Biographer says Philip wanted to ‘make a man’ of Charles to prepare him for throne
After devoting much of his life to the challenge of preparing his eldest son Charles to rule effectively, Prince Philip showed signs of overcoming doubts about the heir, a family biographer told The National.
Author Michel Faure says the Greek-born consort, who died two months short of his 100th birthday, set himself a mission to “make a man” of his son and overcome qualms about his fitness to reign.
In his book, Charles, King of England, published last month, Mr Faure charts the roles of sport, military service and shared environmental awareness in easing a difficult relationship.
Faure, a veteran French foreign correspondent and writer, detects a gradual shift in father-son dynamics as the “attentive but authoritative” Duke of Edinburgh began to recognise Prince Charles’s efforts to show himself worthy of his rank and of his father.
But he feels that the prince only partly won his father’s trust, and continued to fear as well as admire him in a relationship which continued to be ambiguous.
Faure recalls how, as recently as 2017, the duke implied that he did not consider his decades-long project to shape his son as a dependable future king to have been an unqualified success.
He views as a key moment, first revealed by biographer Tom Bower, when the duke was quoted as questioning his son’s suitability for the monarchy.
At a dinner with friends, Prince Philip is said to have described Queen Elizabeth II, then 91, as being in robust health and likely to live for at least 10 more years.
“Charles would have little opportunity to damage the monarchy if he were king for only a brief period,” he reportedly added.
Bower’s own account says that the duke also voiced doubts about whether his son “who had barely come to terms with the 20th century, could unify the country in the 21st”.
Speaking to The National after the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, Faure accepted that if the remarks were accurately reported, they may have reflected the royal consort’s “sometimes questionable humour”, intended to amuse chums at a dinner rather than to mock his son.
“It was gentle,” Faure said, “but shows how Philip saw himself as different from Charles, his son sentimental while he was pragmatic.”
Prince Charles’s touching televised tribute to “Dear Papa” demonstrated the warmth of his own feelings and respect for his father.
But as a blunt, sport-loving polyglot with a distinguished naval career behind him, the duke had found it hard to cope with a child whom he regarded as having been mollycoddled by nannies, according to Faure.
With the Queen concentrating on “taking care of the kingdom”, it fell to the duke to raise Prince Charles and his siblings.
He wanted, Faure says, to make his eldest son a man.
Faure says that, in many ways, the pressure paid off. “As he got older, Charles began riding, took up the sports his father played, followed him into the Royal Navy.
“He began to trust himself and also earned some confidence from his father.”
Given his background as a globe-trotting reporter and his expertise on Latin America, a book on Britain’s royal family may seem a surprising project for Faure, now 70.
“The French are fascinated by British royalty,” Faure told The National during a stay in London where his grown-up children live and work. His daughter, Emilie, an art expert, was previously based in Dubai where she directed the Farjam Foundation, the UAE’s first private museum.
“Sometimes the French are more monarchist than the British,” he says. “They don’t want their own royal family back but we have what is sometimes called a republican monarchy, where the constitution gives the president so much more power than parliament.
“My book on Pinochet was a lot more challenging, but when I tell people about this one on Charles, they are more interested.”