The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been hailed as one of the hardest working royals in Windsor.
Prince William and Kate Middleton have stepped up during a difficult time for the Royals. The couple is reportedly “working overtime” at the moment for the Royal Family.
According to Canadian researcher Patricia Treble, William is the only Royal to complete more duties than he did in 2019. Prince William managed 229 engagements this year. Kate undertook 114 engagements, which is only one less than she managed last year.
A combination of Covid, an increasingly elderly generation of royals, and the loss of senior members of the Firm have meant the Windsor’s have undertaken less than 60% of the engagements they were honoring two years ago.
In January last year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced they were stepping back from royal duties.
The Queen, managed 182 engagements in 2021, according to The Mirror. This is up from the 127 she managed last year. However, it’s still a significant way off the 291 engagements she undertook in 2019. Lockdown, the death of Prince Philip, and the Queen’s ill-health during October and November undeniably had an impact on this number.
Then Prince Andrew retired from public life after his disastrous Newsnight interview about his friendship with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Prince Charles completed 371 engagements in 2021. Despite this impressive figure, he was still down by a third from his total number in 2019.
Princess Anne was the royal who undertook the most engagements in 2021. The 71-year-old was also the royal who worked the most days in 2021 too. Princess Royal beat her older brother by 10 engagements this year, yet even her numbers were down by 33% from 2019.
In the past few years, Prince Charles has tended to do the largest number of engagements but Princess Anne has worked the most number of days. In total, the Royal Family fulfilled 2,065 duties in 2021, a 35% rise in 2020 but just 59.5% of the 2019 tally.
Ms. Treble said the drop in royal engagements was due to the difficulty of arranging visits during the pandemic. She also said that the trends revealed by the Covid pandemic are “likely to continue” in the future.
Treble claimed: “Their overall level of engagements hasn’t changed much but that’s actually news, as the other senior royals have experienced large drops in their tallies during the pandemic. If there is a theme, it would be that the Windsors are truly “running out of royals” to sustain their pre-pandemic workload.”
She continued: “Obviously the upheaval generated by the pandemic during the last two years has meant that direct year-to-year comparisons between 2021 and pre-pandemic years can’t be made.”
“However, one could infer that trends revealed by the pandemic and royal exits are likely to continue, especially as the older working royals – the Queen, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent, and Princess Alexandra – undertake fewer and fewer engagements,” she added.
Treble suggested it was a pointer to the future of a slimmed-down monarchy, with sources seeing no sign of younger royals such as Andrew’s daughters or Edward’s children being brought in to help strengthen the ranks.
There has been speculation that Prince Charles, has been considering restructuring the monarchy when he takes the throne.