The British public remains immensely forgiving of royal failings, understandably when the family is fragile and struggling with serious illness. Huge public sympathy has allowed for the revival of a doting, vintage style of reporting that only a year ago might have seemed as absurd as it is, in the longer term, unwelcome.

A recent palace announcement to the effect that Prince William is now a “global statesman” has been received, for example, with the same eager interest as his self-appointment as a homelessness expert, his decision to grow a beard and, a few days ago, his domestic hints: do remember to turn the palace lights out before you leave for another one down the road. Even a professionally made but excruciating video of sunkissed royals romping inspirationally in meadows was accepted, pretty much uncritically, as the new Windsor normal, and maybe it is.

That said, new revelations about King Charles and his heir’s enormous untaxed wealth suggest that the palace might not want to get too confident about the current non-judgmental state of affairs.

Not now that Channel 4’s Dispatches, the Sunday Times and the Mirror have between them, after an impressive investigation, disclosed what the royal family had until last week successfully concealed: that “the firm”, previously understood as self-deprecatory royal slang for their collective labour, is an entirely accurate term for a family company that transacts business for profit. In the case of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, the lands awarded to the king and his heir, the profits (on top of the sovereign grant)........

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