Since becoming king in 2022, King Charles has been busy bestowing royal warrants. This once-a-decade process has generated a great deal of public excitement. This hasn’t stopped Queen Camilla from recently awarding her own royal warrants. She’s honoring people who were really important influences in their public life. The reason for the long delay in awarding royal warrants to Prince William and Kate Middleton, the new Princess of Wales, has raised eyebrows. Royal watchers are speculating on what’s behind this delay.
In fact, Queen Camilla has already granted more than 70 royal warrants since her coronation. Leading them is Anna Valentine, who created her beautiful coronation gown. Her constant hairdresser, Jo Hansford, with whom she has worked for more than 30 years, is recognized. Deborah Mitchell, who serves as Queen Camilla’s facialist, received a warrant, as did Anna Valentine for designing the Queen’s wedding dress.
If these awards have already been awarded, the royal warrants for Prince William and the Princess of Wales are still left hanging. According to reports, this delay is a result of King Charles’s very busy personal adjudication on his own royal warrants. Robert Jobson, a royal expert, noted, “There’s been a delay. There’s always a bit of a delay.” He elaborated further on the situation, stating:
“Remember that we haven’t seen a transition in the Crown for some time, so we’ve had to deal with the King and the Queen first. That’s taken some time because they have to go through all sorts of stringent tests and I think that it will happen in due course, but it’s just that we’re going through the King and Queen first, and you don’t just get awarded a royal warrant; it’s a lot involved.” – Robert Jobson
Emily Nash, another royal commentator, highlighted the historic significance of the situation, noting, “There hasn’t been a Princess of Wales who’s been able to issue warrants for about a century, really. So it will be quite a change just from that respect anyway as and when it happens.”
This means it’s been more than 115 years since Queen Mary had that privilege! The delay in processing these warrants serves as a critical reminder to an underlying issue. It follows a string of royal warrant holders, such as Cadbury and Lanson, recently losing their royal warrants having enjoyed that status for more than 100 years.
Meanwhile, in the real world, King Charles and Queen Camilla are hard at work deciding which people or businesses should be awarded royal warrants. The process includes rigorous guidelines and testing, which makes it a costly and lengthy undertaking.
Expectations are elevated in expectation of the first-ever royal warrants being issued for Prince William and the Princess of Wales. Yet, unfortunately, this issue does not appear to be an urgent priority at the moment. As a result, the couple have to wait for their respective parents’ warrant decisions to be finalized before proceeding with their own.
