“Here we are, a decade into the early 21st century, and we’re still having to talk about fairytale royal successions. “The Palace” has just issued a denial that Prince William is being groomed as the “shadow king”, as Elizabeth II starts to reduce the number of her foreign visits. Royal denials aren’t really worth the wax they’re sealed with, but in this case that’s hardly the point. The real question is, why on earth should we even be having to think about the lineage of the house of Windsor at all?”