After Kate’s Cancer Diagnosis, William and Harry Should Reconcile—and Save the Monarchy

No previous Prince of Wales has faced a challenge like the one that Prince William now does. The future of the House of Windsor may well depend on how well he handles it. It’s a double whammy for him: His wife and his father simultaneously stricken with cancers of unknown type and severity; an intimate family emergency and a grave constitutional one, too, since his father is the king.

If it is true, as ITV News’ royal editor, Chris Ship reported late Friday, that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have reached out privately to Kate Middleton and William—after sending a public message wishing Kate “health and healing” following her cancer diagnosis—then perhaps Kate’s devastating news may yet help forge a fraternal reconciliation that, as well as harmonizing family relations, could positively bolster the monarchy as its most fragile modern moment.

William and Kate have fought hard to change the standard model of how the heir to the throne manages his (or her) life. They want their kids to enjoy a far less cloistered life than old palace protocols and habits dictated—of course, they can never be “normal” lives by any real measure but they hoped their children could escape anything resembling the long and tortured life of the king’s childhood, negotiated between a remote mother and a father, Prince Philip, vainly attempting to produce a replica of himself.

Read more at The Daily Beast.