Prince William, often labeled as ‘work-shy’ compared to senior Royal Family members, made an unexpected move this week, challenging that perception.
While his enthusiastic celebration in Istanbul, where he cheered on Aston Villa’s Europa League victory—their first major win in three decades—captured headlines, it was another announcement that truly stood out.
Prince William revealed plans to sell 20% of the Duchy of Cornwall, a £1 billion estate he inherited when his father ascended to the throne in 2022.
This strategic sell-off, unfolding over the next decade, aims to channel £500 million into addressing urgent environmental and housing challenges.
According to Will Bax, the Duchy’s chief executive, the future king intends to concentrate his efforts on five key areas—Dartmoor, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly, the Bath area, and Kennington in south London. These regions were chosen for their potential to yield significant environmental and social benefits.
Prince William celebrates last night in Istanbul as Aston Villa, the football team he so passionately supports, won the Europa League
Bax highlighted that Prince William envisions the duchy as more than just a landholder, emphasizing its potential to positively impact the world foremost.
William’s move ties in with his decision to focus on two areas where he feels he can make a difference to the world: the environment and the scourge of homelessness.
When King Charles was the Prince of Wales, he was criticised for making endless ‘doom and gloom’ speeches about the environment which could leave people with the feeling of helplessness. Who can forget how Charles warned in March 2009 that humanity had ‘less than 100 months’ to save the planet from catastrophic climate change? Two hundred and four months later, the catastrophe does not seem to have happened – and people have become wary of such alarmism.
William realised this and, wisely, has instead concentrated his efforts on trying to encourage practical efforts to improve the environment. In 2021, he launched The Earthshot Prize, a global scheme that awards five winners each year for their contributions towards improving the planet. Each winner receives a grant of £1million to continue their environmental work.
His work to end homelessness is similarly based on practical action not pontificating. In 2023, he created Homewards, a project ‘to demonstrate that it is possible to make homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated’. Designed to be transformative, the five-year programme was based in six flagship locations around the UK, with up to £500,000 of funding provided by his and his wife’s charity, the Royal Foundation, for each location.
William has wisely concentrated his efforts on trying to encourage practical efforts to improve the environment. Pictured during a visit to Dartmoor National Park in June last year
Prince Harry and Meghan quit official duties to seek a fortune across the Atlantic before attacking the Royal Family at every opportunity. Pictured together in New York in 2023
No one will have read William’s announcement this week more closely than the Duke of Sussex, who was always envious of his brother’s position of heir to the Duchy of Cornwall and future king.
Prince Harry and Meghan quit official duties to seek a fortune across the Atlantic before attacking the Royal Family at every opportunity. Despite this, King Charles has declined to take any action against his son and daughter-in-law.
He has allowed Harry to retain his position, fifth in the line of succession. He has also permitted the pair to keep their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles, even though they regularly use them in their commercial activities, in apparent defiance of the agreement made with the late Queen Elizabeth at the ‘Sandringham summit’ in 2020.
Even more generously, the King has allowed Harry to remain a Counsellor of State, meaning that he could, in theory at least, stand in for the monarch if Charles was unable to carry out his duties because of illness.
‘William will take a much harder line with Harry and Meghan when he’s king,’ predicts one of his friends, who declines to spell out exactly what that will mean for the California-based couple.
What we can deduce from this week’s radical announcement about the Duchy of Cornwall – as well as his intense display of emotion at the Aston Villa game in Istanbul – is that William will be different. And that whatever action he takes against the Sussexes, it will be dramatic.
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