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January 3, 2026 9 mins
Palace Intrigue is your daily royal family podcast, diving deep into the modern-day drama, power struggles, and scandals shaping the future of the monarchy.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Calorogus Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Palace Intrigue. I
am your host, Mark Francis. The new year brings even
more power for Prince William and Kate Middleton. They are
due to become grants of royal warrants in the spring.
The move follows approval earlier this year from King Charles

(00:25):
and marks a significant expansion of William and Kate's formal
roles as the future King and Queen. As grant as
they will have the power to award Royal warrants to
companies or individuals that have supplied goods or services to
the Royal household on a regular basis for at least
five of the past seven years. A Royal warrant is
widely seen as one of the most prestigious endorsements in Britain,

(00:49):
allowing approved businesses to display the Royal arms on products, packaging,
advertising and premises for a five year period. Since ascending
the throne in twenty twenty two, King Charles and Queen
Camilla have granted hundreds of warrants, including two long established
brands such as Schweps. Royal watchers believe Kate's involvement in
particular could reshape the relevance of the warrant for a

(01:11):
new audience. Elizabeth Holmes, author of HRH So Many Thoughts
on Royal Style, told Town and Country there is a
large swath of Royal watchers who came to follow the
Royal family through her and importantly shop the brands she wears.
I think the Princess now being able to grant royal
warrants will introduce this honor in a new way to

(01:31):
a new generation of Royal watches. Royal journalist Richard Palmer
echoed that view, describing the Royal warrant as the gold
standard of endorsements and adding Kate's warrant will be especially
sought after the Royal family spent much of twenty twenty
five trying to position William and Kate as a regular
old family. A typical photoop which show the future king

(01:54):
sharing a pint with the lads, but hopefully he's picking
up the bill. Prince William's role as Prince of Wales
comes with substantial financial resources drawn from the Duchy of Cornwall.
According to the Duchy of Cornwall's Integrated Annual Report for
twenty twenty five, the estate recorded a distributable surplus of
about thirty point nine million dollars for the twenty twenty

(02:15):
four to twenty twenty five financial year. This marked Prince
William's second full year receiving income from the Duchy after
inheriting it when his father, King Charles acceded to the
throne in twenty twenty two. The surplus covers the official,
charitable and private expenses of Prince William, Kate Middleton and
their three children. As a working member of the royal family,

(02:36):
the Prince of Wales does not receive a conventional salary. Instead,
his income is derived from the Duchy of Cornwall and
a state established in thirteen thirty seven by Edward the
Third to provide financial support for their heir to the throne.
The estate spans around one hundred thirty thousand acres across
twenty three counties in England and Wales, and includes farmland,

(02:58):
residential properties and commit mrcial assets. Its total value is
estimated at more than one billion dollars. Prince William became
Duke of Cornwall and head of the estate following the
death of Queen Elizabeth and his father's accession. He has
understood to pay income tax on the income he receives
from the Duchy after household expenses, though some of those

(03:19):
expenses are not publicly itemized. Since taking on the role,
Prince William has been actively involved in overseeing the estate.
He has made multiple visits, including a trip in May
twenty twenty four to New Quy where he toured an
innovative Duchy housing project focused on tackling homelessness. The first
full year report following his succession also detailed changes to

(03:42):
his patronages. A committed football supporter, Prince William became Patron
of the Football Association, a role previously held by Queen Elizabeth,
after serving as the ffa's president since two thousand and six.
He also took on new patronages with the Welsh Guard's
Charity and the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Association, became President of
the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association, and transition from

(04:03):
President to Patron of Fields in Trust. In the Express
Chris Britches' Rights of the Royals Secret Weapon to erase Andrew,
Fergie and Harry that weapon the Children, which was rights
all three young Whaleses appear adorable, cheeky, intelligent and showered
with love from their parents. But above all, the treacing
both very human and humane in how they show their

(04:25):
individual characters, all the while under the judging glare of
the public and press. True, they must be given space
to live their lives as children, attend their schools, universities,
and early careers with privacy. And yes, we should not
assume or impose that all three will aspire to roles
as working royals. But they could also be the biblical

(04:45):
cleansing wave that in time can wash clean the lingering
stain of Andrew and Fergi and Erode, the millstone of
Jeffrey Epstein's memory that still weighs heavily on the royal
family's neck. Royal inside a deep crown suggests caution telling
palace intrigue. The Dallas has spent decades learning, sometimes painfully,
that treating royals's commodities rather than people inevitably ends in disaster.

