Charles at Seventy

by Robert Jobson

  The prince, of course, was well aware of the intrusive and unwelcome attention she was getting from the media and he did feel responsible. He felt it was his duty to do something to protect her, but he was powerless to do so. It didn’t seem right to him that he had a team of armed Scotland Yard PPOs looking after him and she, a defenceless young woman, had nobody. He didn’t need a letter from his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, to remind him of that. Inevitably, his curt missive came anyway. Philip wrote Charles a letter – because that is the ‘regrettable’ way they communicated, the author Sally Bedell Smith writes – telling him it was unfair to Diana’s reputation to dawdle. Either propose or release her, he advised. ‘It was measured and sensitive,’ said Charles’s cousin, Lady Pamela Hicks, who told Smith, author of Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life, that she had read the letter. Some, including Bedell Smith, say Charles felt he was ‘bullied into marriage’. That is not the case.

  His parents were obviously keen for their son and heir to throne to marry and produce an heir himself, but to this day, despite forthright claims to the contrary, he absolutely does not blame his father or mother for the ill-conceived marriage with Diana and his inability to back out. He knew, however, once the press machine gathered momentum, that he had no way out. The prince explained to a close friend years later, ‘To have withdrawn [from the marriage], as you can no doubt imagine, would have been cataclysmic. Hence I was permanently between the devil and the deep blue sea.’

  For Charles and Diana, despite the glaring problem that they barely knew each other, the die was cast. A date was set for the marriage and nothing would be able to change it. Diana, too, we now know from her own lips and from Andrew Morton’s brilliant Diana: Her True Story, was having second thoughts. She told her sisters just days before the wedding that she didn’t think she could marry Charles because he was still carrying a torch for Camilla Parker Bowles. ‘…I went upstairs, had lunch with my sisters who were there and said, “I can’t marry him, I can’t do this, this is absolutely unbelievable.” They were wonderful and said, “Well, bad luck, Duch [their nickname for her], your face is on the tea towels so you’re too late to chicken out.” So we made light of it.’ She later also revealed that the couple had met just twelve times before she walked down the aisle. It would have been unthinkable today.

  Diana also recalled on the Settelen tapes that she had felt sorry for him at Earl Mountbatten’s funeral, which she said led to the clumsiest of sexual advances by Charles. ‘I said “My heart bled for you as I watched,”’ she said. ‘I thought, “This is wrong you are lonely, you should be with somebody to look after you.”’ She went on, ‘And the next minute he leapt on me, practically. It was strange. I thought, “This isn’t very cool”…but I had nothing to go by because I’d never had a boyfriend.’

  Despite all their misgivings, Charles proposed to Lady Diana Spencer on 3 February 1981. ‘It was like a call to duty, really,’ Diana revealed in audio recordings used in the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words. ‘He sat me down and said, “Will you marry me?” I thought the whole thing was hysterical, getting married. It was so grown up. And I laughed. I remember thinking, “This is a joke.” And he was deadly serious,’ Diana reflected afterwards.

  In reality, neither Charles nor Diana was actually in love with the other, although both may well have been enamoured with the idea of being in love, he with a much younger, beautiful woman and she, as somebody who loved the romantic fiction of Barbara Cartland, being swept off her feet by a charming prince. The result was the last of the great arranged royal marriages in an epoch when such arrangements were doomed to failure and acrimony.

  Charles obviously loves his sons – the result of this marital union – and there were periods in the marriage when they, like any couple, felt closer after the birth of a child. He respects, too, the profound love they share for their late mother and the way they have cherished her memory. But he is, according to an impeccable inside source, equally irritated by some of the ‘unbelievable and pernicious lies’ promulgated long ago by the media – ‘aided and abetted by somebody rather close to me [Diana]’ – who he believes, ‘lived hand to mouth with the press’. He abhors such malevolence. Those close to him say he would like the stories spread about him by Diana and the media corrected because he feels they are in danger of wrongly becoming ‘historical fact’ and totally distorting what really happened.

