Balmoral’s off as Sturgeon warns: You’re not welcome
AlTHOuGH he’s Prince of Wales, it’s Scotland where the heir to the throne has always felt most at home.
But he and Camilla will not be able to celebrate Hogmanay at their beloved home on the Balmoral estate, I hear, as Scotland’s scowling First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has made the Royal Family feel unwelcome in their own kingdom.
‘ It’s very sad, but their Royal Highnesses do not want to cause trouble,’ one of their friends tells me.
‘They understand the difficulties of travelling during the crisis and look forward to returning to Scotland as soon as possible.’
This week, Scottish National Party leader Sturgeon publicly revealed that her government had reminded Buckingham Palace of the strict Covid restrictions north of the border ahead of Prince William and Kate’s moraleboosting visit on the royal train.
Restrictions include a ban on ‘ nonessential travel between Scotland and other parts of the uK until further notice’.
Her comments are said to have taken aback courtiers, who had consulted Sturgeon’s officials while planning the tour round Britain on the royal train.
Charles and Camilla, who are known as the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay in Scotland, are believed to have spent New Year’s Eve at their Birkhall home on the Queen’s Balmoral estate every year since they married in 2005. They’re usually joined by Camilla’s sister and brotherinlaw, Annabel and Simon Elliot. Instead, the couple are expected to spend January at the Prince’s Gloucestershire home, Highgrove, and Camilla’s Wiltshire residence, Ray Mill House.
They enjoyed spending the first lockdown at Birkhall but their stay attracted criticism from some SNP politicians because Charles was revealed to have developed coronavirus symptoms soon after arriving.
Sources were keen to stress that he did not know he had the virus when they travelled there.
A Clarence House spokesman declines to comment, and a royal source describes their plans as ‘up in the air’.
If not up in the Highlands…