January is the month for several royal birthdays: the Princess of Wales will be 44 on 9 January, while the hard-working Duchess of Edinburgh, who has been a good friend to the princess, is 61 on the 20th. Princess Michael of Kent, who was not seen much in public during 2025, will be 81 on 15 January.
The princess tripped and fell down the stairs at Kensington Palace in 2024, breaking both wrists, and subsequently has had problems recovering her former strength. An expert skier, rider and tennis player, Princess Michael was always athletic so being partially house bound has been tricky for her.
Lady Gabriella Kingston, the Kents’ widowed daughter, has been accompanying her father, Prince Michael, and he in turn is frequently at the side of his 90-year-old brother Eddie, the Duke of Kent. On Christmas Day their sister Princess Alexandra celebrated her 89th birthday. She also has mobility issues and uses a wheelchair to get around.
On our television screens in December were two new royal items of note: a film about global warming which featured the former Prince of Wales’s Arctic adventures in 1975, and a new BBC series examining what the monarchy is for, with veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby asking the questions. The presenter of Royal Arctic Challenge, environmentalist Steve Backshall, recounts that Prince Charles gave his first speech on the environment two years before Steve was born. In an interview accompanying the documentary the King talks about how much the rhythms of life have changed in the Arctic in the intervening 50 years.
Interest in the monarchy was intense during 2025, culminating with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor losing his style, titles and rank; he will give up his home – Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park – in the coming months. His married daughters have their own homes and London residences too: Princess Beatrice an apartment at St James’s Palace and Princess Eugenie the bijou picket-fenced Ivy Cottage at Kensington Palace.
At the beginning of December it was announced by the Public Accounts Committee, made up of MPs from all political parties, that an enquiry into the royal family’s property agreements and its various ‘peppercorn rent’ deals is to be launched, though a date is yet to be set. This will include the Prince and Princess of Wales, who have taken a 20-year lease on Forest Lodge – said to be their ‘forever’ home – and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, whose Bagshot Park lease was renegotiated in 2007.
The scandal surrounding the former Prince Andrew has opened a Pandora’s box for the royal family and their financial arrangements are going to be even more carefully scrutinised in the future. However, the mission to ‘secure value for money for the taxpayer’ does not consider what the royal family do for their country and how they have sacrificed their privacy to do their duty.
They are privileged but they are not free. They are criticised but they can’t answer back. Maybe Dimbleby was right when he admitted that after spending decades guiding the nation through monarchical pomp – weddings, state openings, jubilees and funerals – he never envied the life inside the palaces that he described so eloquently.
