The Men Of Windsor House | Princes Of The Palace | Real Royalty

it's a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who got a brand new baby boy [Music] there is blood in their veins that has been coursing through royal veins since before 1066. i mean can you get radio 3 there are not many 90 year old men who are still voted as being stylish time hasn't changed him age certainly hasn't changed him and in fact if anything else he's probably come what we're known in britain as a grumpy elder [Music] charles grew up always wanting to please his father he'd been sent away to school in scotland which he hated he was lonely he was bullied prince charles gave quite a number of interviews and we had never heard him speak before i'm very well informed i think it literally changed his image overnight from this boy with drug ears into a sort of rather a delightful whimsical character he had quite a long period of bachelorhood where he couldn't seem to settle down and suddenly this beautiful young girl came into his life when asked donna was in love with charles she immediately said of course and he said whatever love is today's edition of the sun dedicates its first five pages to a story about the prince's alleged romance with a fellow student [Applause] prince harry is more like his mother he's probably the most popular member of the royal family at this moment in time because people warn to him i don't believe there is any such thing as private life anymore i'm not going to sit here and whinge everyone knows about twitter and the internet and stuff like that people now regard them as part of the celebrity culture they're not they think of themselves as part of history [Music] prince philip is head of the royal family and patriarch of the princes known as a no-nonsense and tough gruff military man he occasionally oversteps the line of political correctness with both feet his rise from a titled but unprivileged background to become the greatest supporter of the longest reigning monarch in british history is the stuff of storybooks but prince philippe's story is true he was born famously on a kitchen table in corfu and he was evacuated in an orange box on board a british destroyer through the 1920s prince philip lived in exile with his parents in paris then at the end of the 1920s his parents split up his mother had a breakdown ended up in asylum in switzerland and his father floated down to the south of france where he ended up with a girlfriend living in a boat following his time at gordenstein which specialized in seamanship prince philip left in 1939 to join the royal navy as a cadet he was astonishingly good looking he's always maintained a very fitted profile and he looked what he was a young greek god so he wasn't like anyone else i think that princess elizabeth would have come up against the first notable meeting was the one when king george vi and queen elizabeth went with their children elizabeth and margaret rose to see the sailors down at dartmouth and prince philip because he was their cousin was charged with looking after them she met prince philip of greece as he then was in 1939 when he was a dashing naval cadet at dartmouth naval college she'd met him before family occasions but this was the occasion when by her own account the the spark was struck very dashing and very handsome and i mean quite unusually she actually thought this man is wonderful you know as a 13 year old could think you know handsome prince and never really had any affection for any other man ever since after completing his initial training at royal naval college dartmouth he joined the battleship hms ramelise as a midshipman during the early stages of world war ii from that moment on as far as i can make out princess elizabeth kept a photograph of prince philip on her desk throughout the war prince philip enjoyed a glittering war career joining the battleship hms valiant in alexandria in january 1941. after his promotion to sub lieutenant he was appointed to the destroyer hms wallis based at rossight for convoy escort duties further promotions meant that he was appointed second in command of wallace at the unusually early age of 21 [Music] hms wallace took part in the allied invasion of italy with the landings on sicily in july 1943 [Music] prince philip was very alpha male quite controlling but and very positive and i don't think princess elizabeth ever met a man like that in her life she was used to going out with uh lord this and lord that and you know people being very deferential to her and suddenly there's someone that comes along and tells her what to do and drives too fast and does all kinds of things and i think he was just so male she was so incredibly in love with him [Music] and there wasn't another canada there were various english dukes or rather dim and there were foreigners even more dim or inappropriate because they fought for the germans in in the war and prince philip had the inestimable advantage of having fought on our side in the royal navy and therefore was okay with news of growing preparations for the royal wedding come these notable pictures of the royal family accompanied by lieutenant philip mountbatt people at court weren't sure who this man was princess elizabeth was a perfect princess she was beautiful she was well brought up she knew how to behave nobody was quite sure about prince philip who was he where were his parents he always said to me that he was essentially pan-european i don't know what he was he certainly he is categorized as being filled with the greek but he doesn't have any greek blood in him at all the general public thought that elizabeth and philip's marriage was a fairy tale made in heaven hundreds of thousands of people gathered outside the palace gates because it was the one good event to cap off what had been quite frankly a dreadful decade homage and rejoicing side by side with flowing pageantry marks britain's greatest royal occasion since the coronation the royal wedding was seen as a sort of new elizabethan age the country was in a terrible state it was very austere right after the war and suddenly this beautiful bride because the casino prince elizabeth was incredibly beautiful and this hanson naval officer were going to carry the country out of the doldrums of war and present them with a golden future but the feeling was very much of their wedding it was like a fairy tale before long the calls of the people were answered as onto the famous balcony came the bride and bridegroom the time of the wedding of princess elizabeth and prince philip his sisters were not invited simply because they were germans living in germany with you know german husbands one of whom was still going through the de narcification process so you know they had to be careful i think the british public on the whole regarded the marriage of prince philip um to the future queen as a welcome blessed relief you know from a time of considerable austerity and awfulness and there was more rationing paradoxically after the war ended than there had been during the war itself and the young princess gathering up her ration coupons to buy the lace for her wedding dress you've got this wonderful romance this dashing naval officer marrying the girl next door who was everybody's sweetheart who was going to be our queen it's strange that now he's cast as a cantankerous old crust and a right wing etc etc when he first sprung upon an astonished world he was regarded as a dangerous lefty there were a lot of people in english society and courtiers in particular who weren't sure who this man was prince philip's meteoric rise in the royal navy continued when he was appointed commander in 1952 philip had insisted after the marriage that he should pursue his naval career she wanted him very much to do this the royal family agreed and so he actually went off to malta where the british navy had still a large contingent in those days he was given his own ship she went out there not as a princess but as the captain's wife and for the first and only time in her life she drove her own car she went to hairdressing salons she met friends in cafes for coffee she had something resembling an ordinary life and it had been her wish and hope that that could