Wimbledon Glory, a Goat Yoga Mishap, and a Royal Reunion at Highgrove

Tea, Titles & Tiaras with Emily Darlow

Dearest Reader, What a Week the Crown Has Given Us

This correspondent has barely had time to refill the teacup. The Wales family descended on Wimbledon in matching panama hats and brought Centre Court to its feet, Kate saved a trophy from an undignified fate with the reflexes of a woman considerably more rested than she should be, Harry got stepped on by a goat, and Princess Margaret’s grandson announced his engagement with a ring he made himself from clay. This was not a quiet week in the Windsor household.

The Wales Family Conquers Wimbledon

Let us set the scene. Twenty-nine degrees. Centre Court. The most anticipated royal box attendance of the summer. There was Kate, patron of the All England Club, in an olive Emilia Wickstead dress with a partial cape, bronze accessories and a purple bow brooch in the Wimbledon colours, flanked by George, twelve, who wore a panama hat and used a personal fan with the confidence of someone twice his age, and Charlotte, eleven, whose bright blue dress and white ballet flats were noted, not for the first time this summer, as an exact echo of an outfit her mother wore to the same event in a previous year. The apple does not fall far from the tree.

On Saturday, for the women’s final, Kate had appeared alone in a strawberry red Roland Mouret dress and presented the trophy to Czech player Linda Noskova, who defeated Iga Swiatek in a genuinely exceptional final. Kate received a standing ovation from Centre Court as she walked out and later chatted at length with Canadian doubles player Gabriella Dabrowski, who played through breast cancer treatment in 2024. “She said it was very inspirational, which I feel the same about her story,” Dabrowski told reporters afterwards. Two women who played through their diagnosis, from very different positions, finding each other briefly at a Wimbledon trophy ceremony. It was rather beautiful.

On Sunday the whole family watched Jannik Sinner defend his men’s singles title against Alexander Zverev, with William and George sharing quiet conversation in the royal box while Charlotte sat with Kate explaining the finer points of the match. Both children wore Wimbledon panamas. Both children fanned themselves in the heat. The only absentee was Louis, eight years old, who stayed home, clearly deemed not yet ready for the decorum requirements of the men’s final, which if you have ever watched Louis at a public event you will understand entirely.

The Polo, The Gingham, and the Trophy That Almost Wasn’t

The day before Wimbledon, Kate appeared at Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park for the DMMI Royal Charity Polo Cup. her first attendance at the annual event since 2023, having missed the last two years during her cancer treatment and recovery. William was on the field in his familiar navy number four jersey, making his fifteenth appearance in the charity match, which this year raised funds for Wales Air Ambulance, the Royal College of Paramedics, Evelina London Children’s Hospital and seven other causes chosen personally by the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Kate wore a sleeveless black and white gingham dress by Temperley London – a brand she hadn’t worn since 2017, and one whose founder announced she was stepping back from the label just days earlier, which means this dress arrived at a very particular moment. She looked, in the language of every report filed that afternoon, divine.

William’s team won. Kate presented the trophy. As the winning team captain reached for the cup, it wobbled dangerously on its base. Kate’s hand shot out and steadied it before anyone could register what had happened. The crowd laughed. Kate grinned. William caught her eye. Disaster averted with the calm efficiency of a woman who has been preventing things from falling over in public for fifteen years.

She then kissed her husband on both cheeks and the pair walked hand in hand off the pitch, which is the kind of PDA the royal family rarely commits to in front of cameras and which the internet rewarded with approximately one million shares before the afternoon was out.

Worth noting: William and Harry have played this charity polo match together many times over the years. Harry was in the UK this week, forty minutes away in the Cotswolds. The absence was not discussed publicly by anyone present but it’s a stark reminder of the state of the relationship between the brothers.

Harry’s Week: From Highgrove to Goat Yoga

Now, to the story that has kept every royal correspondent in the country working overtime.

Harry spent the week in the UK for the one-year countdown to the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham. He played wheelchair rugby and pickleball at the National Exhibition Centre. He visited military bereavement charity Scotty’s Little Soldiers at Maxstoke Castle in Warwickshire, where a nine-year-old girl named Poppy, whose father died from leukaemia in 2020, asked him what made him laugh on hard days. He replied, without hesitation, that his children do, that Archie and Lilibet are reliably, immediately funny in ways that cut through even the worst days.

He was also stepped on by a goat. During a goat yoga session at the Scotty’s Little Soldiers event, one mischievous nanny goat trod directly on his crotch while he was lying on a mat. Harry exclaimed, broke into laughter, and covered the area with his hands. “What are you doing?” he asked the goat. The goat offered no explanation. It remains the most widely shared royal clip of the week.

Between engagements, Harry was spotted leaving Althorp House in Northamptonshire, the family estate of the Spencer family where Diana is buried on a small island in the middle of the estate’s lake. Harry stayed there with Meghan, Archie and Lilibet while in the UK, the estate closes to visitors on those exact dates each year. It is the place where his mother’s memory is most physically present, and he has visited it every time he has been in England. For Archie and Lilibet it would have been their first visit to the resting place of their grandmother.

The headline of the week: King Charles and Queen Camilla welcomed Harry, Meghan and the children to Highgrove on Friday, a private family gathering, no cameras and no details released or leaked so far. For Charles it was the first time he had seen Archie and Lilibet since the Platinum Jubilee four years ago, and only his second meeting with Lilibet in her lifetime. The palace confirmed it happened.

The Most Romantic Royal Engagement in Years

And finally, a love story that has charmed everyone it has reached.

Samuel Chatto, twenty-nine, Princess Margaret’s eldest grandchild and son of Lady Sarah Chatto, announced his engagement this week to fellow artist Eleanor Ekserdjian, twenty-nine, with whom he has lived and worked in London for the past five years. He announced it on Instagram in the simplest possible way: “I’m really delighted to say that Ellie and I are engaged. And we couldn’t be happier.”

The ring: he made it himself. Sam is a ceramicist who works from a studio in West Sussex and spent time last year in Japan completing an apprenticeship with a master potter. He proposed to Ellie with a handmade white porcelain band, twisted, delicate, genuinely beautiful in the photographs, and an object that a jewellery expert has politely noted may require some care in daily wear given that porcelain is not, technically, a conventional ring material.

Ellie is an abstract painter and film artist whose work is held in private collections including London’s Redfern Gallery, and whose parents are an art history professor and the Financial Times’s art critic. They met in Edinburgh, where both studied, and have attended royal events together since 2024, including Peter Phillips’ wedding last month and two Christmases at Sandringham, which as this column has noted before is the most reliable royal signal of serious intent.

King Charles was informed and is, the palace confirmed, “very happy for them both.” A spring 2027 wedding is being planned. The ring cost considerably less than any jewel in the Windsor collection. Princess Margaret, who loved artists, kept them close and spent her life among them, would, one suspects, have been absolutely delighted.

From goat yoga to Wimbledon finals, from a kiss on a polo field to a porcelain ring made in a studio in West Sussex, this was a week that reminded us why we watch so closely. The Crown continues on despite the relentless news cycle. Until next week, keep the tea piping hot and the tiaras polished.