How Kate (and Megxit) have helped heal William and Charles’s often turbulent relationship
After years of tension, the inside story behind a charming photo of a loving father and son
THERE was a time when the relationship between Prince Charles and his elder son worried courtiers. As a youngster, a hot-headed William would often challenge his ‘Pa'. For instance, his anger about the illegal wildlife trade led him to urge that the UK's Royal Collection should get rid of its 1,200 items of ivory. He believed that if they were destroyed, it would set a public example in the fight against elephant poaching.
Charles understood his son's idealism but resisted, convinced that the royal family's extensive collection of artefacts – such as an ivory throne which belonged to Queen Victoria – is an indelible part of its history.
During a frank exchange of views, he apparently told William he was being ‘naive' and rebuked him for his public comments. Yet over the past two years, the two men have become much closer, their bond much stronger.
Partly, this is natural as they get older and realise their shared values – a current heir to the British throne and his successor – in protecting the institution of the monarchy. But, also, it has been a necessity as the institution has suffered blows to its reputation.
The fallout from Prince Andrew's disastrous interview on BBC2's Newsnight in late 2019 about his friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and Harry and Meghan's decision to quit The Firm, have meant that Charles and William have come together to work with a common purpose.
They seek each other's counsel and, significantly, Charles consults his son rather than imposing his own opinions.
As one aide says: ‘He's giving William much more input. He realises that his own reign will be a shorter one than his son's, and therefore it is crucial that William is involved in all long-term planning.
‘They have been spending more time together and are much more aligned. Both are more comfortable in their own skin – and with each other.'
IT'S no secret that William and Harry endured a difficult adolescence after their mother's death in 1997, when they were aged 15 and 12 respectively. Their father, who they felt was absent during much of their childhood, was often blamed for any unhappiness.
In his early days as a married man, William, now 38, preferred to focus on his own life in Norfolk rather than spend time with his father, who lives four hours away in Gloucestershire.
Some interpreted this as a froideur between William's court and that of Charles. Indeed, two years ago, when William was asked to appear in a TV documentary celebrating his father's work for the Duchy of Cornwall (a responsibility that, one day, will be his), an aide tartly retorted that the Duke of Cambridge was ‘not doing anything more for his father'.
That comment suggested a rivalry between the two households. There was talk, too, that William felt piqued that his father sometimes ‘used' his son's popularity, and that of his wife and three young children, to burnish his own image. William was particularly sensitive as he himself is reluctant to use his children (George, now seven, Charlotte, five, and Louis, two) as ‘props'.
There were occasions when William made known his displeasure – such as when Charles, 72, issued an official photo of himself in which framed, private, pictures of his grandchildren could be seen in the background. For William guards their privacy and keeps them sheltered from the public gaze. Similarly, he was concerned when Charles's aides revealed to the media that his gardens at Highgrove had been turned into a ‘toddler's paradise' for the then two-year-old George, with a specially refurbished treehouse.
It must be said that it is characteristic of Charles that he may have been oblivious to the offence caused.
Eyebrows were certainly raised when, on one occasion, he was given the chance to publicly praise his sons' environmentalism but clammed up. It was almost as if he was being crassly competitive.
At heart, though, he must be very proud of his two sons and their work on the environment. After all, the efforts the trio have put into ‘saving the planet' – William most recently with his ambitious Earthshot Prize (designed to incentivise change and help to repair Earth over the next ten years) – are well-documented. When Harry guest-edited an edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme in 2017, he interviewed his father, who glowingly described him as his ‘darling boy'.
Inevitably, Charles was miffed over opinion polls that suggested the public wanted the Crown to skip a generation and that William should become monarch immediately after the Queen.
William and Kate's ‘global superstar' status – with successful tours to Canada in 2011 and the Far East in 2012 – gave momentum to such feelings.
Ridiculous though this proposition was, given our constitutional monarchy, it gained traction in Australia and Canada. After all, who wouldn't want a glamorous young couple as their heads of state, as opposed to a pensioner who represented a bygone age?
Meanwhile, Charles had seemed a little jealous of the amount of time his grandchildren spent with Kate's parents, Carole and Mike Middleton. He made it known that he had felt ‘edged out'.
