Home / Royal Mail / EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Justin Welby’s past association with serial abuser could have jeopardised the royal knighthood he was awarded for presiding at King Charles’ Coronation

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Justin Welby’s past association with serial abuser could have jeopardised the royal knighthood he was awarded for presiding at King Charles’ Coronation

Justin Welby’s past association with serial abuser John Smyth could have jeopardised the royal knighthood he was awarded for presiding at King Charles’ Coronation. 

My well-placed source whispers that Welby’s former links to Smyth and the ongoing inquiries into his abusive behaviour led courtiers to red-flag the King’s nomination of Welby to the Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in the New Year Honours. 

The unanswered questions would probably have caused any other gong to be at least paused by the honours scrutiny committee. 

However, the King doesn’t need to consult anyone about handing-out the RVO and decided to ignore courtiers’ warnings.

Justin Welby ‘s past association with serial abuser John Smyth could have jeopardised the royal knighthood he was awarded

Justin Welby is made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order by King Charles III at Windsor Castle

Justin Welby is made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order by King Charles III at Windsor Castle

Tradition dictates that departing Welby will be garlanded with the Royal Victorian Chain, a rarely awarded honour usually given to retiring archbishops. 

It’s also entirely in the King’s gift. But Welby isn’t the only tainted prelate to receive it. George Carey was awarded it in 2002 despite his long involvement protecting disgraced abuser Bishop Peter Ball. 

When Welby became archbishop he ordered an independent inquiry. Ironically, given how Welby clung on, he ordered Carey to resign as an honorary assistant bishop in Oxford.

How did Cathy Newman wind down after roughing up the Archbishop on Channel Four News last Thursday? By filling the Channel Four News studio with music. Kathy gave a virtuoso performance on the violin with her string quartet The Statutory Instruments. It wasn’t perchance The Lambeth (Palace) Walk, Cathy?

How did Cathy Newman, pictured, wind down after roughing up the Archbishop? By filling the Channel Four News studio with music

How did Cathy Newman, pictured, wind down after roughing up the Archbishop? By filling the Channel Four News studio with music

Apropos my tale about the late Queen not wanting a Nobel prize. Could her son have a chance of becoming the first British royal Nobel Laureate? 

Serious discussions were had about nominating Prince Philip, mainly for his conservation work and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, but the self-effacing consort did little to encourage his zealous friends. 

Princess Anne was nominated in 1990 by president Kaunda of Zambia for her work with Save The Children but lost out to Mikhail Gorbachev. 

Friends of King Charles have long thought he deserved the accolade for his decades of pioneering environmental work – something he is determined to carry on with. There’s still hope.

King Charles III is crowned with St Edward's Crown by The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby

King Charles III is crowned with St Edward’s Crown by The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby

Gary Lineker had told Esquire magazine he accepted he will ‘have to slow down at some point’. This from a guy who appears for a dozen minutes of screen time in just one hour-long programme a week, for £1.35million p/a. ‘Slow down’ any further and he’d be comatose.

Having replaced Sally Hawkins in the role of Mary Brown in the latest Paddington movie, Emily Mortimer counted herself lucky that when acting opposite Paddington he was represented by a bear’s head.

‘Normally where you’re acting with something that isn’t really there, you just get a tennis ball on a stick,’ she says. That’s no way to speak about Hugh Bonneville, Emily!


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