The Tragic Position of Prince Charles | Heir To Sadness | Real Royalty

no baby born in the post-war years could have had a clearer destiny marked for them than Prince Charles Philip Arthur George heir to the British throne childhood play was a diversion from an austere upbringing designed to produce an ideal King his schooling and wider education were part of a program leading to the most important event in his youth his investiture as the 21st English Prince of Wales conscious of his obligations to Crown and country Charles knew he had to find the perfect wife with his wedding to Lady Diana Spencer and the births of their sons William and Harry the Monica's future seemed secure but the fairytale marriage fell apart a year after their divorce Diana died tragically in a car crash in Paris nothing in Charles's life had prepared him for the task of raising his sons alone after the dreadful loss of their mother [Music] the high hopes of Charles's boyhood have descended to the deepest tragedy the dreams of his youth have long gone he still campaigns for his dearly held beliefs in the environment but his own life has become almost a Shakespearean tragedy a few months after Diana died he visited Bhutan one of the world's most desolate regions it was an opportunity for meditation soul-searching and the evaluation of a life that had once promised so much and now held an uncertain future in Bhutan as in other places he found solace in breathtaking scenery which he tried to capture in his watercolor paintings art provided a release from the frustrations of a life spent in waiting to become king as Charles sketched the Himalayan skyline he may have contemplated the failures and the difficulties of his adult life now 50 Charles is twice the age of his mother when she came to the throne in 1952 would feel that he's had a wasted life what has he done with these 50 years as a king in Waiting it's a horrendous job sitting there waiting for your mother to die something that he both dreads and in a way looks forward to Diana's glamour had eclipsed Charles and his family she made him feel that his efforts to be a popular Prince of Wales went unrecognized their personal friction grew into a marital war which damaged Charles's images heir to the throne he is still trying to restore his lost popularity in a way he's still competing with Diana's shadow she's still overshadows all the royal family she's still more popular dead than any of them alive are but nevertheless she has left the way clear now for him to show what sort of man he is and he's a very well-meaning dutiful dedicated person and most of the time he comes across as very sincere very genuine he's got that beautiful chivalrous old-world air about in very gallant he's just absolutely Charlie Diana's death as a former member of the royal family tested protocol there were disagreements over her status char's behaved more like a widower than a divorced husband he ensured that diana was accorded the respect she had sometimes been denied in life he was anxious to help his boys face the public before their mother's funeral William and Harry behaved with remarkable dignity taking strength from the sympathy of ordinary people who mourned their mother but it was their father's love and support that really carried them through their ordeal during those unforgettable scenes before enduring Diana's funeral oceans of flowers were left at the royal palaces as tributes to Diana Charles showed his sons that life had to go on a few weeks after Diana's death he made a visit to South Africa he received a rapturous welcome the sort that he had once enjoyed as a single man savoring his newfound appeal he entered into the spirit of the occasion the burden of rivalry with Diana had been tragically lifted Charles felt free to be himself [Applause] everyone's noted how his own behavior seems to transform since Diana's death how much morale going how much more relaxed he's be I think he always found himself at playing second fiddle to her he always found himself overshadowed by her whatever card he played she seemed to trump and I think he must desperately have hoped that divorce would somehow put an end under this awful story of course it didn't it didn't only her death did there's no doubt since Diana's death that it has looked as if a huge burden has been lifted from Charles's shoulders and in many ways other members of the royal family as well we've seen what I call the Diana fication of the royal family on the Queen's golden wedding anniversary - she was walkabout in Whitehall holding one of these heart-shaped silver balloons the Queen would never have done that in the Prix Diana era and Charles you can't say he's glad she's dead but clearly it's made his life a great deal easier Prince Ari just 13 accompanied his father to South Africa the spectacular displays of tribal dancing proved a tonic for the young boy it was a way of going forward after his mother's death it was part of the process of coming to terms with his terrible loss and it was an experience to share with his father I think one of the the major successes of the South African tour as the way it's shown how the Prince of Wales is coping in the initial stages of being a single parent and indeed he the royal family are conditioned not to show emotion in public but he put his arm around the boy on several occasions he stopped short of giving him a fatherly hug but at least it was a very friendly pat and he's not a normally tactile person Prince of Wales's and I think