could continue for several years it was obvious that she meant to enjoy herself she had no restrictions she could move about on her own and mortar it was a absolutely novel for her you know i think officially she was the boss but in private life i think philip ran the show that's my impression yes seem to pass her around most of the time you know and i shouldn't say this perhaps i've heard them swear the king's unexpected death changed everything not only for elizabeth but for philip too as a couple they had enjoyed a blissful existence in malta where the duke of edinburgh was then based as an officer in the royal navy and their first tour so to speak was brought to an abrupt halt when they heard news of the king's death where in kenya of course it was the duke of edinburgh that broke the news to princess elizabeth and understandably she was devastated people were bowing to her and she was the new queen and for both of them it really brought to an abrupt end what had been as normal a marriage as possible for a royal couple prince philip is a military man through and through if he hadn't married the queen he would have been a highly successful naval officer probably would have reached the rank [Music] suddenly the queen superseded him entirely and i think for the dynamics of the relationship that was quite hard to deal with he had the potential of having a very good naval career ahead of him he served with distinction in the second world war first in the mediterranean the untimely death of the queen's father george vi meant that philip had to hang up his uniform and be there just two steps behind the queen and as anyone who would know prince philip would completely understand he likes to earn everything that he does he did not like the idea of suddenly being appointed admiral of the fleet field marshall and marshall of the royal air force without having done anything to earn it when prince philip went off on his solo voyage on britannia it was very early in the marriage and people were saying oh is there trouble in the marriage there have always been rumors about prince philip and girls i remember prince philip saying to me if i'd fathered as many children as i was supposed to have fathered i wouldn't have had time for anything else the thing about the queen and prince philip is they're very very well matched i mean she took on somebody her own size i went to the theater with them one evening and sat in the royal box with them and the interval came and i stood at the side of the room with the duke of edinburgh and he looked across the crowded room towards the queen it was quite a small woman and she was surrounded by people meeting her and bowing and shaking her hand and he leant against the wall he was holding a drink and he caught her eye and across the crowded room as she smiled at him he merely lifted his glass and toasted her i must confess my lord mayor that it came as a bit of a surprise to realize that we had been married 25 years neither of us are much given to looking back and the years have slipped by so quickly he always said that his main job was to make it possible for his wife to reign one of the ways he supports her is to run all the royal estates for her and he's been extremely energetic at windsor and sandringham balmoral and so forth the queen sees it as her duty to walk at the pace of the slowest person in the land so that nobody in the country feels left behind so there is the duke of edinburgh thrusting going forward trying to do this trying to do that trying to change this and there is the queen quite steadily walking along the queen is the head of state but prince philip is the head of the household he's the head of the family so people have to answer to him we had the good fortune to grow up in happy and united families we have been fortunate in our children prince philip did always have an odd upbringing and an odd childhood he didn't have any serious role models as far as parenting was concerned this later came to be a bit of a handicap when it came to bringing up prince charles and the other royal children the duke of edinburgh simply didn't get his son he didn't understand he had a very difficult relationship with charles they didn't speak to one another as normal father and son if he's your father it must be quite difficult there's no doubt that his relationship with prince harry prince william his grandsons they find him helpful and caring which is not the impression you get with his own sons maybe he always find prince charles slightly exasperating and the fact that he wasn't able to make more of a go of his marriage to princess diana was at least as much his son's fault as his daughter-in-law's i think the queen herself will be the first to admit that prince philip isn't somebody who minces his words he's got an opinion on everything and he doesn't mind expressing it that's just his style because he doesn't do small talk and he doesn't suffer fools and he likes having scientific conversations he likes having deep conversations i've always found him incredibly funny i've met him a number of occasions i found him quite a sympathetic and extremely error diet and very clever person he's very interested in new technology new ideas i mean can you get radio 3 on he's very funny very outspoken says exactly what he thinks if you're prince philip you feel obliged somehow to break the ice and for 60 years he's been going down receiving lines shaking hands and as he has said to me himself trying to make people laugh and he does that with you know a merry quip and just once in a while it goes awry outside the railway station he met somebody and he said where are you from and he said swansea sir and prince philip said you're a long way from home and the headline the next morning in the local newspaper was prince philippine salt welshman he suggested to a chef who was collecting an award that it was no wonder he was a good chef because he was certainly the size for it and this man was enormous and wasn't offended at all thought it was hilarious well i think prince philip actually gets a bit of a raw deal in the way he's presented he's seen as this gruff character that that makes comments that he shouldn't say this scheme is not a a cure it's a preventative once you've got a soccer hooligan you've got a soccer hooligan and somebody else is going to have to try and cure him of that the purpose of the scheme basically is to try and catch people while they are moderately civilized still and keep them that way from the duke of edinburgh's point of view he'll suggest that he's only saying what other people think and the slitty-eyed comment or even to the aborigines do you still throw spears at each other might be a question that others might wanted to have asked i'm frequently accused of meddling in affairs that have no concern with no concern of mine i'm always told i mustn't take sides and unlike by not my brother-in-law but you know the chap i mean i don't i don't even get onto the electrical electoral role and in fact to use a currently okay word of the press i must not be controversial it's terribly easy for journalists to latch on to an alleged failing i think he's been rather unfairly treated i've discussed prince philip's gaffes with him endlessly and he finds it quite depressing that they are constantly being reported as he says he sighs sometimes when he goes on a foreign trip to find there will be reporters there because he knows all they're really waiting for is another gaff and i think most of us with a great deal of sympathy for those of you who have got to at the sharp end who are trying to do your best to make life uh civilized and tolerable for the locals he's a straightforward old-fashioned military officer that is uh doesn't suffer falls gladly he suffers from foot and mouth disease sometimes when he makes comments that maybe he shouldn't totally use for a lot of well-meaning people to wring their hands in conference and to point out the dangers of pollution or destruction of the country's countryside if no one is willing or capable of taking any action but the truth of it is he comes from a different age he's just a man of his generation who says what he thinks and sometimes people don't like it impassioned