THE "fake sheikh" newspaper sting that forced the Countess of Wessex to step aside as chairman of R-JH Public Relations has cost her company £100,000, The Telegraph can disclose.
The money went in heavy legal fees, the loss of one prestigious client, loss of management time and a confidential separation agreement with her co-founder Murray Harkin, who was managing director.
As Buckingham Palace undertakes an internal review to draw up new guidelines for "working royals", staff at R-JH, based in Mayfair, believe that the company can thrive without the countess at the helm.
The countess, 36, stood down as chairman in April after revelations in the News of the World that she had made indiscreet remarks about politicians and members of the Royal Family to an undercover reporter posing as a wealthy potential customer. She remains an executive director but her role is largely undefined.
Mr Harkin, 36, left the industry after publication of remarks exploiting the countess's status, innuendo about the Earl of Wessex's sexuality, and talk of cocaine and gay parties.
Figures to be filed at Companies House today show that R-JH's turnover totalled £988,566 for the last year, a one-third increase. But pre-tax profits were down 39 per cent to £86,604. The company, founded four years ago, had been heading for increased profits but had to sustain a one-off loss resulting from the debacle estimated at £100,000.
Now under the leadership of Jack Cassidy, 58, the firm is in the process of becoming "less Sophie-dependent". Mr Cassidy claims that this was always the countess's intention when she invited him to join eight months ago, rather than a reaction to the review, led by the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Luce.
Both the countess's role in public relations and the earl's position as head of his television production company, Ardent, are being reviewed. The Queen backed the couple's efforts to carve careers but they have faced accusations of trading on their royal status.
The earl, who receives £141,000 from the Queen for doing royal duties, also has to maintain 30-bedroom Bagshot Park in Surrey. In the meantime, R-JH, with 12 staff and 20 clients, is continuing to redefine the countess's role while it awaits the outcome of the review. Mr Cassidy, in his first interview since taking over, said: "I work closely with the countess. She has been very noble in deferring to me decisions that historically she has had the right to make."
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Royal wedding hits 17th century hitch (UK Times)
FROM ADAM SAGE IN PARIS
CHARTRES Cathedral was booked, caterers lined up for Chateau d’Amboise and invitations for several hundred members of Europe’s aristocracy printed. But now plans for France’s wedding of the year between the “royal” prince, Jean d’Orléans, and German aristocrat, Duchess Tatjana d’Oldenbourg, have been cancelled because of a quarrel dating back to the seventeenth century.
Prince Jean de France, the duc of Vendôme, 35, broke off his engagement after coming under pressure from his relatives to avoid marrying into the Protestant Oldenbourg family.
The move was the latest in a line of amorous mishaps to befall the Orléans dynasty that considers itself to be the legimate pretender to the French throne.
“I sincerely regret this,” said Jean’s father, Count Henri of Orléans, 68, “But marriage is a strong and, in my view, indissoluble undertaking, and one must prepare for it seriously from a spiritual point of view if one is to build a union that will last for a lifetime.’ Stephane Bern, a Parisian journalist who is a specialist on the affairs of the French royal family, said the Prince and the Duchess were in love.
But M Bern added: “Has love fallen victim to a new war of religion? The Prince certainly didn’t want to take the risk of making a mistake by only obeying his heart.” The Orléans family descends from the last French King, Louis-Philippe 1st, who ruled between 1830 and 1848. It describes itself as the Maison de France and says that if ever a monarchy is restored, it should sit on the throne. This claim is challenged by the Bourbons — descendants of the 17th century Sun King, Louis XIV — whose head is now the 27-year-old Prince Louis-Alfonse of Spain. The dispute may seem spurious given that France has been a republic for so long. Yet Orléans family members are wary of anything that they believe could harm their legitimacy.
The 26-year-old Duchess Tatjana’s religion falls into this category. Prince Jean will become head of the family upon his father’s death, and the prospect of his having Protestant children is seen by many of his relatives as unacceptable. After all, the French monarchy was close to the Roman Catholic Church, and ruled for many centuries over a nation where relations between Catholics and Protestants were more than fraught.
