Part of the pact has been said to include the understanding that nothing is done commercially that impinges upon the greater royal image, and rightly so.
As a person who is departing in order to avoid unwanted, often agenda-driven media attention, I wonder whether he will feel particularly inclined to sink down into after-dinner speeches and similar tawdry directions; those are perfectly okay for politicians, of course, who are seldom troubled by the desire to choose privacy over profit. I am perfectly willing to believe it as it's told: enough is sometimes enough, especially when the day job was never of your own choosing.
There will be no end of politically driven sniping, especially from those opposed to monarchy on principle. I think they, the royals, do a grand job of presenting the finer characteristics, the outward identity of the nation, especially when the alternative fillers of the slot would be politicians or actors or similar ephemera. Apart from their value to state and tourism, they offer a line of leading and representational continuity that not many nations can claim. Who would America offer in such a rôle? The Clintons? The Trumps? Yeah, right, maybe Madonna. Flashes in the pan of Time and essentially forgotten in their own time, more likely than not. Royalty is something special, and we destroy it at our peril. Royalty, as ours, does not scurry. Royalty in other countries tries hard, but in many cases does not try at all, because their ethos is entirely something else.
As I have mentioned before, it's one of the last jobs in this world that I would want to be obliged to do; i enjoy personal freedom and have long understood that wealth and position alone do not bring fulfilment nor, necessarily, happiness. Wealth usually comes wedded to the fear of loss. Avoiding that consumes a life; as the graffito says: don't waste your life earning it.
