Prince William is choosing the kind of legacy that canât be bought, which turns another royalâs hustle into something hard to defend.

William and Harry have become poles apart (Image: Getty)
Prince Williamâs vision for a new style of monarchy merely makes his brother Harryâs half-in-half-out money-making look grubby and shameless. This week it was revealed the Duchy of Cornwall, which provides a private income of over ÂŁ20m per year to the Prince of Wales, is to sell off 20% of its property over 10 years.
The ÂŁ500m raised from one of the worldâs largest property empires, which spans 19 counties, will be invested in local communities, including affordable housing and environmental projects. William has already been focussed on tackling homelessness so he hopes the duchy will provide an extra 12,000 homes by 2040 â a third affordable â with other funds for rural jobs and a solar panel rollout expansion.
His gesture confirms his dream to reshape the monarchy, which has already seen Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson âdethronedâ and could spell curtains for Princesses Beatrice and Eugenieâs remaining royal concessions.
Despite the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, Beatrice and Eugenie continue to have second homes inside King Charlesâs palaces despite not being working royals â all thanks to a ârental dealâ struck by their father.
Beatrice still has an apartment in St Jamesâs Palace, despite her main home being in the Cotswolds, while Eugenie has the three-bedroom Ivy Cottage at Kensington Palace â despite spending most of her family time in Portugal.
In the duchyâs new strategy, there will be a greater emphasis on five areas where it is a landowner: Bath, Cornwall, Dartmoor, Isles of Scilly and Kennington in south London.
But Williamâs plans to be âmore thanâ just a traditional landowner by âprioritising stuff thatâs going to make peopleâs lives, living in those areas, better,â negatively shine a spotlight on his younger brother.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle fled the UK in 2020 after the late Queen Elizabeth II refused their âhalf-in-half-outâ working royal/commercial money-making plans.
Since then Harry and Meghan have thrown themselves into a zealous â to the point of obsessive â cycle of shameless commercialism.
They repeatedly revealed secrets and private conversations about the Royal Family in books, TV interviews and documentary series for personal gain.

âNon-working Royalsâ on tour in Australia (Image: Getty)
True, their Archewell Foundation â now known by the snappy moniker âArchewell Philanthropiesâ â gives a few million quid a year to charity.
But thatâs chicken feed compared to the loot they have raked in over the last six years, with their Netflix deal worth ÂŁ100m alone, and Harryâs autobiography âSpareâ coining in more than ÂŁ25m.
Yet with TV deals crumbling for the Sussexes â Netflixâs âWith Love, Meghanâ show has been axed, and her âAs Everâ brand is struggling to shift her $64 candles and $12 jars of jam â they have needed a new way of funding their millionaire lifestyle.
Cue the start of their recent faux âroyal tours,â first of Jordan and then Australia as they look to blend charity work, meeting dignitaries and other things working royals would do, with after-dinner speeches and selling stuff.
So while Harry has sold his family down the river to fund his celeb lifestyle, William is looking to sell his family inheritance to fund good causes.
The brothers really are chalk and cheese.