speeches will be so much effluent under the bridge unless it is followed by drastic political action well sir time is fast running out and it remains to be seen whether those in political authority can shoulder their responsibilities in time and act quickly enough to relieve a situation which grows more serious every day i think the reality is a lot of the time that time hasn't changed him age certainly hasn't changed him and in fact if anything else he's probably come what we know in britain as a grumpy old man despite his advancing years prince philip is still known for his tireless work to support the queen and his youthful attitude which allows him to bridge an age gap of more than 70 years so how would you sum up the sort of the identicate young person you might meet i mean are they enthusiastic are they lazy are they inquiring some of all yeah i didn't even want to generalize about young people they're dangerous well there's no sense you have that they're less willing to take risks nowadays you know that's a great danger about being generalizing about young people because you can find somebody who's the exception or not just somebody but a whole group of them who are exceptions i think what happens is that when a group of young people like binge drinkers appear everybody's oh my god the young people terribly all become binge drinkers well they haven't it's that one group who were mods and rockers a few generations you probably won yourself i mean people go through well you know you never know people become quite civilized when they grow up what's very interesting about the queen and the duke of edinburgh is they are very consistent people what you see is what you get they're not performers and for the queen herself when you consider that she's surrounded by a lot of lackeys and perhaps a lot of yes men actually having a man in her life to tell her what he thinks of what she's doing is probably a refreshing change prince philip's personal thoughts on his family and on half a century of marriage it's been a challenge for us but by trial and experience i believe we have achieved a sensible division of labor and a good balance between our individual and joint interests course after 50 years of experience i find there's a great temptation to give advice the trouble is that no two marriages are quite alike however i think that the main lesson that we've learned is that tolerance is the one essential ingredient of any happy marriage it may not be quite so important when things are going well but it is absolutely vital when things get difficult there's been documented rows that have taken place between the queen and prince philip i think um he uh once suggested that she wasn't driving well or he wasn't driving well and he said that she should get out of the car and walk i think there's been the kind of rouse that you would expect after 60 years of marriage in any couple all too often i fear prince philip has had to listen to me speaking he is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years contrary to an awful lot of people's predictions the monarchy appears to be as strong as it has ever been and i think that has an awful lot to do with prince philip i think without him maybe the institution might have failed altogether the prince of wales is heir apparent to the throne the first in line to become king even though he will probably be amongst the eldest princes ever to become king if the queen lives as long as her mother prince charles won't come to the throne until he's 77. an extraordinary monday morning and the nation prepares to celebrate prince charles was born at buckingham palace on the 14th of november 1948. [Music] he was taken away from her when she was only 10 days old because she developed measles after giving birth to charles and in that crucial kind of bonding period between mother and child they didn't have that following queen elizabeth's accession to the throne in 1952 he became both heir apparent and duke of cornwall he was then very largely looked after by nannies and the queen had a nanny who frankly terrified her she was called helen lightbody and she was a dragon and the queen really didn't enjoy going into the nursery so that was another factor that kept the queen away from charles so charles grew up really bonding much more closely with his grandmother um the queen mother than ever with his mother she was quite simply the most magical grandmother you could possibly have and i was utterly devoted to consigned to the care of his nanny he became more introspective welcoming his mother back with a handshake rather than a hug at when the queen came back from that long tour and got off the train at paddington station and her son was been dying to see her came up to she didn't kiss him or put her arms around him she shook his hand and what does that say that says where's my mummy charles grew up always wanting to please his father always wanting his father's approval and never quite managing to get it the duke of edinburgh simply didn't get his son he didn't understand he didn't think boys should cry it was all stiff upper lip and manage your emotions and charles didn't do that in 1958 prince charles became the first prince of wales since 1936 after the abdication of king edward viii to marry wallis simpson now jeff shirley reporting on gordonston as prince charles arrives with his father the school's most famous old boy he'd been sent away to school in scotland which he hated he was lonely he was bullied there he would have been much happier somewhere like eaton where he would have been close to his family and close to his grandmother particularly he had a miserable time miles away from from everything that was familiar to him but the general concept was that actually the press on the whole didn't really know where gordon still was and probably in their minds would have had to clamber over mountains of heather in order to find this place if you're going to send someone in to gordon like prince charles it's going to have an impact on him whereas for prince philip fantastic absolutely loved every minute of the spartan um the way that the system was arranged by kurt haarn and he loved the whole philosophy charles grew up a very insecure boy who turned into an insecure man he doesn't have a lot of confidence and lord mountbatten who was the queen's uncle recognized that charles was slightly adrift as a teenager he was not a happy child and mountbatten took him under his wing and started to prepare him for the future and to give him some some confidence and to make him feel valued prince charles gave quite a number of interviews and we had never heard him speak before and he shared a very engaging kind of rather dry humor and i think it literally changed his image overnight from this rather sort of uncomfortable boy with drug ears you know with his hands behind his back trying to imitate his father into a sort of rather a delightful whimsical character of his own i do believe i got a bite i have a bite i'm getting out a little slap at a little slackner yes taking up the strain taking up the train this is most exciting most exciting ladies and gentlemen i've never seen anything quite like it before i think i've got quite a large one here it's really very large indeed charles comes forward to be invested with the name style dignity and honor of prince of wales and earl of chester the sword for his album [Music] the investiture of prince charles was a state occasion before the welsh people at carnarvon castle on the 1st of july 1969. i charles prince of wales to become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship and faith and truth i will bear unto thee to live and die against all manner of folks the acts of investiture homage and fealty are complete despite being criticized by the radical anti-monarchist elements of the swinging 60s charles spent many months in wales trying to win over his critics i believe he was stopped in the street not so very long ago by a group of anarchist students with mr peter dawson who said the uh the rich duke of cornwall should give away all his land and money how do you react to that sort of thing i'm very well informed [Laughter] um but i react that sort of thing well