We can expect to hear much more of this in the year ahead – as well as seeing the Royals exercising their soft power
I was sitting in London’s Guildhall, rather pleased with myself to have been invited to a major royal occasion as a guest rather than merely a journalist, when our late Queen stood up and declared that her year had been an “Annus Horribilis”. It was 24 November, 1992 – and her words signalled an abrupt end to my lunch.
The year had lurched through two marriage breakdowns, a divorce, lurid photos of a topless Duchess, embarrassing leaked phone calls – and a huge fire at Windsor Castle. The Queen was distraught.
After all that has happened in 2025, who could have blamed King Charles if he’d kicked off his Christmas message by announcing that it had been an “Annus Horrendus”? The cause of that horror can be put down to one man: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
For all the good work that the King and his small band of working royals have undertaken in the past year, 2025 will be remembered for the sordid story of a long-standing friendship between a convicted paedophile and the now disgraced ex-Duke and his wife. It should also be remembered for the sad suicide of Jeffrey Epstein’s most outspoken victim, Virginia Giuffre who, in her family’s words, was “an ordinary American girl who brought down a British Prince”.
The relentless release of emails proved both Andrew and Sarah to be liars: they had continued their friendship with Epstein long after they had insisted it was over. It has taken the draconian measure of stripping Andrew of every title, every honour and his home to try to stem the flow of damaging headlines. And yet even the respected broadcaster, David Dimbleby – once the voice of every state occasion – has presented a hard-hitting BBC series called What’s the Monarchy For?
Answering that question is the task ahead for King Charles and his family. And the fight-back has begun. Next month a 90-minute documentary on the King’s lifelong effort to bring nature and humanity into harmony will be released. It is a philosophy he has promoted for more than 50 years. Its central tenet is simple: we are a part of nature, not apart from it.
When I first met Charles, decades ago, he was banging on about the importance of working with nature, the dangers of genetic modification and the impending disaster of climate change. And it wasn’t a case of all talk and no trousers. Way back then he was embracing organic farming on his own land, and he took such obvious pleasure from small things such as his Thyme Walk at Highgrove which exuded a wonderful scent as we wandered along it.
Charles lives and breathes harmony with nature. He was publicly mocked for talking to his plants, maybe he even hugged the odd tree or two. Today that’s viewed as endearing rather than nutty. His mission to save the planet is decidedly on trend, and it might also go some way to saving the monarchy.
In that mission, he has the solid support of his son William, whose Earthshot Prize is now firmly established. But the other vital weapon in the monarchy’s armoury is the Princess of Wales.
Even with her reduced work schedule following her cancer treatment, Catherine is now the most popular member of the royal family, according to a recent YouGov poll. Her obvious empathy, her easy manner and her advocacy for children’s early development have all spawned positive feedback for the monarchy. And she is speaking out on some of the most difficult issues of our age, such as the invasive presence of the online world.
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We can expect to hear much more of this in the year ahead – as well as seeing the Royals exercising their soft power, quite possibly with visits to the US. And that is as valuable as anything else they can do: with Putin and Trump in power, and the world edging ever closer to war, the priority must be to ensure there is still a planet to save.
And that’s why the King’s words at Christmas, urging us to learn lessons from the past as we journey forward, are so important. He will certainly be praying that the horrors of a year dominated by his brother’s disgrace can now be put in the past.
That may be a forlorn hope, but the starting gun has been sounded. The royals are on the march again.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source inews.co.uk ’