It's undeniable that William enjoys the easy familiarity of the Middletons and their close sense of family, choosing to decamp to their Berkshire home for a number of weeks after the birth of George.
It was evident that William and
Kate would take the blueprint of her Middleton childhood for their new family life, rather than the
Windsor way. As William said in 2017: ‘If I look at my parents’ generation, there was a lot more stiff
upper lip going on. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for the stiff upper lip, and, for those of us in public life, times when you have to maintain it. But behind closed doors, in normal everyday life, we have to be more open and upfront with our feelings and emotions.
‘Catherine and I are clear that we want both George and Charlotte to grow up feeling able to talk about their emotions and feelings.’
Matters were not helped when Charles missed George’s first birthday party, choosing, instead, to attend a red squirrel conservation event in Scotland. His absence was palpable considering that the Queen made a highly unusual appearance at Kensington Palace to be there. Perhaps, Charles’s attitude can be explained by his own experience as a child: not seeing his parents for long periods, while they were abroad, and sent to an austere boarding school in Scotland. How very different to the hands-on approach to family life of William and Kate.
Charles’s biographer Jonathan Dimbleby asserted that he was ‘timid and passive and easily cowed by the forceful personality of his father’ who ‘easily drew tears to the child’s eye’.
A product of this ‘tough love’ upbringing with Prince Philip’s nononsense approach to parenting, Charles grew up hating confrontation. Better to take a back seat rather than establish too intimate a relationship with his own children.
Thus he gave William freedom from an early age and allowed him and Harry to establish their own household set-ups, away from his.
In practice, that meant William doing things his own way – and not always as his father would have wished.
One former member of the household said: ‘William has quite a temper and could fly off the handle at the slightest thing. His father was wary of making matters worse.’
Yet William is much more secure in his role as Prince of Wales-inwaiting.
As a father-of-three and nearing his fifth decade, he is more patient and understanding.
Consulted much more by his father, he has immersed himself in the workings of the Duchy of Cornwall, which funds the public, charitable and private activities of the Prince of Wales and extends across 23 counties in England and Wales.
And, significantly he did eventually agree to feature in that ITV documentary celebrating 50 years of work for the duchy, touchingly paying tribute to his father while speaking to tenant farmers.
After hearing his son speak, Charles was ‘deeply touched and moved’.
‘Frankly, it reduced me to tears. It did really,’ he murmured.
A key factor in the two men’s maturing relationship, of course, has been Harry’s move to California. Charles’s initial inclination was to try to make a half-in/ half-out royal role work for Harry and Meghan.
But ultimately he united with William
They’re both acutely aware the monarchy’s future rests on their shoulders
William had quite a temper. His father was wary of making matters worse
and the Queen, who, at the socalled Sandringham Summit to discuss the crisis in January last year, told the Sussexes that a hybrid option would not work.
Kate, 39, has also been instrumental in fostering the father/son relationship. Organising Charles’s family portrait for his 70th birthday with Harry and William, who had fallen out spectacularly, did not prove easy.
She helped make it happen and ensured that all the children synchronised smiles for the camera.
She has also encouraged Charles to visit their home, Anmer Hall. This is helped by the fact he is spending more time at Sandringham in Norfolk running the estate, which was once the preserve of his 99-year-old father.
Last summer, Kate made sure that her family was back in time from their holiday to the Isles of Scilly to coincide with Charles’s stay, so ‘Grandpa’ could give birthday presents to seven-year-old George.
She also took the gorgeous, intimate picture of Charles resting his head on a beaming William’s shoulder as they walked in the Norfolk countryside last winter – a photograph released by Clarence House for William’s birthday last June.
Charles spent time with the Cambridges, too, on country walks at the start of this month, when at Sandringham for estate business.
All six share a love of the outdoors, and Charles and William enjoy identifying wild birds to the youngsters – the wetlands around the Sandringham estate attract many breeds of wild fowl, in addition to buzzards, marsh harriers, kestrels, owls and goshawks.
Much more aligned and now much more at ease, Charles and William are acutely aware that the future of the monarchy rests on their shoulders.
Who knows, they may even agree to remove Buckingham Palace’s ivory collection – a decision made by royal decree.