  One of the falsehoods disseminated by the princess is the ‘news’ that he and Diana had spent two nights together, one on board the Royal Train (which Diana and her family denied at the time). The Duke of Edinburgh was reportedly furious about this and is said to have sent his eldest son a strongly worded letter – although nobody other than the sender or recipient has ever seen it – warning Charles that his reputation as a gentleman and her honour would be under threat if he didn’t propose to Lady Diana.

  That tryst-on-the train story was a well-publicised and often-recited one that heaped pressure on Charles unfairly because the incident never actually happened. The timing of the Sunday Mirror story was certainly sensitive, as was the subject matter. The editor, Bob Edwards, insisted he had an impeccable source (as it turned out, one of the local policemen assigned to watch the train overnight in the sidings). The Queen’s press secretary, Michael Shea, was robust in his response and made it clear the palace took ‘grave exception’ to the report. After making further checks, Edwards refused to print an apology and said he would print their correspondence, thus giving himself another splash story – under the banner headline ‘PRINCE CHARLES AND LADY DIANA’ – agreed by the palace.

  Diana herself was deeply shocked and upset by the story. After all, she knew that she had not secretly visited the royal train. She was devastated, too, by the implication that her boyfriend had been two-timing her while she was tucked up in bed miles away. By December 1980, Diana’s infuriated mother, Frances Shand Kydd, was growing tired of the slights against her daughter’s good character and wrote an uninhibited letter to the editor of The Times for publication, protesting in the strongest terms about the ‘lies and harassment’ that Diana had been forced to endure since the romance with Charles had been made public. ‘She [her daughter] had denied with justifiable indignation, her reported presence on the Royal Train.’

  It is an ‘extraordinary’ fabrication that has haunted Charles ever since it was first circulated. It irritates him to this day, quite possibly because it is the one story that, more than any other, set him on a course to the altar out of protecting his own and Lady Diana’s honour, despite the fact that there was not a shred of truth in the story.

  He explained to a close friend, ‘The most extraordinary and pernicious of these is that first of all I secreted Diana on board the royal train on the eve of our wedding. This was endlessly denied at the time. The truth is the Daily Mirror [it was actually the Sunday Mirror] had mistaken a private secretary’s blonde secretary for Diana. The press obstinately stuck to this story. Then, years later, they pushed the invention even further, claiming it was the Duchess of Cornwall [I had secreted aboard the royal train] after all.’

  Charles reportedly ‘wept’ his heart out on the night before his 1981 wedding to Lady Diana Spencer as he felt torn between his feelings for former girlfriend Camilla and his new partner Diana. It is also claimed, once again totally falsely, that he smuggled his then married mistress into his suite of rooms at Buckingham Palace for a secret tryst on the same night, just hours before marrying Diana. Charles regards this as ‘monstrous’.

  He told a friend, ‘One of the worst lies of all is that the duchess was smuggled into Buckingham Palace the night before our wedding in 1981. The idea that this could even have happened and that I could have done any such thing is beyond belief, and yet this monstrous nonsense has persisted.’ He went on, ‘There are doubtless endless other lies and inventions that I have no idea about including – may I add? – the duchess being with me in Switzerland while I was skiing. I dar
e say there is nothing that can be done about all of this.’

  Even the BBC compounded a myth involving the duchess that riles the prince even now. In 2001 it wrote, ‘But, for the woman who has in the past suffered such indignities as being labelled the “Rottweiler” and having bread rolls thrown at her by Diana fans, to have come this far down the Highgrove path without facing further hostility must in itself count as a significant achievement.’ The Daily Telegraph, too, in 2007 wrote, ‘Her unpopularity was such that an irate shopper was reported to have thrown a bread roll at her in a supermarket in Wiltshire.’

  Charles went on, to friends, ‘Another persistent lie is that the duchess had bread rolls thrown at her by angry shoppers in a store in Chippenham. This was in fact a totally fabricated media exercise stunt which involved actresses throwing bread rolls at one another. A lookalike actress was employed and placed in the store in Chippenham.’

