King Charles honors aristocrat at center of William cheating rumors

A recent decision by King Charles III doesn’t just highlight the head-scratching traditions behind British royal titles, it is likely to revive talk about the persistent but unsubstantiated rumor that Prince William became too friendly — or even had an affair — with a glamorous neighbor whose aristocratic husband has a family estate near William and Kate Middleton’s country home in Norfolk.

The glamorous neighbor is the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, a 39-year-old former “bohemian” model better known as Rose Hanbury. She’s married to 62-year-old David Rocksavage, the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley.

Last week, the Daily Mail reported that Charles had named Rocksavage his “Lord-in-Waiting,” a prestigious position that means that the British peer — and presumably his wife — will attend important state and royal events, likely including Charles’ May 6 coronation. The couple also will be called upon to represent the king on various occasions

Yes, all those marquess and Cholmondeley references are quite a mouthful. But the fussy titles continue to add piquancy to the cheating rumors, which began to emerge on social media and in a few U.K. and U.S. publications in the winter and spring of 2019 — a tricky time for the royal family.

That’s when tensions began to boil over between William and his brother, Prince Harry, as Harry himself recounted in his best-selling memoir “Spare.”

Those tensions, by the way, were again in the news Monday as California-based Harry flew 5,300 miles to join Elton John and other celebrity claimants in London’s High Court for the start of their trial against the publisher of the Daily Mail for alleged phone-tapping and privacy breaches. Buckingham Palace made it clear Monday that Charles wouldn’t have time to see Harry, while William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, would be “out of town” due to their children’s spring vacation, the Telegraph reported.

As for the affair rumors, other reports suggest that they played a role in William and Harry’s falling out. Incidentally, the rumors became known as “the turnip drama” on social media because William, Kate and the Cholmondeleys were part of a posh social circle, based in rural Norfolk, that was charmingly dubbed “the turnip toffs.”

As the turnip drama gained traction, Harry’s American wife, Meghan Markle, had become a regular target of reports in the U.K. tabloid that she was too “demanding,” or the cause of tensions between her and Kate or between her husband  and William.

Loyal supporters of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex accused palace courtiers of planting negative stories about Meghan in order to distract attention from William’s alleged bad behavior. On the other hand, apparent fans of William and Kate accused the Sussex supporters of pushing rumors that William had an affair in 2018, while Kate was pregnant with their third child, Prince Louis, to deflect negative attention away from Meghan.

In “Spare,” Harry made headlines by recounting how tensions with William culminated in a violent confrontation in the kitchen of his Kensington Palace cottage in the winter of 2019. During the confrontation, Harry said his older brother called Meghan “rude” and “abrasive” then grabbed him by the collar and ripped his necklace before knocking him down.

In response to Harry’s book, Tom Bower, author of “Revenge,” a critical biography of Meghan, alleged that William had become “incandescent” with rage because the former TV actor had “seized” on the affair rumors and were using them to “needle” Kate.

In an interview with Megyn Kelly in January, Bower said he never believed the affair rumors were true, “but it was huge gossip in London at the time.”

“At the time and apparently, allegedly, Meghan had raised that with Kate to needle her and that was part of the reason why William was so incandescent with rage,” Bower said. “His wife was being asked by Meghan what it was like to be betrayed by (him).”

Now, Charles is reviving memories of the turnip drama by giving this honor to Rocksavage, who’s also a filmmaker and a descendent of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain.

As the Daily Mail editor Richard Eden reported, Rocksavage was previously the “Lord Great Chamberlain” until the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September. He was then replaced, Eden said, making it appear that “he was losing his intimate connection with the monarchy.”

But Rocksavage’s new appointment as Lord-in-Waiting means that he and his wife will return “to the heart of the royal court,” Eden said. William and Kate are “likely to be pleased” with the appointment because they are friends with the Cholmondeleys and neighbors in rural Norfolk, Eden also.

If that’s the case, perhaps this appointment is Charles’ way of saying there’s nothing to the affair rumors. It could also be his way of letting the public know that, as far as he, William and Kate are concerned, everything is good with Rocksavage and his wife.

But it’s hard to believe that the turnip drama will ever die down. Bower brought it up again in his interview with Kelly in January. Last summer, it also reared its head on social media as William and Kate fans accused Harry and Meghan fans of spreading another particularly salacious rumor about William.

The gossip centered on a sex act known as “pegging.” It started with a blind item that discussed an unnamed British royal’s extramarital affair that was “an open secret in London and amongst the English aristo set.” It accused the unnamed royal of having an affair because of his love of “pegging,” which his wife “is far too old-fashioned to engage in.”

People sympathetic to the Sussex point of view jumped on the idea that the unnamed royal had to be William — probably given the turnip drama. To them, it offered yet more proof that that the dutiful heir to the throne and father of three isn’t the straight-arrow family man that he’s portrayed himself to be.