'We simply can’t accept Prince William as a future king because... - Royal Expert

God save the King! Not a sentiment I would normally feel the need to espouse, but we live in strange and difficult times and so I must insist that God do his thing for once here (and before you accuse me of preferential begging of a divinity, I will add that I secularly pray for anyone I hear has recently had a cancer diagnosis) and keep him going for another two decades at least. 

This is partly because I am a child and still somewhere in my juvenile, not to say primitive, unformed brain, I still believe as I did when I was five that you should and do get to live as long as your oldest parent did. If your mother dies at 96 and your father at 99 – well, you should get ready for at least one if not several telegrams from the King. 

Basically, I have not grown up and still convulse at the idea of a universe that refuses to guarantee even this minimal justice. I mean. Come on. But it is mostly because I absolutely cannot cope with William succeeding to the throne any time soon. 

I cannot have a king who is younger than me. I remember that child being born! (And pictures of him toddling about in a park and in giant poufy pants that I bet he’s really glad are in the media-historical record for all time.) No, this is all wrong. 

If Charles III fails to live out his allotted (by me) span, then I will need a regent installed, like in ye olden days when monarchs kept becoming monarchs when they were babies or toddlers (in poufy pants but fashionably so and not keeping still long enough anyway for the paparazzi to paint them). 

That regent will ideally be a middle-aged woman (55+, I’d say) whose children have left home and who needs to direct some of her now superfluous organisational skills and energy elsewhere – and where better than towards putting the entire nation in order? – but I accept that this is unlikely. 

I will settle for some aristocrat whose last name is spelled Smith but pronounced “Chumley”. But he does need to be at least 55 and stay in the job until William is 60. Obviously, William will still be younger than me – I understand how time works – but the gap will feel smaller, especially if I am dead, as I may well be. Goodness, this is cheery.