  Many will still cling to what they have been told. I have no doubt that the prince is sincere in what he has told his close circle and that the truth has come to light now.

  Chapter Eight

  FATHER AND SONS

  ‘It is your selfless drive to effect change, whether that is to improve the lives of those who are on the wrong path, to save an important piece of our national heritage or to protect a particular species under threat, which William and I draw inspiration from every day.’

  PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX, IN A SPEECH AT A BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDEN PARTY IN HONOUR OF THE PRINCE OF WALES’S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

  The whirs and clicks of the photographers’ cameras went into overdrive as the royal party, led by the Prince of Wales, stepped onto the back steps of Buckingham Palace. But he knew they weren’t really trained on him. The four royals – Charles, Camilla, Harry and Meghan – stood underneath a specially erected awning with the words ‘THE PRINCE OF WALES’S 70TH BIRTHDAY PATRONAGE CELEBRATION’, topped off with his heraldic badge of three white ostrich feathers emerging from a gold coronet. A ribbon below the coronet bore the motto Ich Dien – ‘I Serve’.

  After the last blast of ‘God Save the Queen’, all four duly descended the steps and began working the crowd, meeting a number of the 6,000 people who were invited from 386 of Charles patronages and 20 of his military associations. A number of guests from the police, fire and ambulance services, mountain rescue and the RNLI also attended.

  Inevitably, though, the photographers’ lenses focused on the newly ennobled royal, the Duchess of Sussex, immaculate in a silk-crepe pencil dress from the British brand Goat and a Philip Treacy dome hat, as this was her first official engagement since marrying Prince Harry.

  Harry, the newly created Duke of Sussex, then marked the occasion with a speech of self-deprecation and rare warmth towards his father. ‘Pa,’ he said, using the term of endearment again, ‘while I know that you’ve asked that today not be about you, you must forgive me if I don’t listen to you. Much like when I was younger. Instead, I ask everyone here to say a huge thank-you to you, for your incredible work over nearly fifty years.’

  He praised Charles’s ‘selfless drive to effect change’ in a heartfelt speech. ‘We are here today to reflect on and to celebrate my father’s dedicated support to all of you and the work that you do.’

  He went on, ‘As I was preparing for this afternoon, I looked through the long list of those who had been invited. Pa, I was again struck by the range and diversity of the work which you are involved with. It is your selfless drive to effect change, whether that is to improve the lives of those who are on the wrong path, to save an important piece of our national heritage or to protect a particular species under threat, which William and I draw inspiration from every day.’

  Occasionally, however, the level of belligerence has shocked the prince, as both boys have, on occasion, challenged him. William has even been known to speak firmly in his father’s face. It is reminiscent of his mother’s hot temper, which Charles had to deal with on a frequent basis during their marriage.

  In private, William sometimes defies his calm, family-guy demeanour. It is this chameleon-like characteristic that makes his father go, on occasion, on to the qui vive when dealing with him. ‘William has quite a temper, and can fly off the handle at the slightest thing. He demands deference from those ranked below him, but in truth when looking upwards he rarely gives it,’ said one former member of the Royal Household. ‘The prince is wary of his mood swings,’ the source said. ‘We all were.’

  The grandfather of three is particularly conscious of avoiding confrontation with his eldest son when it comes to his dealing with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and newborn Prince Louis, whom he adores. After newspaper talk that he felt edged out by the Middletons, the Duchess of Cambridge’s parents, Michael and Carole, over the time he spent with them, matters improved. He has revealed that he now shares precious moments with his grandson, Prince George, messing around in the garden. ‘The most important thing is I got him planting a tree or two,’ he said.

