Two years after announcing her goodbye, the boards they chair pass into the hands of other officials: Kate Middleton will chair the rugby board and Camila de Cornwall will chair the theater board.
When, in January 2020, Harry of England and Meghan Markle decided to end their life as members of the Windsors, they left behind not only a family, but also a secure and stable job for life. Some official commitments that, being at the service of the queen, provided them with titles, substantial income and a great public image.
Two years after that withdrawal, and when it seems clear that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not going to back down on that decision - at least in the short term - Queen Elizabeth II has begun to take action on the matter and reorganize her household. And that entails taking the final step of stripping her grandson and his wife of the last honors they had left: the leadership of her board of trustees.
As the British royal family website explains, its members “are linked to hundreds of charitable associations, military associations, professional bodies and public service organizations, some well-known and others smaller and specialized or located locally.” When a Windsor is a patron of an association, the benefit is twofold: for that person it is the opportunity to be linked to a cause, to take actions in its favor and to appear at public events in a certain area, while the organization receives great visibility . Only Isabel II is at the head of 600 boards of trustees, despite having been renouncing some of them due to her age.
That same page from the royal family shows that Henry of England is at the head of 16 patronages, while Markle would have three (of the four that the queen assigned to her three years ago). But these data are outdated, because just yesterday it became known that Enrique has already begun to lose titles. This Tuesday, February 2, it was announced that the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, wife of William, Harry's older brother, will be the new patron of the British Rugby League, the body established in 1895 that manages the sport's competitions. in the United Kingdom at a professional level, both male and female and in a wheelchair. She did not take long to get to work: on her first day in charge, she attended a training session at Twickenham stadium, south of London.
Middleton thus remains with one of the patronages most appreciated by her brother-in-law, who had been vice-patron of the same since 2010 and had had it in his portfolio since 2016. The youngest son of Carlos from England frequently supported the English soccer team . In fact, in 2007, when England lost the World Cup in Paris to South Africa, Enrique could be seen drinking until dawn with the team's players, and the tabloids published images of Enrique's more than 24-hour party. with athletes.
Now it will be the Duchess of Cambridge who, in a very different way, presides over that board. She is one of the royal family's most supportive members of sport, and she already chairs tennis, croquet and sailing associations in her country. Rugby has been something familiar to her since she was little, and this is what her sister Pippa said about her in an article in Vanity Fair eight years ago: “Rugby was something big in the family, we planned our weekends around the important matches. . We would eat something quick on a tray, a chicken stew or something like that, warm and very English. If we lost, my father would be in a bad mood all afternoon, as if he had lost himself.”
The reasons for the decision to provide Middleton with that patronage are now unknown but, on the one hand, two years have already passed since Meghan and Enrique decided to leave the royal family, enough time to put distance between them, even more so with all the controversy that has surrounded them during these 24 months and with the open criticism they have made of the institution, which has only further disconnected them from it.
On the other hand, there was a practical issue, and that is that the 2022 Six Nations Rugby Tournament is about to begin, and the organization already needs a visible head. In fact, the British press suggests that it would be logical to see Kate and Guillermo from England in a match at the end of the month, because he is the patron of the Welsh Rugby Union and on February 26, Wales and England will also face each other in Twickenham.
