Tricky times to be a Royal. Just ask the King of Spain, nursing hurt pride and facing a monster dry cleaning bill after subjects pelted him with mud and insults following the flash floods that killed at least 200.

In the UK, King Charles and Prince William are dealing with the fallout from a fairly extraordinary investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches into their, almost secret until now, property empires.

This is property they mostly acquired when some old King killed some other old King in 1395. On which they pay no, or little, tax.

It’s a brilliant piece of time-consuming journalism that will probably win awards.

What does it do to the Royal’s reputation?

Folk who are as close to the Monarchy as I am likely to get just shrugged.

This view goes like this:

Dispatches has never liked the Royal Family. The Times has done a great piece of work, but so what? Landlords charge rent.

The tax the Royal’s pay is set by Parliament – if you want to complain, complain there.

The PR advice from such quarters is for Charles and co to keep a low profile for a bit, but otherwise, don’t complain, don’t explain.

They should leave it for others to make the point that they are obliged to run their affairs in business like fashion. They can’t just go around giving away freebies, even to the NHS.

Apparently.

So, don’t pick a fight, just walk away. A period of masterful inactivity, says one City spinner.

Let Royal fans dismiss all this as a “hatchet job” on GB News. (It would know one by sight).

Ok, but even someone like me whose view of the Royal Family is to be baffled by its existence, but otherwise not to care very much, found all this unsettling.

The tolls on beaches, schools, charities, wind turbines, fire stations and the rest are very hard to justify.

The notion that they couldn’t just let those organisations off the bill wouldn’t stand up to much scrutiny, I expect.

The likelihood is that this story keeps rolling. The Sunday Times will have more next week and the week after.

At some point, the King and his son have to offer some things up in mitigation.

Otherwise it’s mud-pie time.

Now, they can’t make some clumsy “refund” to the NHS, since that rather admits they are in the wrong here. It needs to be deeper than that.

Perhaps a key test will be if MPs in the Cabinet get involved. They might, if only to shift attention away from last week’s Budget.

They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. So let’s have some of that, with lashings of bleach just to be sure.

Defenders of the Royals might want to remind people that they cost just 77p each a year.

The trouble is, newspapers might be about to make such value-for-money claims look dubious to say the least.

Please send candidates for press release of the day to: Simon.english@roxhillmedia.com