Harry responded in kind because he was used to it from his late mother of course drinking the local brew reinforced the bond between Charles and his hosts with the added bonus of giving Harry something he could tell his friends about [Music] for Harry Charles encouraged an atmosphere of warmth and laughter Perry constantly looked to his father all the time for guidance or like what are we going to do next where are we going and he kept looking at his father and laughing with his father and they're having a really good time together and one day one of the best days we went to a Zulu village where there were lots of bare-breasted dancing girls and poor little how he didn't know where to look kept sort of chatting to his father's have to say what do I do now it was wonderful to see the interaction between them William and Harry have many happy memories of the love of both their parents Charles was a devoted father and took a delight in seeing his sons grow from infants to schoolboys before their kindergarten years Charles had enjoyed feeding and bathing the boys even Diana once submitted Charles loved the nursery life he made a great effort I think to be a hands-on tactile parent to William and Harry when they were very young I understand that he actually took a hand in changing nappies and seen them helping to bathroom things that no other member or family had ever done prior to this Charles is a very different parent to his children and then his parents had to be to him you must remember he was born in 1948 and just six years later in 1952 his mother became also his queen and the demands of a constitutional monarchy really superseded those of being a devoted parent the Queen I think is a devoted parent but at the same time she puts duty before everything including her own personal happiness chareth own childhood was very formal the family moved with the seasons around the royal estate the Charles dutifully attending various annual event such as the Braemar Games in Scotland summers were spent at Balmoral little had changed at the Queen's Scottish Highland home since Queen Victoria's days Balmoral was conveniently close to Gordon Stern the character-building school where Charles's father Prince Philip had been a pupil in the 1930s [Music] Philip decided that Gordon Stern would develop Charles's potential and the 13 year old Prince became a boarder there where Charles had an absolutely miserable time at Gordon stern although he his father in whose footsteps he followed loved it and he was horribly bullied because he was different and because he was vulnerable and these are two things that school boys been very cruel Picon and people used to follow him behind her on taunting him and if any boy tried to be nice to him they would you know accuse him of sucking up so he had a thoroughly miserable time the Spartan dormitories and harsh regime did not suit Charles's sensitive personality a good education didn't compensate for the bullying he received it did in so into him the spirit of defeatism and and prone as to depression that he had because he was really miserable at Gordon Stern but he certainly his contemporaries testify that he was singled out for pretty vicious bullying at a pretty vicious school actually utterly miserable there and it may have sown in him certain self-doubt and other qualities that we still see with him at 50 Philip took an active role in his son's upbringing he made inevitable comparison with Charles's sister Princess Anne who was younger but made of sterner stuff than her gentle natured brother Charles Onan were prepared for a life in the public eye and tougher qualities made her Philips favorite Philips always been a very tyrannical and demanding father his way of compensating for his own public role as number two to his wife which Philips never been comfortable with was to be head of the family and it's often been said and it's absolutely true that Princess Anne was his favorite son his only daughter because she in Philips eyes has showed a lot more strength of character than any of his sons and particularly in childhood Charles could be reduced to tears by Philip driving him on thinking he was a bit of a wimp that Anne was a tougher one and that's what he wanted his son to be and that's remained true in adulthood Charles wanted to please his father with his sporting achievements he tried to compete with Philips skills at polo it was a hard game with physical dangers but the Queen approved polo involved her own great love of horses and winning trophies made Charles feel triumphant in competition with his father regular performances on the polo field gave Charles a new image and an unexpected nickname Action Man the Prince of Wales always felt he had to prove himself I think that's where the whole Action Man thing I mean I I honestly feel that he's more of a cultured man than an action man he's quite capable of doing some quite action men type things you know and I think probably he felt that his father would have approved if he all that strength food Joy's good old Gordon Stern cold shower nonsense I didn't really go for it but I think it's rather nice so the Prince of Wales can play the cello he can play a game of polo he can do various things you know he's more of a Renaissance man in my opinion than his father Charles saw his contemporaries such as this relative Lord Ramsay marrying and settling down he wanted to please the Queen and Philip by making a good choice himself now turn 30 he knew the pressure was on and of course