  For a time there was some friction between father and son, particularly when William felt his father was ‘using’ his popular son in what could be perceived as PR opportunities. During a media day, the prince’s PR team revealed how a ‘doting’ Prince Charles had turned his garden at Highgrove into what was described as a ‘toddler’s paradise’. It was reported in 2015 that the heir to the throne, whose gardens at his private Gloucestershire home are his life’s work, had recently refurbished the tree house once played in by Prince George’s father, Prince William, and uncle, Prince Harry, for the little prince to inherit. To cap that he has also installed a £20,000 hand-made artisan shepherd’s hut, complete with a little bed, wood-burner and French oak wooden floors, in his wildflower meadow for George, then two, to enjoy. William was furious at his father that the revelations had been planted in the tabloids.

  William is also easily irritated if photographs of his children appear in the background of official photographs of his father without being cleared by him first. ‘He can be a bit of a control freak when it comes to things like that,’ one former member of the household said. So it was a little surprising that, for his seventieth-birthday exhibition at the palace – entitled Prince & Patron, for which the prince loaned out his favourite artwork, trinkets, and family photos to help present a glimpse of his home life – among them was a never-before-seen photograph of him cradling his firstborn grandson, George, with his elder son, the Duke of Cambridge, by his side.

  The three future kings, rarely captured together in a photograph released to the public, look relaxed, with the then baby George fast asleep in his grandfather’s arms. Charles and William both have open-necked shirts, in a casual family photograph likely taken at Clarence House or Kensington Palace in 2013. George is pictured leaning into the prince’s elbow, as the duke, who would have been settling into life as a new father, sits protectively behind them both.

  It was the first time such a candid family photograph of the three heirs together had been shown to the public and obviously would have had to be cleared by the censor – William – in order to be allowed to be shown. ‘Ha, perhaps William is mellowing. The Prince of Wales would have to have got sign-off on that before allowing it in the exhibition,’ an inside source told me.

  Another senior figure said of William, ‘All this Mr Nice guy to media is an act, a public face. He can be vindictive. He does not have the intellectual capability or the patience of his father.’ That in itself can make William short-tempered when dealing with Charles. ‘He lacks his father’s charm too,’ said another. Another well-placed source remarked, ‘The Boss has a temper, too, but it does not go on and on. He flares up and then it is forgotten about. With the Duke of Cambridge it is rarely forgotten.’ He will never say resolving a situation, such as posing for a family portrait for his father’s seventieth birthday, is easy. His default position is always, ‘It’s difficult…’

  William is extremely competitive, too, even when it comes to media coverage, alth
ough he gives the impression it does not concern him. In reality it does. As Meghan and Harry again hogged the headlines while appearing in Cardiff on 18 January 2018, he had an engagement, too, and chose to debut his new and dramatic buzz cut as he cheered up patients at a London hospital that afternoon, knowing the papers would feature him, too.

  In truth, fathers and sons rarely see eye to eye when the children have become young men. By the time one is old enough to realise that maybe his father is right, the son usually has children of his own, who think he is wrong too. The Royal Family are no different. The Prince of Wales, as a single father, has done his best to avoid confrontation with his boys during their development. But he and William did clash over the son’s comment about destroying the palace’s priceless ivory collection. Charles told William he was being ‘naïve’ during a ‘frank exchange of views’ five years ago according to an informed source. He rebuked William for telling zoologist and chimpanzee expert Dr Jane Goodall he would ‘like to see all the ivory owned by Buckingham Palace destroyed’. William was left in no doubt after the conversation with his father that he should have chosen his words more carefully.

  Charles, while appreciating his son’s sentiment, believes there is a vast difference between calling for action against illegal traders now and ordering Buckingham Palace to rid itself of an enormously important and historical collection of artefacts that form part of the Royal Collection Trust. Items include an Indian throne and footstool (1840–50), carved from ivory and the centrepiece of the Indian section in the Great Exhibition of 1851, and a pair of late-eighteenth-century, seven-storey ivory pagodas acquired by George IV. The idea of such historic items, and others such as Henry VIII’s quill pen, being broken up filled Charles with dread. That said, there are many who know William and his stubborn streak, and believe he will take some form of action when he is king, despite his father’s heartfelt protestations.