At the Palace Gates: in the middle of the sound and fury, Prince William’s keep calm attitude is conquering all

It’s obvious you’re in the middle of chaos when you find the front of a Sunday paper carrying the news that a member of the aristocracy is accusing the Monarch of gaslighting them. The unseemly mess that is Earl Spencer’s book has got him plenty of publicity and no doubt quite a few sales but it’s been anything but classy. Mud slinging, raked over accusations and now, a clapback against The King. And all served up on the back of Harry and Meghan’s return to the UK which has seen reports of them also hitting back against King Charles for no apparent reason other than they’re angry. And in the middle of it all, one person remains quiet and dignified. Prince William’s had a horrible couple of weeks and he’s keeping calm and carrying on.

The visit to the Island of Bute that William and Kate made as these unseemly rows were rippling all around them showed a very different royal life. Both bowled up in their version of civvies – fleeces, waterproofs and caps. They went litter picking at Ettrick Bay as they heard about work to protect the coastline, they went to the Anchor Tavern Pub and Hub to hear about the importance of social connections and they headed to the Blue Shinty Club where they took each other on in a fresh sporting challenge that ended in smiles. It was fun, it had purpose and the whole point was highlighting the work of others in a week when others seemed rather more focused on themselves.

The visit came as William’s uncle, Charles Spencer, was claiming that William’s father, Charles Rex, had said something horrible about William’s mother, Diana, in the days following her death. Charles, The King, had issued an unprecedented statement in which he suggested that Charles the earl’s memory was clouded by grief. Meanwhile, William’s brother, Harry, was making yet more calls for royal level security after declaring that the school run the Sussexes have to do is dangerous. The one bright spot was that William’s other uncle, Andrew, had been miraculously untouched by a fresh scandal for at least three days and if that’s your positive then it really is a bad week.

William and Kate turned up in Bute and did what they had come to do. Listen, learn and meet people. And it all worked like a charm. There were crowds, there were so many people wanting to talk to them that William had to break them away from it to get on with their journey and there were selfies galore. Dozens of little photos showing a future king and queen happy to pose with those they had just met and exchanged a few happy words with. A tapestry of pleasantness being created in the middle of a storm.

The photos were for those who came to see them, not for social media feeds. In an age where putting yourself in the middle of someone’s aimless scroll seems to be the ultimate quest, William and Kate were taking snaps for those who had come to show them support rather than in the hope of ”breaking the internet”, to perhaps quote someone else. While Queen Elizabeth II didn’t do selfies, she understood that those who followed her did and would. Now, they do and the willingness of the future king and queen to put their arms around someone they’ve just met for a quick picture spoke volumes.

And it did it in a very dignified manner. Given the week he’d had, William could have been forgiven for just wanting to keep his head down. The most awful days of his life were being put in the spotlight again in a book written almost three decades after they happened. The King’s rather elegant statement was necessary but did, for a moment, bring with it a faint echo of the War of the Waleses that increasingly dominated William’s life in the 1990s. It’s easy to forget that it’s the current Prince of Wales who saw and heard so much of the splintering of his parents’ marriage. He’s managed that and emerged as a calm and confident figure with a loving family of his own. And yet others are more than eager to rake over the coals once more.

That raking is, really, rather common if you want to be snobby about it. In fact, those of us who don’t need a convoy to do the school run have spent plenty of mornings or afternoons at the gates hearing all about unseemly rows that spring up between in laws. The difference is that when this happens in, say, Basildon or Middlesborough, it’s immediately low brow, low class – you might even get a jibe in about the people involved still being in their pyjamas at lunchtime. When the tell all happens in a palatial country estate and everyone’s in tweeds before breakfast, it’s somehow just dramatic rather than, well, just a bit seedy.

But, ultimately, it is rather tacky and also rather misses the point. For all their differences, Charles and Diana both loved their sons enormously. And when their divorce was done, they found out they actually rather liked each other and started to get on well again. However, the biggest miss in all this is the most important. For Diana wanted her son to be king. She was never against the principal of royalty. Diana wanted the Royal Family to succeed because they were her children’s future.

This week, William is carrying that future onwards. His eldest son is now settling in to Eton, his two younger children continue their well settled routine of prep school close to home while he advances into his forties glad to still have the woman he loves at his side after her own, very difficult health battle. And the future king seems at peace with it all. So at peace that in a week when a relation who once promised to protect him has decided that an attack on the king who happens to be his father is the best way to go, he’s just got on with business as usual.

Perhaps the most interesting part of it all is that, in a very quiet but important way, people are backing him. Those selfies, those crowds are proof of that. Prince William and the Princess of Wales regularly top popularity tables for royals and often by quite a way. William has been through plenty of fires and his ability not to vent about that publicly has won him even more support. William and Kate have never been showy. In fact, returning to the snob references, they are really rather middle class. But slow and steady in a way that others can relate to is reaping dividends. They have public backing and the sensible attitude that Elizabeth II always held – that you have to keep working at it to keep it. They have, they do and they will. And that, ultimately, is what will work.