Catching up with the royals (March 24, 2025 edition)
A Trumpified Commonwealth? A feud with Gwyneth? Harry making money off his mother?
Note: There will be a break on worthwhile Canadian royal content for the next few weeks as, by custom, the royal family, and the vice regals in Canada, go out of their way to avoid anything that could be seen as political during the federal election.
A TRUMPIFIED COMMONWEALTH?
This is a bizarre story that started when Richard Eden of the Daily Mail reported that the King, as head of the Commonwealth, could offer to make the US an "associate member" of the Commonwealth. Then things got really weird when Trump quoted a version of the same story on Truth Social with the phrase: “I Love King Charles. Sounds good to me!”
Why is this unbelievable?
Unless I'm missing something, the King is a figurehead leader who does not have the power to have a country join the Commonwealth, even as an "associate member." There's a detailed process, which is set out on the "Joining the Commonwealth" page on its website.
It would spark an uproar, especially given Trump's desire to annex / invade Canada, and could tear apart the Commonwealth. Already, experts are vehemently opposed to such an offer.
The Commonwealth is a group of 56 nations, most of them former parts of the British Empire, which is devoted to promoting the common good and other very un-Trump like values. This would be an odd fit.
While President Trump may "love" the King, it's downright bizarre to think that the U.S. would celebrate its 250th anniversary of a revolution against a monarch by joining an organization headed by the descendent of George III.
My theory: I wonder the idea got muddled as it moved from person to person, like the Telephone game I remember playing around campfires, where one person whispers a sentence to another, and by the time it goes around everyone at the campfire, the original meaning is completely garbled.
Perhaps it started with the Royal Commonwealth Society, of which the King is patron, wondering about giving Trump an honour and that idea morphed into the U.S. joining the Commonwealth.
Or not.
A ROYAL SING-A-LONG
During the King and Queen’s three-day visit to Northern Ireland, the King revealed his approach to living with cancer while talking with a group of fellow cancer patients: “What’s that Winston Churchill saying? Keep buggering on. You just have to push on, don’t you?”
Oh, and the King and Queen know the words to the classic sea shanty "What shall we do with the drunken sailor"
MEETING THE POPE?
The dates were released for the upcoming state visit to Italy and the Vatican: April 7 to 10. While information is still being released, there are two items of note:
The King and Queen are still expected to meet Pope Francis, who just got out of hospital
They will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary on April 9. They were supposed to marry on April 8, 2005, but it was delayed a day so Charles could attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
A BALTIC DROP-IN
Prince William went to Estonia for a two-day trip. He’s colonel of the Mercian Regiment, which is now based on the NATO border with Russia. It was a trip full of official events, selfies, driving tanks, and showing a decided lack of talent on a basketball court during a stop at a school that has a lot of Ukrainian students.
He even played Rock, Paper, Scissors.
THE SLOW RETURN OF A PRINCESS
Saturday, March 22 was the first anniversary of Kate’s cancer video. So much has changed since then, including six months of gruelling chemotherapy, a long recovery, and confirmation that she’s in remission. Significantly, as I wrote on the anniversary, Kate has already done more engagements in the first quarter of 2025 — 14 engagements, as of March 21 — than she did in all of 2024, when she completed 13 engagements.
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