um i suppose i try and look upon it with a certain amount of sympathy i mean i think it's wrong to just you know say you're you're wrong you know therefore i don't want to listen to you i try and understand what they're getting at and why they're getting at it [Music] during the 1970s prince charles became known as a playboy for his liaisons with beautiful and eligible women and his easy charm with music and movie stars [Music] prince charles was really seen a bit of action man and having had a string of beautiful girlfriends he had quite a long period of bachelor hood where he couldn't seem to settle down and it was actually attracting the wrong kind of headlines was he a playboy prince was he not able to make decisions was he not able to commit [Music] there was always a great fascination i suppose inevitably in prince charles's girlfriend and every time prince charles went out with somebody the press screamed she's gonna marry her is this it because everybody knew she would be princess of wales and one day would be queen if you chose to marry one of these young ladies the obsession with prince charles's girlfriends became a frenzy when a quiet demure girl named diana spencer came onto the scene in 1980. i'm old enough to remember working on a newspaper and going one evening to a theater where prince charles had taken a young lady suddenly this beautiful young girl came into his life and it really improved his pr enormously everybody loved diana when they first encountered her when she went up to balmoral that first time the queen and the duke of edinburgh were there many members of the family were there plus friends and they all thought diana was absolutely magic although she had some royal connections in her family she wasn't the usual type of girlfriend that i remember prince charles accompanying to places that marriage came about in a strange way it came about through granny power his grandmother the queen mother and her grandmother lady firmoy got together and they agreed that whoever charles married would have to be a virgin and lady for my assured the queen mother that diana was a virgin so the queen mother said then that's the one problem for diana spencer and what she really fell victim to was a was a time warp we all like the idea of the royal family being like everybody else but if they get too like everybody else then what's special about them by the 1970s when diana spencer appeared on the scene most people couldn't care less whether the bride walking up the aisle was a virgin or not in ordinary life but when it came to the royal family we still expected this old-fashioned view she was a virgin this made her a very prime candidate following their fairy tale romance the prince of wales married lady diana spencer on the 29th of july 1981 in saint paul's cathedral and diana became her royal highness the princess of wales both the queen and the duke of edinburgh were delighted i think of the prospect of diana marrying prince charles when it happened she was a beautiful charming delightful innocent young girl and they had high hopes for the relationship i thought the engagement interview was terribly sad when asked whether donna was in love with charles she immediately said of course and he said whatever love is and i i'm amazed that she's been brave enough to take me on and i suppose in love of course whatever in love means it must have hurt her enormously when he said that because what would our wives have said if we'd said on the day of our engagement publicly that whatever love is [Music] he was sending a message to camilla [Music] but paul camilla's problem was sort of catch-22 when she met prince charles she fell in love they went to bed together but that sort of automatically ruled her out as a future queen prince charles and diana princess of wales had two sons prince william born on the 21st of june 1982 and prince harry born on the 15th of september 1984. the cracks in the relationship of charles and diana began to appear in the late 1980s she was troubled because of her childhood at the time charles didn't know what the problem was she lived in a kind of romantic world she read barbara kartland romantic novels and i suspect that she simply thought royal life would be like something out of a romantic novel and she had no support system no family around her that's what went wrong more than anything with diana nobody tells you anything at all one of the astonishing successes that prince philip has has been and has made of his life is that nobody told him either but he instinctively knew how to behave other other interlopers aren't told and i think that was ultimately the great tragedy of princess diana charles simply didn't know what on earth to do he didn't know how to help he thought that it was his fault he gave up the friends that diana said she didn't like got rid of staff that she didn't like did everything that he possibly could to to make her happy he couldn't make her happy nothing could make her happy she fed herself emotionally on the adoration of strangers and this caused a huge problem with charles because rather than being a support to him she outshone him he would make speeches and the press ignored his speeches and they talked about diana's hairstyle or her clothes and could she perhaps be pregnant again charles found that incredibly frustrating the queen was immensely distressed by what was happening in the marriage of charles and diana for a number of reasons but particularly to the happiness of the couple and their ability to be parents to william and harry whom she loved dearly as a grandmother but also who represented the future of the royal family the queen is very aware of current trends she lives in the world like the rest of us she's not remote in some castle somewhere and she knew that if diana was that unhappy that the marriage really would have no future nobody sees the queen without an appointment but diana used to wait in the pages vestibule until the queen's last visitor if you like um had left and then she'd dash in before the next one and she'd just cry and say everybody hates me i hate my mother i hate my sister i hate my husband and the queen not used to this kind of moral confrontation just didn't know how to handle diana it would be a great mistake to think that she blamed diana for what went wrong if anything i believe that she and her husband prince philip put more of the blame on prince charles and prince charles of course as we since discovered was already committed emotionally to another woman the prince of wales and camilla parker bowles seemed together in public quite clearly charles and diana and camilla and fergie and andrew it's endless how the royals go wild at bedtime and that creates problems when he was interviewed by jonathan dimbleby and asked whether he'd committed adultery he again told the truth yes but only when the marriage had irretrievably broken down and for some strange reason the great british public chooses not to believe him but to believe diana's version that camilla was always there that there was no chance of it ever working i've come to the conclusion that really it would have been far easier to have had two wives to have covered both sides of the street at that time everybody was saying good luck then i hope everything goes well and how lucky you are to be engaged to such a lovely lady and my goodness i was lucky enough to marry her and we had many many messages it's amazing what ladies do when you're backstage quickly went wrong the first inclination that i got that the marriage had gone wrong was a palace maid her name was michelle ryles went to their room at balmoral one morning to to clean it up and every single thing in it had been smashed it was wrecked and charles had slept on the floor in his dressing room i mean it was from that moment on it was obvious that i mean all couples have rows but this one never ended well before the actual breakup of the marriage things were beginning to be said i can remember a very senior royal advisor talking to me about it a bit and it wasn't until one particular writer and the princess got together and she decided that she wanted her story out there that the whole thing exploded i wrote a book 14 years