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Caalarougus Shark Media.
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Hello and welcome through Palace Intrigue. I am your host,
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Mark Francis. Prince Andrew's decision to surrender all of his
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royal titles has also brought renewed attention to his former wife,
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Sarah Ferguson, whose own status with the royal family will
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now change following Andrew's announcement that he will no longer
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use my title or the honors which have been conferred
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upon me. The Telegraph reports that Sarah will no longer
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use the style of Duchess of York and will instead
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be known officially as Sarah Ferguson. The title originally granted
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on her nineteen eighty six marriage to Prince Andrew, was
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retained after their divorce in nineteen ninety six, but will
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now be relinquished in keeping with the King's decision to
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strip Andrew of his honors. The change comes just weeks
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after Ferguson was dropped from her remaining charity patronages when
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it emerged that she had once sent emails to Jeffrey
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Epstein following his conviction, referring to him as a steadfast,
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generous and supreme friend. While Andrew retains his private lease
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on Royal Lodge in Windsor. Royal observers say Sarah Ferguson's
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position at future family events may now depend more on
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personal goodwill than protocol. She is expected to remain close
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to her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who continued
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to hold their royal titles, and will be welcome at
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Sandringham for Christmas. A new account from royal biographer Andrew
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Lowney revisits the whirlwind start and her relationship with Andrew
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and the doubts that trailed it. He writes, even Sarah's
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own family we're not sure about the relationship. She's either
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in love with Andrew or in love with the Royal family,
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and I think it's the latter. The pair first met
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at Ascot in June nineteen eighty five, became engaged in
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February nineteen nineteen eighty six, and married at Westminster Abbey
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on July twenty third that year. One friend told Lowney,
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while she was enormously happy, she was petrified about what
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she was letting herself in for. Lowney says the response
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inside the palace was far from uniform. There were mixed
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feelings in the royal family. They had known Ferguson all
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her life as she was part of royal circles and
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shared their interests in outdoor pursuits, in dogs, horses, even charades.
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Compared to Diana, she was easy going and clearly made
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Andrew happy, But according to a well connected source, Fergie
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couldn't stop talking and inappropriately. There were also concerns there
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might be scandals in her private life. As for Andrew,
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Lowney suggests family expectations and emotions both played apart. He
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was feeling under pressure from his family to settle down
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and driven by a strong physical attraction to Ferguson and loneliness.
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The marriage was stormy, separation in ninety two, divorce in
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ninety six, yet the domestic arrangement endeers. In the Telegraph,
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Gordon Reyner writes, the fall of the House of York
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has been a long time coming, and Prince Andrew and
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Sarah Ferguson, as they will henceforth being known, made equal
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contributions to its sorry end. At first, Fergie, as the
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tabloids loved to call her, appeared to have brought welcome
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energy to the royal family, with her informality and humor.
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When she was filmed giving her husband a playful smack
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on the bottom in an engagement interview, it seemed that
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Randy Andy, the womanizing Falkland's war veteran, had met his match.
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By nineteen ninety they had two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Eugenie,
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making them a perfect family unit, but beneath the surface,
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cracks in their relationship were starting to appear. Sarah privately
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complained that she was only spending forty days each year
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with her husband because of his naval service, and rumors
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of an affair with Texas millionaire Steve Wyatt surfaced in
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early ninety two. She would later claim that she and
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Andrew had an open relationship. In March of ninety two,
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after just six years of marriage, Buckingham Pallace announced the
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couple were separating. In the hint of what was to come,
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The Queen also announced that she would not be taking
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responsibility for Sarah's debts. Can be done with dignity, which
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was the least that could be expected of a couple
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whose expensively celebrated marriage had lasted for such a short time. Instead,
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the pair seemed determined to outdo each other in their
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efforts to humiliate the monarchy. In August of ninety two,
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just five months after the separation announcement, a topless Sarah
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was photographed on holiday with her financial advisor, John Bryan,
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now her lover. Photographs of him sucking the toes of
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Elizabeth's second daughter in law appeared on the front pages
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of newspapers and magazines around the world, which so infuriated
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Prince Philip that he effectively banned her there and then
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from taking part in future family occasions. Princess Margaret reportedly
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wrote to her, saying, you have done more to bring
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shame on the family than could ever have been imagined.
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By twenty twenty three, King Charles felt that Sarah Ferguson
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deserved to be given a second chance, and she joined
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the royal family at Christmas in Sandringham for the first
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time since ninety two. In September of twenty twenty five,
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it emerged that in April of twenty eleven, a month
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after claiming to have several ties with Jeffrey Ebstein, Sarah
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wrote to him and said that from the truth of
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my heart, she wanted to humbly apologize for denouncing him.
