If we were going to play Who's Your Favourite Royal...

Hi Annie

I agree with your posts. I think William needs to decide whether he wants to be royal or not. If not then that's fine, he should give up his right to be King and continue to support himself in semi-retirement in Norfolk. Otherwise I think he needs to learn from his grandmother and his father and start to take on far more royal duties. Can he really not create a role for himself by now?

I do think Harry's situation is a bit more difficult - it can't be easy being born 'the spare' but I think it's time he had a job now.

Don't want to hijack the thread so I will say that my favourite royals are the Queen, Charles and Camilla, Anne and her family. I feel sorry for Beatrice and Eugenie who I think were very unfortunate in their parents and despite that seem to be quite grounded young women.

Hi Getinonabit, I don't care if they want the life style they have chosen because they are wealthy, just get out of KP and pay for their own security .

Sophie Wessex carries out a lot of royal duties but doesn't get the publicity

I'm not prepared to argue about the Princes, but I think you'll find that Prince Harry spends more than five days a year on invictus!! If the people he works with and for are to believed he is very much admired, very well liked and without his dedication to these wounded and devastated servicemen and women, invictus wouldn't exist, bit like the Princes trust, remember how people sneered at that?! Now it is recognised what a fantastic job Prince Charles does, and so now we all admire it!!
I don't think Prince William has a choice about being royal or not! As for royal duties? Do too many and he's just slopping about at tax payers expense, don't do enough and he's lazy and disinterested. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't! I agree, I wouldn't want their lives for a kings ransom.

I haven't got time for any of them. On the other hand, Harry is a bit of a hunk, and if I were a young 'Sloane', I would enjoy breaking his heart

What a miserable attitude, what's he done to you?! In any case he'd have to fancy you first! might be a problem?!!

Niggly, you say you are not prepared to argue then set out your argument

My favourite member of the royal family is DH. I've been researching his family tree and many moons ago the lines cross so technically he's related to the queen. I'll have him over the other lot any day

Not a particular fan but I do admire the Queen's stamina and her determination to keep "working" at her cermonial duties.

To see her on the boat on the Thames at that last jubilee ceremony on a cold day and in the pouring rain does show she has a loyalty to the job. Maybe instilled in her by her father.
She has had to come a long way to move on to a less traditional "keep the family proper" stance.

With regard to her childrens marriages she allowed Charles to marry Camilla a divorcee but think what happened to her sister who could not marry who she chose.

Its got to be Charles and Camilla

vampirequeen, your post made me smile, this revelation must have been, well, revealing!!!!
I think HRH saw first hand the misery her sister suffered over the Peter Townsend affair, and was determined that her children wouldn't be similarly affected. A wise woman indeed.

I can't help noticing that people who are ardent Royalists seem to have no sense of humour when someone not so keen has a wee dig at their 'darlings'.
I have no particular feelings either way - they are people just like the rest of us, with many of the same problems, except that they have the advantage of considerable means, and lots of staff to smooth their way through any pitfalls.
I feel that if they had a really hard and difficult life, no amount of devotion to duty would have prevented serial abdications, and no one would have wanted the 'top job'.
Let's be honest, they have it pretty cushy, and the 'hard work' they are so much praised for is done by others, with the Royal personage obligingly shaking a few hands and noshing a few canapés when the occasion demands. They aren't kept awake at night by worrying about power bills, mortgages and rising food costs. They can take it for granted that they will be provided with the best of everything.

I suppose I am letting a certain amount of envy creep in here. I wouldn't mind trying the job for a while, that's for sure. However, I feel that the vast extravagance of their expenditure is uneccessary and should be more closely monitored in these times of austerity.

Nonetheless, it has to be said that they provide the spectacle and pageantry which most of us enjoy, so I am not a republican just yet.
My favourite Royal? Dear little George, who is as yet too young to have been corrupted by the powerful people who surround him.

My favourite Royals are the Queen and Prince William, and whoever spoke about the "Scandinavian small Royal Families" should come to Sweden, the Royal family here is multiplying by the minute, it is certainly NOT small, recently two of the Princeses had babies, there is a King and Queen they have three children who are married, and altogether there are five Grandchildren. Norway is not far behind and Denmark have their fair share of babies in their family, so where the idea of small Rolyal Families in Scandinavia came from I dont know.

Your royal family are very good looking Diddy1. Ours can look a bit, well, Hanoverian! But we don't admire our favourites any the less for that!!

Diddy - it was me! I really meant that fewer members of the Scandi royal families are publicly funded, not that the actual families are composed of fewer people. They also seem to lead less royal lives than our lot, less kowtowing and so forth. Am I wrong?

Diddy1, does your kings cousins live in properties owned by and paid for by the state ? Our queen has four cousins , three married, who live in properties owned by us. We pay for security for at least fourteen properties lived in by the windsors too

I once spent a few weeks experiencing what it is like to be in the spotlight of the press and I can tell you that not all the wealth or power in the world would be enough to entice me to live a life like that.

Granny activist, you haven't spent time living their privalaged life

Charles and Anne

I would not want their so called privileged life for all the tea in China. Personally I would hate all those massive banquets and trivial conversations. Not to mention standing around listening to speeches.
For some reason I do not take to Beatrice, with her 'look at me I'm royal' outfits. IHas anyone met her, and can they tell me that she is really lovely /hardworking etc?

George and Charlotte.

No one has chosen Princess Michael of Kent !

Is she not known as Princess Pushy ?

The Duchess of Kent, Yorkshire's own dear Katherine Worsley.

I think I listed her Greyduster, she is the best of the lot

Yes BBevan