ago called charles victor more villain that caused a huge fuss i set out to discover whether he had never stopped loving camilla and had used diana and abused her the conclusion i came to was that there were no villains at all they were all victims it was not charles's fault that it hadn't worked he was a needy individual she was a desperately needy individual and they were unable to help each other i wish to inform the house that buckingham palace are at this moment issuing the following statement it reads as follows it is announced from buckingham palace that with regret the prince and princess of wales have decided to separate their royal highnesses have no plans to divorce and their constitutional positions are unaffected this decision has been reached amicably and they will both to continue to participate fully in the upbringing of their children diana continued to live at kensington palace and bring up william and harry but her lifestyle and choice of partners was beginning to destabilize not only the family but also the monarchy we knew she was seeing dodie fired son of mohammed fired the owner of harrods and i think a lot of people thought that was a very strange relationship she went with the boys to stay with the fireds in the south of france diana was photographed cavorting with dodie the boys found that quite uncomfortable there was a lot of publicity they went back to to england and flew up to scotland and joined their father and they started the family holiday [Music] i was asleep in bed and the phone rang and one of my bosses said nick there's been a car crash in paris dodie fired he's dead and we think the princess is dead too [Music] so i obviously got up got dressed went straight to the studio in the middle of the night and then was really on television i have to say for the next week really at first ambulance crews managed to keep the princess alive but her heart had stopped beating by the time she was admitted to hospital the surgeons fought for two hours to restart her heart at three o'clock this morning london time they admitted defeat and announced that diana princess of wales was dead it was charles's burden and responsibility to break the news that their mother had died to william and harry which i think must have been enormously difficult the week after diana died was a long week from a media point of view the queen was up at balmoral she happened to have staying with her at the time prince charles prince william and prince harry what she was doing was giving strength to her grandchildren so that they were able to come down to london and go through the huge ordeal of their mother's extremely public global funeral the one thing that diana be praised for forever more was giving those children real love and security in their early days the people who loved her were the staff she would often take william and harry down to the kitchen to have their tea and they wanted fish fingers and things like that but if they had it upstairs she would bring both boys down to the kitchen afterwards to say thank you camilla parker-bowles had a long-standing relationship with prince charles from being at the center of a bitter marital feud to gradually increasing her association with charles after diana's death she had a grandmother who'd been a mistress of a previous prince of wales when they first met she actually said to prince charles my grandmother slept with your grandfather how about it and what young man is going to say no to that prince charles and camilla parker-bowles were married on the 9th of april 2005. he was always quite tense with diana because there was always another fight around the corner another intense moment another drama but with camilla she understands the man having been his mistress haven't been the love of his life for 50 odd years charles has done a huge amount in his life he's never had any kind of message of congratulations from his parents the queen i think frankly feels that charles is a bit too grand for the rest of the family the way in which he intervenes talking to government ministers his espousing of quite controversial causes is dangerous for the monarchy prince charles has not found it easy bridging the divide between prince philip's stiff upper lip view of manhood and his own more sensitive outlook as he nears his 70s prince charles still retains his desire to assert his individuality it's also extremely nice to know that i share a birthday with a biscuit fully old guy and rather nutty he does really care about this country and its people for instance the gulf war afghanistan that's why they're always going and visiting troops when i was a royal correspondent never any doubt that he knew what my job was wasn't always easy dealing with prince charles but subsequently i have come to admire the fact that we have a prince of wales who is not afraid sometimes to speak his mind the queen can't do that her opinions uh on anything have to be very very careful very very neutral over the past century we have made it into a rubbish dump the effluents we pour heedlessly into its waters are a threat to its delicate ecological balance prince charles remains a king in waiting ready to make his mark on the british monarchy whether he will still be willing to speak out on things i rather doubt i think he knows that the job of being monarch is to pursue that strictly neutral line due to the length of queen elizabeth's reign prince charles is unlikely to evoke the same sense of anticipation which greeted the young queen at the dawn of the second elizabethan era that honor will likely fall to his son prince william [Music] prince william is the elder son of the prince of wales and the late diana princess of wales on the 29th of april 2011 following his marriage to katherine middleton the title the duke of cambridge was conferred on him by the queen prince william was born at 9 03 p.m on the 21st of june 1982 at st mary's hospital paddington london prince charles came out and he was so excited and i remember climbing over the barrier and going up shaking his hand and saying congratulations can you tell us how the princess is she's very well thank you and your son he's in excellent form too thank goodness looking looking a bit more human this morning [Applause] first [Music] after attending mrs meiner's school the duke became a pupil at wetherby school in london from the 15th of january 1987 until the 5th of july 1990. from a very early age william began to realize the challenges that lay ahead of [Music] him [Music] kid said to william excuse me is it true that you know the queen and william sort of just looked at him and said don't you mean granny i remember one picture i've got in fact he's going to run on the polo field his nanny's grabbed him and she's scolding him and william's face creases into into tears and i remember what happened afterwards he ran to his mother and she sat on his lap she soothed him william and harry grew up in this very tricky household they absolutely adored their mother their mother absolutely adored them and so did their father prince charles proved to be a loving understanding caring father of whom the boys are immensely fond prince charles would have listened to princess diner he would have seen that the characters of his children were different and would require different types of attitude towards the way they should be raised and i think that certainly was reflected in the ways that he raised as a father princess william and harry she was wanted the children raised a certain way and she got that you know she would take them to mcdonald she would take them on the streets to see homeless people and and to try to wake them up to the fact that they are special as princes but they've got to appreciate the other side of life [Music] the one thing that diana be praised for forever more was giving those children real love and security she wanted them to mix with other children she wanted them to have fun to be freer prince william looks a lot like his mother in many respects but his character is more windsor than spencer [Music] from september 1990 the duke attended ludgrove school in berkshire for 5 years until the 5th of july 1995. [Music] over time prince william began to show