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All eyes have been on the royal family this week as they have carried out their engagements while Prince Harry has visited the UK. And while the Prince of Wales once played polo for charity alongside his younger brother, today he is taking to the field as Harry is more than 100 miles away attending Invictus events in Birmingham.
Prince William is competing in the Royal Charity Polo Cup at Guards Polo Club. This is the 15th time he has played in the annual event, which Kensington Palace said will take the total amount raised to £15 million ($20 million). Ten charities supported by William and Kate will divide the proceeds this year.
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Guests attend the DMMI Royal Charity Polo Cup 2026.
“To be one of the charities that benefits means that we are actually able to use that funding to make a real difference in our work to end homelessness,” Mick Clarke, CEO of homelessness charity The Passage told T&C. “The second point is that it’s raising the profile to quite a diverse crowd. It’s quite an international gathering in terms of people who are there…It’s much-needed income but it’s also raising wider awareness of the work that we and the other patronages do.”
William first visited The Passage as a child with Princess Diana. Last Christmas, he brought Prince George to help with preparations for their festive party.
“It’s nice from a Passage perspective to have that generational link,” Mick said. “You can feel incredibly low, understandably, if you’re on the streets or you’re at risk of becoming homeless. And the fact that the future King of England thinks that he wants to spend time, and not just spend time talking to you but actually learn from what you have gone through to be able to look at how change can be brought there’s something very powerful about that. People really do enjoy meeting him and being able to tell their story, and he’s very impatient for change as well.”
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Princess of Wales arriving for the Royal Charity Polo Cup 2026 Guards Polo Club.
Another charity benefitting from the funds for the first time is Wales children’s hospice Tŷ Hafan, which Kate was announced as Patron of last year. The organization supports around 300 children with life-shortening conditions and 3,000 family members each year.
“For us as a children’s hospice in Wales, we rely on a huge amount of our income coming not from statutory sources but from the generosity of the public in Wales and from other sources such as events like this, and we just simply couldn’t exist without those sources of income,” Tŷ Hafan Chief Executive Irfon Rees told T&C.
“We have an ambition to reach more families. Unfortunately, there are many families with children with life-shortening conditions who don’t receive the type of support that we can provide, so we have an ambition to ensure that no family in Wales is in that position. And so support like this allows us to extend our reach, to meet more families, to invest in our care workforce so that we can be there for families when they need us.”
The other eight charities are Wales Air Ambulance, the Royal College of Paramedics, Shout, Forward Trust, Maternal Mental Health Alliance, We Are Farming Minds, The Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity and Evelina London Children’s Hospital. The Chief Executive of Evelina London, Dr. Gubby Ayida told T&C they were “incredibly grateful and genuinely honored,” to be benefitting, adding that the Princess of Wales was a “wonderful supporter of the children, young people, families and staff we care for, so it means a great deal to us to be recognized in this way.”
Town & Country Contributing Editor Victoria Murphy has reported on the British Royal Family since 2010. She has interviewed Prince Harry and has travelled the world covering several royal tours. She is a frequent contributor to Good Morning America. Victoria authored Town & Country book The Queen: A Life in Pictures, released in 2021.