It’s hard not to feel sorry for Prince William

For all his wealth and privilege, it is hard to imagine wanting to be Prince William. Not only was he irrevocably changed by his mother’s tragic death when he was aged 15, but the past year alone has seen his wife and father diagnosed with cancer. His ongoing estrangement from his embarrassing younger brother continues despite the two of them having been in the same room together on at least one occasion. Added to this, an invasive and embarrassing journalistic investigation into his and his father’s landholdings over the weekend has contributed to a sense that the royals exist on an entirely separate plain to the rest of us.

With all this in mind, it was unsurprising that, in an unusually candid interview, William described this as ‘the hardest year in his life’ and said that ‘it’s been dreadful…trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult’.