Easter is all about resurrection, and the royal family is set to deliver.
Not by somehow reanimating the gangrenous reputational corpse of Just Mister Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, now mouldering in a bit of Norfolk that Google Maps probably didn’t bother with, but by the return of Kate, The Princess of Wales.
Easter Sunday will be the first time in years that she, husband Prince William and the trio of colour-coordinated progeny, will join the royal family for the en masse trooping to St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Why now? What’s suddenly made the Waleses decide to hat-up and spend Easter Sunday absorbing spiritual instruction and not their body weight in Cadbury crème eggs?
As Hamlet might have said if he read Hello!, the timing’s the thing.
On Tuesday came the news that Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie and their families would not be attending the Easter service, the first major royal gathering since the release of the Epstein files.
Then, only about an hour after that was revealed, came confirmation that the Waleses would be rolling back their own rock and joining the royal family for Easter for the first time since 2023.
Maybe this one-two series of announcements was a coincidence. Maybe.
For the last two Easters, William and Kate have stayed clear away from Windsor at this time of year.
In 2024, Kate had only just been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. No more needs to be said.
And that year, for the first time since the 90s, there was Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, alongside a smarm-oozing Andrew, front and centre of the royal Easter pack. It had been more than 25 years since the Mills & Boon writer, juicer saleswoman, and teabag entrepreneur had been invited to Easter since TLC had a number one, and boy did she look like a cat who had acquired a particularly juicy canary.
Then came 2025 and there again were Fergie and Andrew parading their way to church in Windsor at Easter while William and Kate stayed clear away.
All that was said about their absence was that they wanted to spend the weekend with their children. An odd choice given that he will one day be Supreme Governor and Defender of the Faith of the whole Church of England. You’d have thought William might want to get a bit of pew time in.
Were the Waleses voting with their feet given the emboldened House of Yorks being allowed by King Charles to star during one of the royal family’s biggest set pieces of the year?
Now you have to wonder if last year the prince and princess just didn’t want to be downwind of a Cheshire cat-Andrew and a preening Fergs.
In fact, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it looks like William and Kate have been silently navigating a path away from all the Yorks and for a while.
The Daily Mail recently reported that Kate had a “frosty relationship” with Beatrice and Eugenie. “William and Kate don’t appear to be close to either of the sisters. They haven’t got that much in common,” a source said.
On Christmas Day, video footage showed William appearing to blank Eugenie by fiddling with his scarf. (Those two weeks of work experience, really, with MI5 and MI6 in 2019 really paid off.)
Earlier that month, neither Beatrice nor Eugenie attended Kate’s annual Christmas carol concert at Westminster Abbey – despite Beatrice having gone to the event every year since its inception and Eugenie had gone for three years running.
The line was that the Yorks gals had chosen not to go yet Eugenie took to Instagram, writing “Wish Bea and I could have been celebrating tonight with our family. Wishing @princeandprincessofwales such a special evening”. Que?
If there is some cousinly awkwardness between the Waleses and the Yorks, it would make sense. William, reportedly, played a driving role in pushing the King to fully strip Andrew of his titles, honours and Royal Lodge front door key last year.
Even before that, there has been “no love lost” between the Prince of Wales and his uncle and aunt, according to Mirror’s royal editor Russell Myers’ for his recent biography, William & Catherine.
William had long thought the former Duke of York was “an ignoramus”, a palace source Myers.
“He’d seen how Andrew behaved in front of staff, ordering people about, the aggressive or dismissive manner, they’d never seen eye-to-eye”.
Then post Newsnight, while the late Queen had coddled and cosseted her over indulged plonker of a son, and then King Charles spent years trying to appear all beneficent and Christian and the like, the Prince of Wales has long taken a far steelier stance on how Andrew should be treated.
William, per Myers, had “challenged Charles directly” on the subject of allowing Andrew and Fergie to be part of Christmas and Easter, because it “was an issue William fundamentally disagreed with”.
“William made it clear that once he became king there would be no such mercy” shown to Andrew.
Then came the events of 2025 when it was revealed that Andrew and Fergie had both been untruthful about cutting off contact with Jeffrey Epstein and which laid bare the extent of their years-long friendship with him.
In the future, things between the York and Wales camps seem hardly likely to improve with reports that once William is on the throne he will remove the titles of all the members of the royal family who don’t formally represent and work for the Crown. Adios HRHs and Arise Mrs Mapelli Mozzi and Mrs Brooksbank.
You have to also wonder how long, under King William V, the gals would hang onto their homes in royal palaces, despite owning other properties elsewhere.
Still for now, there is some glimmer of hope for Beatrice and Eugenie and their vast millinery cupboards. As the Easter weekend approached, sources close to the King told the Sun that His Majesty “remains fond” of his nieces and they will be allowed to attend future royal family events including possibly Ascot in June.
So, let’s lay our bets now. If the princesses are there in the Royal enclosure, will William and Kate suddenly find themselves with paint they simply must watch drying or a burning desire to learn how to re-grout their shower by hand?
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
Read related topics:Queen Elizabeth II