(05:08):
One needn't look further than their uncle in Montecito to
see what happens when the institution mistakes visibility for duty,
celebrity for service more palace in just a moment, Royal correspondence,
much like the formality expected at the dining table, follows
long established conventions. A recent letter from the Princess of

(05:29):
Wales supporting Addiction Awareness Week provided an unusually close look
at those traditions, revealing her signature as Catherine alongside a
gold stamped personal cipher at the top of her Kensington
Palace stationary. Those details have prompted renewed interest in the
elaborate system behind royal signatures and monograms. At the heart
of it is the royal cipher, effectively a monarch's personal emblem.

(05:53):
It is typically formed from the sovereign's initial and the
letter are for Rex or Regina, and is topped with
a crown and Elizabeth. The seconds familiar er or E.
The second R has of course now given way to
King Charles the third's design and intertwined C and R
with the number three spelled out beneath the Tudor crown.
The tradition dates back to the Tudors. Henry the eighth

(06:16):
was the first to attach the R to his initial,
making his royal authority visually explicit. Upon his accession, King
Charles was presented with multiple proposed designs by the College
of Arms and personally chose the version now appearing on
government buildings, official papers and gradually across the country's post boxes.
The first post box bearing his cipher was installed in

(06:37):
Great Camborne in twenty twenty four, painted in commemorative gold.
By comparison, the limited number of surviving boxes from the
reign of King Edward the Eighth, just one hundred and
sixty eight remain among the rarest in Britain. Despite this
appetite four royal symbols, members of the family almost never
sign autographs. The long standing rule exists to guard against forgery,

(06:58):
which could jeopardize documents requiring their genuine signature. The Princess
of Wales herself explained the restriction to school children during
the twenty twenty two Chelsea Flower Show, saying my name's Katherine.
I'm not allowed to write. My signature is just one
of those rules. When signatures are required, they follow strict patterns.
Queen Elizabeth the Second maintained two Elizabeth r for state matters,

(07:20):
the R identifying her position as sovereign, and the more
intimate little bit reserved for personal correspondence. Royal women who
marry into the family generally signed with a single given name. Diana,
Princess of Wales, wrote Diana Spencer when signing the wedding register,
but subsequently used only Diana, a practice followed by Sarah,
Duchess of York, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, and Queen Camilla.

(07:42):
The Princess of Wales science as Katherine with a distinctive
capital C alongside the monarch's formal cipher. Other members of
the family make use of personal monograms for private letters
or gifts. These vary in design and color. Queen Camilla's
monogram incorporates her initial and the R for Regina, Prince William,
Harry and Cathy, and have each used their own preferred
colors on personal stationery. The Princess of Wales's single crowned

(08:06):
C denotes her individual identity, separate from any joint sci
fi she may share with the Prince of Wales. The
observers noted, however, that the Prince of Wales still uses
the coronet associated with the child of the Prince of Wales,
rather than a symbol updated to reflect his current position
in the line of succession. A London tour guide has
said that American visitors are most curious about two members

(08:28):
of the royal family, and neither is the Prince or
Princess of Wales. Will Hide, a travel writer for The
Daily Telegrapher, qualified Blue Badge tourist guide in London, says
conversations with American tourists frequently turned to the Royals, with
particular interests focused on Prince Harry and Meghan Markel. Speaking
to The Mirror, Hyde said the royal family inevitably dominates

(08:50):
conversation with US visitors, overwhelmingly Harry and Meghan, though few
of my guests seem to be fans of the latter.
He added that he has yet to receive questions about
Prince Andrew, suggesting the subject may still be too sensitive.
And there you have it. Like to email us of
addresses The Palasintrigue at gmail dot com. Please follow us
on Spotify, Apple, Facebook, Instagram. Were all over the place.

(09:10):
Come say hi, I'm Mark Francis my thanks to John McDermott.
This is Palace Intrigue and good times
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