A Royal Resignation Page 3

  Chapter 3

  Back at Clarence House, the Prince of Wales was expecting the arrival of the Duchess of Cambridge, William’s wife. She had been at a hair salon in Mayfair at the time William was delivering the three little sentences that were now setting Britain and the world alight with a mixture of confusion and awe.

  That’s what Charles was now calling it - The Three Little Sentences.

  “Three little bloody sentences and the damn fool’s gone and buggered everything up. Mummy was happy – had her Jubilee – bloody awful weather. Olympics went off swimmingly. That berk of a bloody mayor of London managed to get himself all popular – he’ll probably be the bloody President now. More chance of him being President than me being the bloody King. Three little bloody sentences! I never heard him complaining when we went bloody skiing in Cloisters every bloody winter. Now he’s got to start doing a bit of work for the family business and some nasty little men point some cameras in his face, he’s had enough and he wants to bring the whole damn house down with him.”

  There were three people in the library listening to Charles’s rant: his wife, Camilla; his private secretary; and the man from the intelligence services who had given him the sedative which he had injected into his son’s right royal buttock. Nobody said anything. There was nothing to say. They all knew the Prince of Wales well enough to know when he just wanted to rant and wasn’t canvassing for anybody else’s opinions.

  “Kate will talk him round. I’m sure of it,” Camilla said.

  “I bloody well hope so, or we’re right in it. Bugger bugger bugger!”

  “Calm down, Charles. You’ll have a heart attack at this rate.”

  “I might as well have a bloody heart attack. That would solve the problem wouldn’t it. William could have the bloody crown straight away and he could abdicate to his heart’s content. Throw the bloody crown in the Thames!! Half the bloody country don’t want me to be King anyway. Bloody peasants don’t want to wave their stupid little plastic flags at an old fogey like me. No! They want some young blood. It’s like one of those god awful reality show things. We’d be voted off right away, Camilla, you could be sure of that.”

  Charles’s latest rant was cut off by a phone call informing them that the Duchess of Cambridge had arrived and was on her way to the library. All the royal household staff at St. James’s Palace had been ordered to go to their staff quarters shortly after news of William’s bombshell had been received by Charles and his closest advisers. Only security staff remained, mostly around the perimeters and at every entrance. For this reason, Kate showed herself to the library where a dark suited man she had not seen before was waiting by the open door.

  “Your Grace. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is waiting for you.”

  Kate nodded gently at the dark suited man. She had been involved with the Royal Family for more than ten years now and in that time she had seen many similar looking men lurking in corners of corridors, and generally present on the periphery of events. They all had the look of hardened ex-military types who certainly gave the young woman a feeling of security wherever she had been in those years. This particular individual looked particularly tough. He was perhaps around fifty years old, but there was not an ounce of fat around his neck and face. His hair was fair with a touch of grey, short and side-parted. There was a thick scar above his left eye which was instantly noticeable and gave the man a slightly fearful appearance. It had crossed her mind many times that she spent so much time in the presence of men who she felt quite sure were capable of killing a man swiftly and effortlessly with their bare hands. These men stood out in stark contrast to so many of William and Harry’s old school chums.

  Camilla was sitting in a crimson upholstered, gilded occasional chair. The others were standing.

  “Where is William?” the Duchess enquired.

  “He’s resting in the Palace at the moment.”

  “Resting?” Kate was astonished. It was only half past one.

  “Actually, we had to give him a sedative. He was very excitable and obviously under a great amount of stress. There was no telling what he might have done.”

  “Is he OK?” Kate was trying to retain her composure, but having seen the toughest looking man she had ever seen at the door, it was difficult for her thoughts not to run wild with the possibilities of the situation. She knew that her face must have been betraying the confusion and fear that she was feeling.

  “He’s fine. He’s just sleeping. Please have a seat, Kate.”

  Kate sat down in another occasional chair opposite Camilla.

  The Prince of Wales continued,

  “There really was no telling what he might have done. In the mood he was in, he may have gone running off to some TV studio or other and started saying God knows what.”

  “I understand.”

  Kate wanted above all to reassure the Prince that she truly understood the nature of the family business.

  “We hoped that you would.” The Prince now took a seat and put on the most compassionate, sincere face he could manage.

  “We really need you to help us to make William realise that he can’t possibly allow the chain of events which he has set in motion continue any further. I’m sure you don’t need to be told what it would mean for you and your lives together if William was to remove himself from the line of succession.”

  The Duchess nodded. Of course she was aware. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what she was signing up for. She signed up to be the Queen. She didn’t marry William in order to go and live in virtual exile in an expensive flat in Paris or New York.

