Hidden message on the royal's tawdry scandal spotted in King's speech

His overarching theme was the joy of pilgrimage. This is, after all, a King who, in years gone by, would take himself off for a restorative retreat at a remote Greek monastery.

Speaking from the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey, above the tombs of 15 ancestors, he reflected that the travels of the shepherds and the wise men had been ‘a physical and mental challenge’ giving them ‘an inner strength’ in times of uncertainty. ‘These ways of living are treasured by all the great Faiths and provide us with deep wells of hope,’ he added. The metaphor of ‘deep wells’ at the root of the human existence – promoting ‘resilience’, ‘peace’ and ‘respect to one another’ – is one of his favourites.

However, yesterday’s broadcast was a surprisingly gritty tour d’horizon of the darker episodes of recent months – even touching on a great royal unmentionable at one point.

The choice of a Ukranian choir to sing in the Abbey, as well as shots of the Princess Royal in Kyiv, left us in no doubt that the King’s admiration for President Zelensky’s troops remains undimmed.

The scenes of survivors and emergency services caught up in the terrorist attack on Manchester’s Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue, along with scenes from Bondi Beach, were an unequivocal reminder of the global scourge of anti-Semitism. Earlier this year, the King attended the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which also featured.

Obviously, the royal story of the year has been the defenestration of Andrew, formerly known as prince, and his imminent banishment to royal Siberia, otherwise known as the back end of the Sandringham estate. He would be there already but for the fact that the King did not want him hovering among the hedgerows and suddenly popping out for a chat while the Royal Family are in residence over Christmas. The removal vans will bring his golf clubs and teddy bear collection up the M11 from Windsor in a few weeks once the royal party are safely heading in the opposite direction.

The Christmas broadcast is, after all, meant to be an uplifting collage of multi-generational royal scenes for family viewing across the Commonwealth. It came as absolutely no surprise, then, that there was no overt mention of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Except that I spotted one subtle but very clever reference to the ex-prince’s tawdry association with the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Following on from shots of the King at Auschwitz, we saw the Duchess of Edinburgh visiting the Maiti hostel for survivors of sexual violence in Nepal back in February. This fearless charity has helped to stop tens of thousands of young women and even tiny children from being trafficked into the hands of sexual predators across Asia. It has also rescued more than 3,000 girls from the clutches of people just like Epstein.

The Duchess was actually following in the footsteps of the King, who saw Maiti’s work for himself during his tour of Nepal, as prince of wales, many years ago. I know how much it moved him because I was there that day in 1998. He was close to tears (he was not the only one) as he met victims of the most horrific abuse imaginable. They included a teenager injected with growth hormones to make her more alluring to the vice trade and a girl sold by her uncle at the age of seven to a Bombay brothel where she contracted Aids and was then thrown on to the street. I remember those gallant charity workers urging him not to forget them. And he did not. Hence, the Duchess’s visit this year and their poignant inclusion in yesterday’s film.

Royal anoraks will have noticed the prominence of the Duchess in yesterday’s broadcast. She seemed to appear as often as the Princess of Wales. These things are not competitive. This was simply a reflection of the fact that the Princess has spent much of the year juggling the twin imperatives of her young children and restoring her own health after the trials of 2024. However, it was a nod from the King to the importance of the Edinburghs to the small, core royal unit, alongside the Prince and Princess of Wales, the indefatigable Princess Royal and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. It was also good to see a carefully calibrated, enhanced role for both Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

Read More

The signs YOU'RE spending today with a secret cocaine user... by someone who really knows

As the address reminded us, however, the key supporting role has been that of Queen Camilla. All year she has been steadfastly helping to maintain morale and keep the show on the road, often with a lightness of touch. That was reflected in today’s broadcast. As well as seeing her with the King at the big wartime anniversaries, at the Vatican and in Canada, we saw her cramming into a red phone box with schoolchildren to celebrate a new sculpture garden. There she was, too, filling and serving jacket potatoes for Meals on Wheels Week with Ben ‘Spudman’ Newman, the baked potato wizard of Tamworth, Staffordshire. Readers may recall last year’s Daily Mail despatch on the inspirational father-of-nine by her food writer son, Tom Parker-Bowles. Now ‘Spudman’ is in the King’s broadcast.

This, the monarch’s fourth Christmas broadcast, was another reminder of the way that the King is happy tweaking these royal traditions. Yet again, he had chosen to deliver his address on location rather than from a royal residence (last year he spoke from a former hospital chapel). Yet it was fifty years ago that the late Queen delivered her first alfresco broadcast, speaking from the gardens of Buckingham Palace. She also veered off into politics that day, reflecting that ‘the whole fabric of our lives is threatened by inflation, the frightening sickness of the world today’.

At least the King spared us any mention of the economy.