kate was quietly considered improper as consort for a future king and the courtiers were completely blindsided by the engagement announcement in 2010, having made it clear to the press that there was no chance of an engagement, only to be blindsided a mere week later. Courtiers were shocked mainly since despite her near ten year relationship with William, Kate had not shown any real initiative towards building any real structure in her life, always making it a point to be 'on call' for when William wanted her to travel or appear with him either on an exotic vacation or going out on the town to the clubs. Despite the life of an idle socialite, there was some hope that her exposure to royal life as a result of her relationship with William and occasional society invitations would have made ensured that she would have absorbed the etiquette and left her trainable. Her seemingly compliant adherence to William's schedule sent a signal that the future Duchess would be amenable to a regular work schedule and would allow herself to be guided easily into the new environment of royal life.
Yet, the worst fears of the courtiers were confirmed by 2013; despite a formerly complaisance to William's schedule as a long term girlfriend, she was oddly balking at becoming a full time royal and making regular appearances at William's side. This began to cause irritation in palace offices and triggered memories of Fergie's (Sarah Ferguson, former Duchess of York) work-shy history, but it wasn't just the light workload, but Kate's demanding behavior and constant refusal to help William overcome his phobia of interacting with the public. As a consort and commoner without allies already in the royal court to help her out, she has (in the eyes of courtiers) actually exacerbated his phobia and created a whole new level of paranoia in the troubled prince. He was at one point becoming a regular feature on the pages of the newspaper for his appearances, but at this point in time, the prince has ended up becoming oddly beleaguered by personal demons that the palace is helpless to deal with because they don't know what is going on in his head. Kate has not been helping the courtiers, she has in fact in the view of many isolated himself from his family, friends, and the prince has only recently begun leaving her at home when he is invited to various functions involving friends.
Instead of helping William make connections, holding parties inviting many important people, the Duchess has in fact been withdrawing herself. She has not been making it a point to participate in receptions, or make even the most basic appearances at private state events or sit in on meetings with her charities. Her involvement with her charities has fallen by the wayside and it has infuriated members of staff that have worked hard to ensure that the Duchess would be able to attain patronages. In spite of media hype and fawning articles, it was not easy finding the Duchess charities that would like to have her as patron. Kate has been stigmatized by her work-shy reputation and courtiers worked hard at giving her charities where she could counter her reputation that built up over the years during the time when she was William's official girlfriend. To the shock of the courtiers and the charities that trusted her, she ended up disappointing all of them with her indifference to working with them and at this point in time, has not lifted a finger to work hard at promoting them and fundraising.
Despite the open mockery on public forums and in the comments section of the most popular online newspapers and tabloids, the Duchess has neglected even trying ot maintain credibility with the public. Kate's behavior has regressed to pre-marriage idleness and William has drifted into doing nothing but enjoy the occasional trip to Spain to hunt and discreet trips to various private clubs. It's galling to the courtiers who work constantly to spin their idle life; what is particularly infuriating is how Kate spent so many years pushing her way in, promising to work hard and learn quickly, has in fact been a blatant lie, bordering on a slap in the face to the patience of the public and the respect she has been given by the media. Her former supportive columnists are becoming more and more strident in their criticism (Amanda Platell has been borderline mocking in her denunciations of Kate's recent 'wardrobe malfunctions') and the press has gone from fawning, to diffident, to indifferent and now the coverage is moving to hostile and mocking. By proxy, this leaves William vulnerable; even the aristocrats look at William as a weak prince who might become a weak king. Aristocrats are notoriously domineering in the marriage dynamics and William's refusal to make his wife work hard has been causing disdain by even his closest friends.
Yet, the most dangerous criticism is coming from the public, who are becoming more and more vocal in their anger at what they view as the ducal couple happy enough to go on a state visit at the expense of the British public, but uninterested in connecting with the public through appearances and substantial charity work. These connections are vital and the substance of keeping the monarchy in touch with the common man who pays their bills and maintain the important connection that the monarchy is famous for since the time of the earliest monarchs. As the Duke and Duchess continue to treat the public with cavalier disregard, the public has become borderline abusive in their mockery. The British are famous for their contempt of idle royals and the former Duchess of York (Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson) was a favorite, being subjected to endless satires and endless vicious mockery and Kate has been getting mocked with a variety of nicknames, among them the resurrected "Duchess Doolittle" (a nickname formerly applied to the former Duchess of York) and fears are being resurrected along with the nickname. The worst aspect of this public hostility, it is not just a press campaign conducted by a prejudiced press, but it is coming from the public, sending many courtiers into a paralyzed inability to deal with the overwhelming hostility that increases by the day.
