Tensions between King Charles and Prince William were given a rare public airing in the London Sunday Times this weekend.
The British media does not frequently draw attention to the blindingly obvious froideur between father and son, but a lengthy, pro-William article, featuring on-the-record interviews with some of his key lieutenants, lays bare William’s disdain for his father’s anachronistic and high-handed style of governing. The piece also mocks Charles’s royal dress, casting William as a man of the people who hates wearing a “top hat” as he was forced to at Royal Ascot this week (to be fair, William looked both uncomfortable and daft).
The Royalist has been reporting on tensions between father and son for over a year now.
The headline in itself is a provocation: “How Prince William will change the monarchy, by those close to him.” “Compassing” the death of the monarch used to be treasonable and is considered in especially bad taste by protective courtiers given the king’s cancer battle. As Prince of Wales, Charles merrily bought into the play act that his mother would live forever. William, by contrast, we are told, is busily “planning for his role as monarch and shaping the institution he will one day lead.”
Indeed, one of his key advisers, Jason Knauf (the man who threw his former boss, Meghan Markle, to the wolves in the Daily Mail copyright case) is quoted as saying: “He has been thinking about the future for years … this thinking about the next [role] is how is this going to be reflective of him?”
There is also a suggestion in the piece that his father has been complacently reliant on his courtiers. William, a source says, plans to “take every stone and look underneath it.”
The Daily Beast has reported this year that William dislikes the medieval costume element of monarchy that his father seems so keen on, and The Sunday Times goes all in here, with a source, described as one “who knows the Waleses well,” mocking Charles’ coronation garb, calling the Imperial State Crown that Charles wore on the day a “ridiculous thing that looks like it’s out of Disney.”
Earlier this year, when William had to get into silk and ermine for the Order of the Bath ceremony, one friend of the prince told the Daily Beast, “This is exactly the kind of medieval cosplay William thinks is ridiculous. He understands and respects tradition, but this kind of event is hardly telegraphing a monarchy which is modern and relevant.”
The Daily Beast has also reported that Prince Edward and Sophie are likely to get a promotion under the new reign, which The Sunday Times confirms.
This week, after Kate dramatically pulled out of the Royal Ascot carriage procession, The Daily Beast reported that William and Kate weren’t particularly interested in racing, and some suspected Kate might have pulled out all the stops and turned up for an event she was interested in (like the Wimbledon tennis championship). The Sunday Times says the same thing and suggests Princess Anne’s horse-mad daughter Zara Tindall could be put in charge of horse racing diplomacy.
Overall, while not exactly candid, there are enough hints in the new piece to suggest that the relationship between William and the king is more frayed than we are led to believe by the palace.
Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, of course, shed light on the strained dynamics between William and Charles.
Harry recounted disagreements, emotional wounds, and incidents of broken trust that have marred William and Charles’s relationship over the years.
Harry revealed that Charles was “jealous of the amount of public attention” William and Kate got, writing: “Willy did everything he (Charles) wanted, and sometimes he didn’t want him to do much, because my dad and Camilla didn’t like Willy and Kate getting too much publicity.”
Charles’s insecurity about being upstaged led to one specific case of micromanagement of William’s public appearances, Harry said, providing an example where Charles’s staff intervened to prevent Catherine from being photographed holding a tennis racket at an event, fearing “that kind of photo would have pushed Dad and Camilla off every front page,” an outcome Charles was not prepared to contemplate.
Harry writes that William was deeply scarred by Charles’s affair with Camilla, saying he was “tormented” by, and has grappled, even in adulthood, with anger and guilt regarding the way he had to publicly go along with his father’s betrayal of Princess Diana. When Charles said he wanted to marry Camilla, Harry recounts that they both “begged” their father not to do so.
Harry also claimed that Camilla leaked details of her very first private conversation with Prince William to the press shortly after the meeting. According to Harry, as late as 2019, William was left “seething” after learning that Charles and Camilla’s staff were caught planting negative stories about him, his wife, and their children to the tabloids.
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