Queen and Princess of Wales may be first non-blood royals to give out honours

Buckingham Palace is considering plans to allow the Queen and the Princess of Wales to be the first non-bloodline’ royals to hand out honours.

It is seen as one solution to help spread the load on a slimmed-down monarchy as it copes with ill health and old age.

Royal aides discussed the possibility of the Queen and Princess of Wales standing in for the late Queen Elizabeth after the palace struggled to cope with the volume of investitures after the Covid pandemic.

Although these “‘preliminary” proposals were not invoked in the end, there is now understood to be growing support for them to be revived in view of the King’s cancer diagnosis and the shrinking number of senior working royals.

At the moment honours are only handed out by bloodline royals, which limits the duty to the King, the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne.

This is down to convention, but some in royal circles are now reportedly questioning whether the monarchy would benefit from an injection of fresh blood into this and other aspects of royal duties.

Hard-working and dutiful spouse

A source told the Daily Mail: “Queen Camilla has proved herself to be a really hard-working and dutiful spouse to the King, and who wouldn’t want to be handed a gong by the Princess of Wales? There is a feeling that they have both earned it and it might prove a very popular change.”

Each year about 30 investitures are held at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, as well as in Scotland and Northern Ireland, with more than 2,600 people receiving honours for personal achievement or bravery from a member of the Royal Family.

One source said: “There were preliminary discussions in the Jubilee year about increasing the number of senior royals who undertook investitures. That’s when they first looked at adding Camilla and Catherine. For parity, all members of the Royal Family should do them.”

The move would chime with the King’s desire for a leaner, more cost-effective monarchy, which is already being rapidly fulfilled as it is.

The monarchy has been forced to cope with the loss of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, along with Prince Harry because of his decision to step back from royal duties and move to the US.

With the stripping of the use of public HRH status from the Duke of York, that has left just six main working royals – the King and Queen, Prince and Princess of Wales, the Princess Royal and the new Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Prince Edward and Sophie.

Fears for monarchy’s ability to cope

Now the King’s diagnosis with cancer, which has forced him to step back from forward-facing public duties, along with the Princess of Wales’s lengthy recovery from abdominal surgery last month, has renewed fears over the institution’s ability to cope with the demand on it.

It did not help when Prince William announced that for personal reasons he was pulling out of a thanksgiving service for his late godfather, King Constantine, on Tuesday with less than an hour to go.

Sources close to the Royal family insist recent events should be regarded as “more of a bad week at the office than the decline of the House of Windsor”.

One said: “Granted some of the optics, especially on Tuesday, haven’t been great. There’s probably a salutary lesson in allowing others to fill the silence for you.

“In the current climate Buckingham Palace has shown it is best to let people know what’s going on.”

The source added: “The important thing is how the institution organises itself moving forwards, and to do that with clarity.”

There remains some scepticism among some in royal circles, however, about spreading the key royal duties among the rest of the family.

One source told the Daily Mail: “In my opinion they should be performed by members of the Royal family in direct line of succession.”