more of his mother's easy and warm character from july 1995 william attended eden college to study geography biology and history of art for the young prince it would be a year to forget he'd grown used to his family constantly being in the media spotlight but now they were making headlines for all the wrong reasons the royal family has reflected family life in general because behind palestine they are a normal family with normal problems and normal emotions in fact they're under more pressure really than the rest of us because their moves are all scrutinized and if there's problems in the relationship the cameras are there to pick it up and that very much happened of course with prince charles and diana i asked prince philip and he said we're a family we are a family these things happen in families and they coped with it as a family would and their reaction to it was that of parents of their particular generation [Music] [Music] it looks as though the princess died about four hours [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] charles went in in the early hours of the morning and told them the news who knows what went in that room it must have been utterly utterly devastating the public pressure for the queen to make an appearance was such that she and the boys came outside the gates of balmoral [Music] and looked at all the flowers and tributes to diana which must have been devastatingly awful for those boys with prince william i just remember how brave he was in the subsequent days after she died because it was his moving gestures when he went to shake hands with people thanking them for their kind words was so brave thank you so much that he had sort of a natural race and nobility about him to rise above his own personal trauma [Music] prince william was only 15 years old when diana princess of wales was killed in a car crash in paris on the 31st of august 1997. together with prince harry he walked behind their mother's cortege at her funeral creating one of the most poignant images of the 20th century whenever i see an image of the princes behind princess diana's coffin and i think when any of us see those images i imagine everybody feels just incredibly protective and devastated at the level of their loss there was a time when prince william wasn't terribly keen to walk in the procession because he thought the whole thing had turned into a terrible ghastly media shenanigans but the night before prince philip said to him i think when you're older you would regret it if you didn't walk in your mother's procession and i will walk with you and that's an immensely supportive grandfather i think he got it absolutely right and there's a moment if you look at the footage of that that they're passing under whitehall and they think the cameras aren't on them and prince philip sort of leans over says how's it going that's what you need from a grandfather an occasion of that kind i think i was outside a westminster abbey and it was quiet it was quite thousands of people there and you could just hear the clip-clop of the hooves of the horses as the coffin went by all you could hear was the sobbing of people i mean not not weeping but absolutely sobbing never being able to say the word mommy again in your life sounds like a small thing however for many including me it is now really just a word hollow and evoking only memories as soon as the funeral was over they went to highgrove with their father nobody watched television nobody read any newspapers they just did things with dad suddenly the world could see that actually they loved their father which they always did but it was it was always this feeling that maybe he wasn't a very good father but he always was a good father this summer's photo call with the princes is the first at the family's country home high grove cameraman getting a rare glimpse at such close quarters prince charles and prince harry waited outside the house to see prince william drive up in a car lent to him for lessons even royalty must use l plates his appearances for the press such as driving a car for the first time seemed slightly awkward as though he still regarded them with suspicion for their hounding of his mother the photo call here at highgrove is arranged on the basis that the princes are then left alone to enjoy the rest of their summer whilst prince william grew up in the grandeur of kensington palace kate's childhood home was this victorian semi in the village of bradfield south end a red rose for prince william tonight after a day in which he'd captured the hearts of the scottish people the once media shy prince found himself thrust into the limelight as never before the things you have to do nowadays he said appearing at a new dance center in edinburgh earlier in glasgow the 19 year old was greeted like a pop star as he arrived one of the city's most deprived housing estates having grown up with his every move being followed prince william was determined to spend his student years away from the media spotlight and without the trappings of royal life royal by birth but with the common touch he charmed these pensioners telling them he was looking forward to university [Music] it's very nice after a gap year in which he visited chile belize and african countries prince william chose to study at st andrews university in 5 [Music] scotland the ancient town of saint andrews on the east coast of scotland seemed the perfect choice small remote and with a close-knit student community it also laid claim to being britain's top matchmaking university [Music] the small university town of saint andrews had never seen anything like it prince william greeted like a local hero as he arrived with his father even before he'd attended a single lecture of his art history course the student prince was a celebrity before coming to saint andrews prince william said he wanted to be treated like an ordinary student but with half the town turning out to see him that seems a distant prospect for this rising star of the royal family was an agreement a gentleman's agreement between the palace and the press that they would leave him alone to study without endless intrusion from paparazzi photographers you know when we did this agreement i never thought it would stick because i know the british media and they can't help themselves but i suspect that they did have the memory of diana in their minds and of her tragic end and of the way she had been constantly hounded by the paparazzi i don't think the british media wanted another diana on its hands this historic agreement between the palace and the press meant that william would have the chance to spend his university years as just another student albeit a very famous one in the ensuing years he didn't go off the rails he he grew up he went through school he got good academic results and he found a nice attractive girl at university william would spend his first year living at san salvator's halls of residence known locally as sally's and it was here that he and kate middleton would finally meet for their second year at university william and kate shared a house in one of saint andrews most exclusive streets renting a top floor apartment with two other friends it was here that their romance blossomed but it would be another 18 months before the relationship was revealed in the press when the couple were photographed together on a skiing holiday in the swiss alps this was prince william at the weekend enjoying the slopes at clusters with his father the prince of wales in full view of the photographers in return the paparazzi and their clicking shutters were expected to withdraw leaving the royals to enjoy the rest of their holiday in private that's why prince william is said to be irritated and palace officials furious about today's edition of the sun ironically this dispute comes at a time when prince william appeared to be increasingly relaxed with the press attention happy to joke with the photographers many of whom are known on first name terms you watched the rugby last night i might have done arthur yes disappointed but we're still world champion so i'm quiet about that arthur edwards the sun's veteran royal photographer says he believes prince william wasn't necessarily