Prevailing Dutch wind suggests it’s time for royal family to stop reigning

When Prince Harry visited the Netherlands a few months ago for the Invictus Games, he made a point of comparing his royal hosts favourably to his own semi-estranged family in the UK – unaware, apparently, that the Dutch public mood is becoming less and less royalist with every passing year.

As in Britain, the traditional Dutch love of monarchy has its roots in the second World War. Queen Wilhelmina at that time played the same role as Elizabeth II: that of doughty leader, royal privilege vested in her common humanity, sworn to shore up the morale of her subjects in a time of existential peril.

Both women are icons in their respective countries. And both are inevitably hard acts to follow for their heirs, whose anachronistic trappings look increasingly out of step with the fast, furious, and frequently unforgiving world in which they sell their celebrity wares.

It’s also worth noting that the Dutch royals have in many ways been more canny than their UK counterparts about burnishing their image of relative normality, as “the cycling royals”, for example, whose children attend ordinary neighbourhood schools with, thus far, minimal security fuss.

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While birthright may set them worlds apart, the right access and image management can make their daily concerns can seem strangely familiar. You’d almost feel you know them.

So it was that when Harry (38) took a day away from the global media blizzard that followed the publication of his autobiography, Spare, and spent it with Willem-Alexander (56) in the relatively relaxed confines of The Hague, he couldn’t help but wonder at how “modern” it all seemed.

Modernisation, he thought, was not just the best but the only means by which royals could future-proof themselves.

During an ABC News special entitled Prince Harry: In His Own Words, he pointedly praised the Dutch royal family and their Norwegian counterparts for combatting racism and exclusion as and when they’d allegedly encountered them inside the rarefied confines of their royal palaces.

From his own personal experience and with an American TV audience in mind, Harry was alluding, of course, to the failure of some British royals and media to accept his own mixed-race wife, Meghan Markle.

In Norway, he was referring to King Harald V’s defence of his daughter, Princess Martha Louise, and her controversial relationship with black American therapist and self-styled “shaman”, Durek Verrett.

In terms of inclusion, he said of the Dutch and Norwegians royals: “I don’t think they’ve been given nearly enough credit. It’s a huge example to other royals. Much more is needed.”

As royals from all over the world fly to London this week for the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday, the Dutch – who as long ago as 2012 outstripped the British as the most expensive royal family in Europe, according to a study by Ghent University – will be among the more recognisable.

The irony is that despite Harry’s rave review, Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, accompanied by the king’s mother, now Princess Beatrix, and the 19-year-old heir to the throne, Princess Amelia, will arrive fresh from their annual performance review: an Ipsos poll, published last month, which shows their popularity falling and demands for a republic rising every year.

The poll commissioned by the Dutch national broadcaster, NOS, says that when Willem-Alexander was crowned in 2013, the monarchy commanded the support of 80 per cent of the Dutch population. Today, just 55 per cent support the institution of the monarchy and just 46 per cent – the lowest ever – support Willem-Alexander personally.

At the same time, 24 per cent favour a republic over a monarchy, a low figure by comparison, certainly, but up nine percentage points since 2000 – and enough to allow delighted republican campaigners to dub their embattled monarch King Willem the Last.

“We have nothing against Willem-Alexander as an individual,” says one campaigner. “We’re against the medieval idea of the monarchy. Since the pandemic, ordinary people, especially youngsters, are realising the royals really know absolutely nothing about them.”

That reference to the now-infamous series of royal pandemic gaffes is a particularly sore spot for the Dutch royals because it illustrated for the first time that there was a limit to how out of touch they could be and still expect the support of the public.

During the first pandemic summer of August 2020, with the economy on a knife-edge and thousands on furlough, they took time to show a new €2 million speedboat to the delighted media in the coastal waters near their Greek holiday compound.

They didn’t wear face masks or observe social distancing when they were photographed visiting a busy Greek island taverna. Some months later, they were spotted by the media flying from Schiphol with their three daughters back to their Greek retreat despite official advice not to travel abroad.

Last but not least of the gaffes was the bright idea of holding a birthday party for Princess Amalia and 21 of her closest pals to mark her coming of age in December 2021 – while gatherings in commoner households were restricted to four and many who broke that rule were summarily fined.

By then, there were few in the Netherlands, even among the royals’ own supporters, who would deny that what they did best was shoot themselves in the foot.

In that context, what the latest Ipsos figures show is that, three years on, those pandemic gaffes have been neither forgotten nor forgiven.

In that sense, the most fascinating aspect of the survey was that an extraordinary 75 per cent of those polled said they’d understand if Amalia decided not to go ahead and become queen – because of serious gangland threats that prevented her sharing a house at university in Amsterdam this year.

The world is changing. It’s a tougher place. Perhaps Princess Diana put paid to royal fairy tales. Youngsters are watching and learning. Perhaps not all teenagers want to be princes and princesses – or kings and queens – anymore.