  “Of course, Charles. I will help you in any way I possibly can. Poor William, I had no idea he was so stressed.”

  Prince Charles nodded to the agent at the door, and the dark-suited man left the room.

  “We’re going to see William shortly, Kate. Would you like a cup of tea? Camilla will have to make it for you as we had to let all the staff return to their quarters.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. I understand. Yes that would be nice. I’ll help you, Camilla. It will give me something to do.”

  The Prime Minister, George Barclay, was still thinking about the possibility of a couple of five year terms as President of Britain, when the phone rang in the Cabinet Room. He was trying his best to get into a relaxed seating position in the upright mahogany chair but it wasn’t easy even for him. Sometimes he moved the chair back towards the fireplace and put his feet up on the deputy prime ministers chair. That always gave him a little thrill. He knew it was immature but he did it anyway…..I can put my feet on his chair whenever I like, but he will never put his bum in mine…..

  George picked up the phone,

  “Yes.”

  It was Sir Trevor, the Cabinet Secretary.

  “I have Admiral Sir Robert Downside, the Chief of the Defence Staff, for you Sir.”

  “Thank you, Sir Trevor. Is there anything I should be informed of regarding this call.”

  That last sentence was Barclay’s code for…..Please help me! Please give me some idea what this person wants, and might say, and what I might be expected to say in response to whoever this person is……

  Sir Trevor was always most humble and charitable in his support of the elected official.

  “Yes, Prime Minister, of course. I believe he wishes to talk to you about the safety and security of Prince Harry. Following Prince William’s announcement, his younger brother may well become a rather more important figure in the affairs of our nation than had previously been foreseen so I believe it is the Admiral’s desire to get your approval for the removal of young Harry from harm’s way. As you know he is currently in Afghanistan, and although he is in no real danger, it may be prudent for him to be brought back to these shores until this succession affair is settled. If William were to successfully withdraw, so to speak, and Harry were tragically killed, that would leave Prince Andrew as the next in line after Prince Charles and in due course his daughter, Princess Beatrice,
would one day become Queen.”

  The Prime Minister was trying his best to follow the gist of Sir Trevor’s reply, but all he really managed to grasp was that Princess Beatrice was going to be the Queen.

  “Bloody hell! Thank you, Sir Trevor. Please put him through.”

  “Prime Minister?”

  “Yes. Hello, Admiral Downside.”

  “Prime Minister. I must apologise for not coming to speak to you face to face. Things are moving pretty fast around here, and I really need to stay close to the centre of operations.”

  “Not at all, Admiral. I completely understand. How can I help you?”

  “I wanted to get you to rubber stamp Prince Harry’s immediate removal from Afghanistan. Although he is 99% safe, recent events seem to have made it an absolute priority that his current tour of duty should be terminated and he be returned to our shores and wrapped in cotton wool, so to speak. History might not forgive us if we allowed the future King to die needlessly on foreign soil.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly, Admiral. Prince Harry should be brought back to these shores as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you for your time, Prime Minister. I will issue the necessary orders.”

  The line was dead. Barclay had learned that military types didn’t hang around for any social niceties. They had their order and then off they went. That was the way of things, Barclay thought. He actually felt a little intimidated by military people. Whenever he met someone from the Armed Forces he always felt a little insecure. He tried his best to straighten his back, stiffen his upper lip and put on mummy’s ‘Strength and Confidence’ face, but he always came away from any encounter with a General, an Admiral or a Marshal with a great feeling of weakness.....What do I have to do? Kill someone? Order an attack? Drop a bomb? Raid an enemy trench?.....He had a good idea that most of the senior military people that he communicated with may well have come from a privileged background much like his own and had probably come as close to combat as he had, but that didn’t stop the feeling of insecurity. Oh well! That was the greatest weapon in George’s armoury – Oh well! – Throughout his entire life he had always been able to greet any and all challenges with a breezy Que Sera. He wasn’t exactly sure where this inability to dwell on the pessimistic side of things came from, but he had never really been too keen to investigate just as long as he was always able to look on the bright side of life.

  This uncanny ability to tend towards the positive was a trait that also showed in his smile. He had good hair and a ready smile and he was very grateful for both. A politician doesn’t really need anything else these days to go a very long way indeed and he knew that a politician’s smile that looked even thirty per cent genuine was worth perhaps as much as twenty percentage points in a popularity poll. Barclay’s predecessor as PM had been ridiculed incessantly as a human being incapable of wearing a smile. The poor chap had then tried to force a smile in front of any camera which came anywhere near him. The sad consequence of this was his extraordinary ability to replicate the facial expression of 16th century gargoyles, which didn’t exactly have the desired effect on his popularity in the polls.