an unwilling victim today's edition of the sun dedicates its first five pages to a story about the prince's alleged romance with a fellow student the girl said to be the prince's first serious girlfriend is kate middleton she is a flatmate of the princess and andrews there wasn't to be any more denying after that because it was a picture for everyone to see this was a couple and wills gets his girl i think was the headline and he had but the truth was he'd had her for quite a time william wales kate's life was going to change unbelievably she was a sort of a normal girl who went to marlborough college we knew even then she was going to become one of the most photographed women in the world [Music] they had a few splits along the way but they have been a very solid couple for a very long time which is in contrast to what charles had to put up with you know in terms of the relationship [Music] diet prince william and his girlfriend kate middleton have split up itv news can reveal it was a mutual decision although they've broken up before this time it is final [Music] i at the time wasn't very happy about it but actually it made me a stronger person you find out things about yourself [Music] i really valued that time although i didn't think at the time wembley stadium the 1st of july 2007 on what would have been prince diana's 46th birthday william and harry hosted a special tribute concert for their mother backstage the princes rubbed shoulders with hip-hop royalty and the recently reformed take that but rumors were growing of another eagerly anticipated reunion there was a lot of speculation about whether kate and william would back together as an item and the day before the concert i asked william whether he would be inviting kate uh well uh yeah yeah i've got lots of friends coming so you know everyone's gonna be there tonight and and it's gonna be a great night basically that's very well avoided william very diplomatic rather than the lightning fairy tale romance of prince charles and diana prince william enjoyed a more conventional relationship with catherine middleton before marrying her on the 29th of april 2011. [Music] there she was in her beautiful dress flashing diana's ring and generally enjoying every minute of it although there were nerves there it was a very happy occasion in their lives and it was the happiest i'd actually ever seen william first time since 1660 a major member of the royal family who's in line to the throne is marrying a commoner prince william is now very happily married to a young lady who seems absolutely suitable in every way i mean this is this royal family it's a fairy story all over again there's less sense of the weight of burke's peerage what matters i think is that she's capable of becoming queen [Music] there had been some serious training at sandhurst this was the prince in action in cyprus the 44-week course is notoriously grueling and william obviously wasn't spared the heavy lifting the duke of cambridge joined the royal military academy sandhurst as an officer cadet and was commissioned as an army officer in front of the queen at sandhurst in december 2006 joining the household cavalry blues and royals as a second lieutenant unlike so many younger generations who are at odds with their parents and grandparents you have a couple of young men who are clearly devoted not just to charles but to their grandmother no doubt that the queen and prince william have a very good relationship william we know looks up to her enormously when he was eaten which is the school right beside windsor castle he would regularly go and see his grandmother have tea with her she would introduce him to aspects of her work prince william went on to train as an raf search and rescue pilot with the royal air force graduating as a fully operational pilot in september 2010 [Applause] on this day the 22nd of july in the year 2013 we welcome his humble duty a future king the firstborn of his royal highness the duke and duchess of favorite the third in line with the throne two years after their wedding the duke and duchess of cambridge were delighted to announce the birth of their first child george alexander louis on the 22nd of july 2013 their second child charlotte elizabeth diana was born on the 2nd of may 2015. both children followed a new royal tradition by being born at st mary's hospital paddington a very loving and happy family man he endures his little boy george and new daughter charlotte there's no doubt the whole influence of kate has been great [Music] [Music] i think he's divine he always smiles he's [Music] [Applause] [Music] there is no doubt that prince harry has the common touch ever since he was born on the 15th of september 1984 harry has been known for his ambitious humor and ability to live on the wild side after attending mrs meiner's school prince harry became a pupil at wetherby school in london and then joined his older brother william at ludwig school in berkshire a guiding hand from mum at first as prince harry in formal blazer and trousers helped inspect a guard of honour then the transformation into fatigues and at the double for a taste of life in the queen's army prince harry i think is probably the most natural uh and honestly open person as a member of the royal family at this moment in time when he meets people they warm to him not because he's a prince necessarily but because of who he is as a person it was his first formal public engagement first chance to learn there are some princely perks when your mother is commander in chief of the like dragoons while he was off having fun the princess was telling the troops her son is fascinated with all things military prince harry joining in too young yet to be joining up prince harry also followed his brother william to eaton college he's a far more serious thinking guy than people take him for he may not be academically the most you know accomplished but this is a guy that can fly helicopters he's been to the south pole eaton's most famous pupil returned to the classroom today but prince harry may find it a little hard to concentrate on his studies his weekend was spent coming of age in every sense an 18th birthday marked by his emergence as the protector of his mother's legacy and as a royal figure in his own right it was no coincidence that the prince's first solo engagement should be a visit to great ormond street in london princess diana was president of the children's hospital until her death just before harry's 13th birthday five years on he has pledged to continue the charitable work she started harry's decision to take an interest in his mother's work has been encouraged by the prince of wales no doubt relieved that his younger son's problems with drink and drugs seem to be behind him he certainly can be a if you like a playboy prince he wants to be i think he's more serious than that um he's had his play by moments i had run-ins with him where he's trying to tip me off over the stories do you sort of have the three carries really the sensitive little boy the fighting man and the idiot [Applause] and i think people love him for all three of those things he's probably the most popular member of the royal family at this moment in time you wouldn't think it before going on camera or before making a public speech he's very nervous but actually he's that's adds to his naturalness and adds to the charm harry has this more difficult job of defining what a spare should do and copying his mother who had a similar identity problem next door to prince charles seems to be very shrewd i think it's probably very difficult being the second son because you don't really have a defined role you're just the joker in the pack get this on camera you forgot your boots oh my god that's another classic here use where are my ones the markers go the attention is very much focused on the eldest child as it was with william i mean diana made a very conscious effort not to allow that to happen but of course it did i'm not just doing it for them i always do it i always clean them i played yesterday i didn't have a chance if someone else would do it for you huh after completing his a-levels he took a gap year it was during this time that prince harry highlighted