The palace can easily deal with a prejudiced press by following the media friendly tactics that Princess Diana introduced to the courtiers, but a public turning against the ducal couple en masse with the ability to report on every little gaffe via social media is an entirely different matter. It can't be proven that the Duke and Duchess are working on their charities when they could easily be photographed entering and leaving offices and places where the charities conduct their operations and leaked stories to favored columnists has resulted in a series of mocking posts and derision. With columnists turning against the couple (the result of numerous lawsuits applied against publications and editors during the 2012 French nude scandal) media personalities are joining in on the mockery, when they don't seem to be actively promoting it. Appearances are considered increasingly useless to stem the tide and pretty much seen as disrupting the usual activities of the natives of the areas that they do visit. Little is accomplished and the public has commented numerous times that recent appearances are mainly a public relations exercise to clean up their images after a scandal or a reaction to a decrease in their formerly flawless popularity and effortlessly attained goodwill.
The idea of a normal life for the ducal couple was initially encouraged, but it has gone from the idea of a year or so off while William complete military work to a vicious cycle of repeated promises (quickly broken) to engage in full time work and appearances, to William frequently finding one reason or another to put off participation in formal royal ceremonial and frequent announcements of newly created 'transitional years.' It's been galling to a public that quickly embraced Kate as they did William at the time of his birth and reviving memories of Kate's jet setting idle twenties. There is especial resentment directed at the errant Duchess mainly since she's known to have practically campaigned (rumored in the cahoots with the British press to achieve her goal) and was known to have reportedly been fixated on the (formerly) Most Eligible Bachelor in the World (as William was christened even in early adolescence) at an early age, supposedly going so far as to repeatedly place herself in a strategic position to make sure she met him. Her former idleness would be chalked up easily as youthful enjoyment of life, but her outright refusal to even try to raise the profile and raise funds of her assigned charities has brought back her past, a past that courtiers have worked hard to bury.
William has been (in the eyes of courtiers) systematically squandering his opportunities to learn anything of use and to end up helping the Queen shoulder her responsibilities. He's living quietly, like a country gentleman of the gentry or aristocracy, when he isn't going on lavish vacations. Kate has been eagerly taking advantage of the leniency William allows and spends much of her time shopping, beauty treatments, and has only on occasion spent time with her infant son while the nannies tend to the more on-hands drudgery of changing diapers and handling the messy feeding times. She's done appearances, but they have been almost laughably minimal and the numbers are currently going down more and more. As William allows his wife more leeway to shirk her duties, he has begun to undermine his authority in his own household, which will likely make him look like a future King who will be a weak Sovereign. Courtiers have worked to train him to do more useful things, like training in an agricultural college to learn farming to be able to effectively run the Duchy of Cornwall, but William drifted from that back into a more pleasure loving life.
William's lack of apparently even trying has ended up causing views among members of the general public to be expressed that he should probably renounce his role in the royal family, leaving the place as Prince of Wales and future King of Britain (and Commonwealth) to his younger brother Prince Harry, who is becoming increasingly admired. Ironically, this proposal has struck terror into the hearts of courtiers and a change to the direct succession would likely traumatize the Queen. If William were to renounce his place, he would likely end up renouncing his relations with his family. Charles has been trying to get his wayward son into line, but with an independent bank account and means to support himself, William isn't going to be able to be intimidated into doing what he isn't interested in doing. There is a feeling to tension that the Queen will continue to be burdened with numerous appearances and presiding over banquets and receptions, but it has been causing more fragile health. Ironically the longer she holds on, the more quickly she will become worn down. Charles is trained, but he isn't going to be able to handle the Prince's Trust and the demands that will be made on him, along with the expectations he will need to meet.
This level of alienation from the public has been unprecedented and something William hasn't been able to handle. He is used to having effortless popularity and admiration and it's beginning to make the prince worried that his unchallenged popularity and easy road to the role of King has ended and he's going to have to actually work twice as hard, first to regain his popularity, second to catch up to what he (and the courtiers fully agree) should have been able to learn a long time ago. It's been obvious that William has grossly neglected his training in favor of trying to live 'normally,' but it's obvious that 'normal' for William is the life of country squire when at a country estate and the life of a party loving prince when he is in the city. Despite the hopes of his mother, William has in fact oddly become more attached to the aristocracy, with his idea of 'normal' at only the single level below the more regal lifestyle he was born into. His idea of normal, through his actions, has become obvious in that he views the aristocratic standard of living (a life of privilege and no high level duties and restrictions) as 'normal' and he's reached a point where he looks like he's given up on even pretending to be interested in the public and public duties and participating in serious events.
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