According to M Bern, Prince Jean’s marriage plans “nourished concerns within his family”. The invitations carried his coat of arms, and not his father’s — an indication, according to M Bern, of the row that was brewing.
This is by no means the only controversial chapter in the Orléans family’s recent history. Prince Jean’s grandfather, Henri, for instance, died in 1999, after leaving his wife to move in with his personal nurse. He left only a fraction of his fortune in his will, sparking a series of legal battles as his descendants tried to find out where the rest had gone.
As for Jean's father, also called Henri, his marriage to Marie-Thérese de Wurtemberg, was not the indissoluble union that the family would have hoped for. They are divorced.
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Ballet boys wave naval tribute to birthday Duke (UK Times)
BY ALAN HAMILTON
MORE than 30 members of the Royal Family and 17 of the Duke of Edinburgh’s German relations joined him at Windsor Castle yesterday to celebrate his 80th birthday.
They faced the problem of how to mark the occasion in suitably memorable fashion, given that an octogenarian prince probably has every conceivable gift he could need. Princess Margaret, still wheelchair-bound after her stroke and with her left arm in a sling, provided the answer.
As President of the Royal Ballet, the Princess summoned 20 boy dancers from the company’s ballet school dressed in sailor suits and had them perform a specially choreographed Duke’s Hornpipe. At the end of it they produced flags and wished him happy birthday in semaphore.
Otherwise, the celebrations were relatively conventional. The Queen, proposing a toast to her husband of 54 years in front of 450 guests in the Castle’s Waterloo Chamber, said: “I cannot believe you are 80. I speak for all the family and everyone here; thank you from us all.”
In a reference to the Duke’s speech at a Guildhall lunch last week in which he said that he remained fit and well thanks to all the toasts to his health, the Queen added: “It is important to me personally to propose yet another toast to your health.” The Duke replied: “I am not sure I recommend being 80; it’s not so much the age, but trying to survive the celebrations.”
Almost every member of the Royal Family, from the Prince of Wales and Prince Harry, now noticeably taller than his father, down to James Ogilvy and Marina Mowatt, children of Princess Alexandra, attended the reception and the service in St George’s chapel that preceded it. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who will be 101 in two months, was a notable and sprightly guest. Princess Xenia of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, one of the Duke’s German great-nieces, left the chapel in animated conversation with Prince Harry.
But there were a few absences. Paul Burrell, former butler to the late Princess of Wales, who has been questioned by police, but not yet charged, over the disappearance of some of her possessions from Kensington Palace, had his invitation withdrawn, although his wife, Maria, was invited to attend with another partner. Princess Michael of Kent failed to accompany her husband, and Princess Sophie, the Duke’s only surviving sister, was too frail to travel from Germany. Prince William, still pursuing his gap year in Africa, was another absentee.
It being Trinity Sunday, the sermon in St George’s in front of a congregation that also included former King Constantine of Greece and Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, was on the doctrine of the Trinity. But it was also about Prince Philip, who sat in the front row in a dark suit against a background of showy royal hats.
The Right Rev David Conner, Dean of Windsor, told his unusually distinguished congregation: “You have come to wish happy birthday to a man you respect and love. He has tried quite tirelessly and doggedly to put flesh on what he has intuitively felt to be the truth of things.”
The Duke had encouraged young people everywhere, through his award scheme and other charities, to rise above the constraints and limitations of life. “We can be grateful too for the example of someone who, on his birthday, chooses to bring his family and friends to church,” the Dean said.
“There is much more that might be said. There is no need; everyone here knows what they owe you, not least loyalty, encouragement, inspiration, example and sheer stickability.” But the Duke, the Dean continued “would not want any fuss, just a word of gratitude for a good example set, and a word of hope that it would long continue”.
As the stewards passed the collection plate around, all proceeds to the Outward Bound Trust, the congregation sang the mariner’s hymn Eternal Father, Strong To Save.
After the service the congregation, shivering in a chilly wind, strolled up the castle hill to the reception, where the Duke was presented with a bronze statuette of Storm, one of his favourite carriage-driving horses, a gift from Royal Household staff. Later the Queen hosted a private lunch for her husband and his greatly extended family.