the plight of orphans in lesotho prince harry went on to co-found the charity center ballet with prince cieso of lesotho in memory of their mothers like all royal princes harry decided to pursue a military career by entering the royal military academy in santos during 2005. harry was commissioned in april 2006 as a second lieutenant in the household cavalry blues and royals we're very lucky indeed to have so many families i know because i meet them for instance you have two or three sons in the armed forces of one country are incredible as a parent you worry the whole time i think if you're out here perhaps you know you're getting on with everything it's not the same but for everybody left behind it's it's ghastly despite his father's reservations for his safety prince harry saw active service during two tours of afghanistan finishing his second assignment as an apache helicopter co-pilot and gunner it wasn't done in the wrong way but it was just i was always hoping to get forward um and i got here on christmas eve um and going from bullet magnet to um anti-bullet magnets most of the guys were pretty bummed that i was here because nothing was happening for the first few days i was here but things are picking up again now presumably you have and you will kill the enemy yeah so lots of people have we fire when we have to um take a life to save a life but um the main the main thing for us is the tricky escorts if guys get injured uh we come straight into the overhead puts off any any possibility of an insurgent attack because they look at us and just go right that's an unfair fight we're not going to go in there harry became important by you know being this big character being this brave boy this is my bed it's the i don't really make it when i'm down here which is joy that's it made harry is a party creature he always will be so obviously he's going to get caught out he has walked out of nightclubs and smashed photographers drunken escapades at parties have only made prince harry appear more like one of us but is he really more clown prince than crown prince [Music] every misdemeanor that harry's had has leaked out to the press because we all want to see harry being harry and then of course there's the notorious strip uh at vegas which was really really wild it was probably a classic example of me probably being too much army and not enough prince i don't really want to get into into details of what i think of what other people think you know the other day i you know i probably let myself down up my family down a lot of people down but then the day you know i was i was in a private area and i there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect he's in no hurry to get married he doesn't have to the heat is off him because william and kate have had their babies and that whole situation is now resolved in terms of the line of succession i'm sure that he would want to find someone but he's equally aware of how difficult that role will be because she'll be under the spotlight every second of the day chelsea and cressida both loved him very much and and they both probably felt differently about it but neither of them fancied that kind of life the more family and children that william and kate have the more people are going to want naughty harry i can't wait to get back and just sit on a sofa um it's going to be it's going to be ridiculous after bouncing around in a turret my hips are bruised my ass is bruised because of the turret obviously so i don't see any respite for him i really don't i think people are going to want more of harry because he's still the bachelor prince prince harry rose to the rank of captain before leaving the armed forces in june 2015. in a statement issued through kensington palace prince harry emphasizes how hard a decision it has been to move on from the army when i've spoken to him he was saying quite clearly i'm 30 i've reached my time when most of my peers that joined the army have already gone it's probably time for me to try and do other things he has often spoken of the deep bonds forged in the services such as with corporal ben mcbean he was badly injured when serving on the same tour of afghanistan he's done really well with helping out all the charities as well with obviously all the guys have been injured we don't want pity but we do want the opportunity to grow and to to overcome our illness you've spent a lot of time with these guys i get a sense that you're at your most relaxed with them and that they make you feel a little humble maybe sometimes no com completely i i love spending time with these guys and i like to think that i know roughly what they're going through as well do you miss the army um i miss parts of it but um there's another reason why i'm gonna be involved with these guys for the rest of my life because you know that that military banter never goes that dark sense of humor will always be there prince harry may well never be king but he is more spencer than windsor more likely to wear his heart on his sleeve and more likely to be taken to other people's hearts prince harry's life may well be at a crossroads now but he is unlikely to ever fade into the background for over 60 years the queen has reigned over britain and its commonwealth elizabeth ii is the matriarch to the princes of the palace as wife mother grandmother and now great grandmother she has provided the sense of duty that binds the windsors together the duke of edinburgh said to me once you know when the queen first became queen and went on tours in the early 1950s millions millions of people came out of the streets and cheered and if the queen had taken that attention for herself it would have been corrosive she knew the attention the adulation was not for her it was for the position of being queen when she became queen there was still a large percentage of people do believe that she was anointed by god it was a very different class system the establishment was all-powerful royalty did not give interviews there's sometimes a perception of aloofness and distance which was certainly bridged well i think i would i would i would twist that slightly and say to you that perhaps that's the way that other people think we want to be rather than necessarily the way that we would choose to be the queen's lesson to the royal princes is that public duty must always come before personal pleasure i don't think she has yet seen the film called the queen because she's not interested in herself she doesn't read about herself she is not preoccupied with herself she doesn't belong to the me me me generation she isn't touchy feely as a human being she is discreet she does her duty there are two big influences one was the example of what happened with her uncle with the eighth king for such a short time never even crowned that would have instilled in her the idea that you do not walk away from what is your duty what her father had done she carried on she was even more taken to people's hearts than her father had been the ability to sacrifice for the nation is what separates a future king from a prince you've seen what prince william is doing in australia and new zealand i for one think that that the royal family is relevant i think it's relevant probably more so in the 21st century than we really either want to or realise four generations of the house of windsor prince philip prince charles prince william prince harry and prince george he's a character he clearly is winning the hearts and minds of people it's difficult to know what type of king he will be will there even be a monarchy who knows i mean i personally think there probably will be as the elder generation of princes hands over to the younger generation they can be satisfied that princes of the palace have upheld the essence of what monarchy is to unite the people [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Real Royalty

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Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, prince charles, prince phillip, prince william, prince andrew, british royal family, charles and diana, will and kate, prince harry, the crown

Id: FwvBvc9FZe8

Length: 86min 45sec (5205 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020