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On Friday, the King decided enough was enough, more balance
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in just a moment. In The Guardian, Marina Hyde writes,
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if you are going to have a royal family and
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believe them unique and other, then surely you have to
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take them as you find them. It's deliberately the opposite
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of a meritocracy. After all. If you get into pseudo
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managerial ideas about hiring and firing, then you just make
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it all sound like any other small business Who cares
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about that. Britain is full of small businesses, despite the
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Chancellor's efforts, and the royal family must be something different
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and special. Plus business is the one thing we all
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realize that the rarefied royals know absolutely nothing meaningful about
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the slim down firm we keep hearing about from Charles
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and Williams courtiers honestly sounds like a week four task
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from the Apprentice, andremen in the Telegraph took it a
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step further under the headline Prince Andrew has embarrassed the firm,
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but at least he isn't a Nazi. Lahman writes. The
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former Duke now joins a small and unmeritorious club of
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members of the royal family. Who have either lost their
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titles or had them stripped from them. The most high
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profile case of royal demotion in recent years was Diana,
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Princess of Wales, who had to give up her HRH
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Honorific after her divorce from Prince Charles as he was
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known back then. It was suggested that Charles wanted her
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to lose the Princess of Wales's title as well to
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make her sense of expulsion from the royal family complete,
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and that the Queen had to intervene to broke a compromise.
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This proved a canny move in terms of limiting the
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bad pr that Diana directed towards the firm after her departure,
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and suggested that not for the first time. Elizabeth the
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second was an adroit observer of how protocol could be
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adjusted in the best interests of the institution that she
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reigned over. Earlier in the twentieth century, there were rather
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more existential reasons to strip members of the extended Royal
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family of their titles. They were fighting against Britain in
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the First World War. George the Fifth passed the Title's
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Deprivation Act in nineteen seventeen in order to deprive various
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peers who had taken the German side in World War I,
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of any chance of taking their seats in the House
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of Lords after the end of that conflict. He had
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already removed the Order of the Garter from seven relatively
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obscure German and Austrian nobles in nineteen fifteen, but this
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required an Act of Parliament to deprive the likes of
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Charles Edward, Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence, and Baron
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r Clough of his own position. The one time Duke
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of Saxe Coburg was a grandson of Queen Victoria, but
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he was also an unapologetic member of the German regime
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who would later go on to be closely involved with
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the Nazi Party, indicating that his estrangement from the country
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of his birth was complete. Still, it is one thing
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to ostentatiously strip titles from a member of the aristocracy,
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and quite another to take them from one of the
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central parts of the firm. As Andrew contemplates life without
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his dukedom, he may take some grim comfort from the
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knowledge that his fate is not as egregious as that
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of the Duke of Windsor, who not only ceased to
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be king of both the United Kingdom and the British
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dominions when he abdicated the throne in nineteen thirty six
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in order to marry Wallace Simpson, but also had to
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abandon his standing as Emperor of India, with only the
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hastily created Dukedom offered to salvage what remained of his dignity.
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His mother, Queen Mary, looking sadly at what her son
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had lost, was said to have remarked to give up
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all this for that Simon Jenkins' rights in The Guardian,
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the Royal Family was always a disaster waiting to happen.
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Its creation is a marketable entity in the nineteen sixties
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by the late Queen Elizabeth the Second was meant to
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modernize the monarchy for the twentieth century. It worked, but
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only up to a point, when in nineteen sixty nine
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the late Queen was persuaded reluctantly by her husband Philip
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and her Press secretary William Hazeltine to allow a film
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to be made Royal Family. It was a constitutional decision.
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Elizabeth was not to retreat, like other post war European
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monarchs at the time, into an anonymous obscurity. To stick
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to their bicycles. She would refresh Britain's semi divine concept
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of monarchy as embodied in an ordinary family. It was
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portrayed as the firm, a term that originated with Elizabeth's father,
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George the six. It worked. The family looked lovely as
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the young children picniqu by the Scottish lock. The film
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was watched and admired by millions, but there was a
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lurking risk. One day the same children would be different.
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They would be tormented teenagers, rampaging twenty somethings and matrimonial casualties.
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They might be offered grand palaces and safe jobs, representing
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the monarch, the length and the breadth of the land.
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But then what they will behave? It was like writing
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a play when you have already cast the actors. The
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children became instant global celebrities. Elizabeth was lucky and Charles
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and Anne, who on the whole were impeccable. She then
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exp experienced upsets. One was her Annus horribilis of ninety two,
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when offspring Charles, Andrew and Anne all broke with their partners. Diana,
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Princess of Wales and Squidgygate were broadcast round the world
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and windsor Gate was ablaze. Every Aid and Butler could
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sell their memoirs, and a Gallop poll that year only
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twenty six percent of the British public thought the monarchy
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should continue as it was. Another crisis came in nineteen
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ninety seven with the death of Diana and It's initially
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woful mishandling by the late Queen. Her personal approval ratings
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sank to an all time low of fifty seven percent.
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Charles fell to forty percent. Serious questions were raised of
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the future of the crown. At such times, monarchy has
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nowhere to turn for sustenance but to public opinion. Its
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image is dependent on the media and the reaction to
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how it performs its rituals. And there you have it.
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If you'd like to email us our addresses at the
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Don't forget, it's Halloween and we have a couple of
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great shows and channels out there for you. One it's
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called Halloween pop Up and it's a combination of all
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the shows that come from Callaogershark Media. There's Murder Mysteries,
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ghost Stories, music trivia, all Halloween themed. Just look for
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Halloween Pop Up and our other channel, Ghost Scary Stories,
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which is just Scary stories and you can find a
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new show every day on there through October, plus hundreds
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of others in the library. Check it out wherever you
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get your podcasts. Halloween pop Up and Ghost Scary Stories.
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I'm Francis my thanks to John mccermot. This is Ballance,
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indrigue and good terms.