Charles famously blamed Philip for pushing him into marriage with Diana when he wasn't entirely sure but he was in his thirties and time was running out so it's a very tense relationship and I think in many ways some things that have been discussed recently like Charles leading reforms of the monarchy against Philips opposition it's payback time for Charles this is winning at his own back on his dad I Charles Prince of Wales to become your leisure of life and limb and of earthly worship [Applause] [Music] with his spectacular investiture at Caernarfon castle in 1969 charles was raised high by public expectation he knew even then that his future wife would have a demanding role when you marry in my position you're going to marry somebody who perhaps one day is going to become queen and you've got to choose somebody very carefully I think who could fulfill this particular role because people like you perhaps would expect quite a lot from somebody like that and it's got to be somebody pretty special alongside her royal counterparts his chosen wife came to join a notably exclusive family with it's unusual habits pastimes and rituals [Music] annual attendance that the Braemar games was expected like the Queen and Queen Mother Charles loved the ceremony and traditions of the event but for a modern bride desperately trying to share her in-laws tastes it was a trial Diana always felt an outsider Charles's love of polo had introduced him to a social set beyond the confines of Gordon Stone in Cambridge from which he had graduated in 1970 a year after his investiture Paulo was played by dashing young officers and watched by attractive girls the brewery heiress Sabrina Guinness was one of the many single girls openly linked with Charles blonde film star Susan George briefly held his affections as did the Duke of Wellington's daughter Lady Jane Wellesley the one we did think at that time had a chance of marrying Charles was Divina Sheffield who was very pretty delightful girl everybody thought that she was very much in love with Charles and that he was with her I know that Charles isvalid Stephen Barry said that Divina was the one girl that he seemed not to be able to let go of when he kept in touch with her for a very long time afterwards so obviously there was a great deal of affection there the Queen Silver Jubilee in 1977 focused attention on the royal family including Charles the unmarried heir to a queen who had reigned for 25 years it was some time ago and I was my 21st birthday I think you know they had a dance at Viking belly's and there was a splendid rumor the next day that I was about to get engaged to some offended lady and I went home to Norfolk and wonderful a boy when we were sputtering about who was the fish-and-game mentioned from Kings Lind and he came up to me nice he looked at me for a long time he said master he said you make sure you look at their mothers first he's laughing off his Bachelor status was typical of Charles he enjoyed clowning around in public quite unlike his regal older relatives this was the man who sent his favorite horse a Christmas card and enjoyed fooling around for the cameras something Diana could occasionally share with her husband humor was an escape well for an otherwise tense young man facing a lifetime of dutiful obligations if anybody ever envied the Prince of Wales with his limousines and and private trains and private planes you wouldn't if you were hearing what he said to us one day he said you can't imagine how awful it is to have your whole life mapped out for you because he was mentioning that anytime he wanted we could go after the movies at night and see something oh I have a bit of fun he couldn't his life's preordained he said I know where I'm going to be next week next month next year he said give just imagine what that's like well it's a pretty horrendous thought I mean I don't think many of us could put up with it it is it is that he's trapped he's trapped by birth [Music] however in the 1970s being a bachelor Prince of Wales had undisputed advantages unlimited female attention for one no wonder Charles needed pressure to give up his freedom and take on the restrictions and responsibilities of marriage service in the Royal Navy completed Charles's formal education the young officer had a secret known to very few he had fallen in love from the moment he met Camilla SH and in 1972 she would dominate his life Charles is very much a dither er right-back crucially to his choice of a bride thing he was described as being like Hamlet the indecisive Prince he could have married Camilla when he first met her in the early 70s he was in the Navy and he not unreasonably thought he was about to go off around the world the best part of a year that it was unfair to ask anybody to wait for him at this time and he was horrified when he got a letter way out in the Caribbean somewhere that she was going to marry Andrew Parker Bowles and he'd missed his chance Charles regrets that moment of being indecisive and not proposing marriage to her and will regret it for the rest of his days the structured and disciplined routine of naval life filled Charles's days and gave him the chance to gain promotion and earn respect through his own efforts take away once again for for having me here I've enjoyed it enormously and I hope you won't have a very happy Christmas indeed Charles used broad lens home of his great uncle Lord Mountbatten is a weekend retreat to entertain a host of eligible girlfriends one of the most beautiful was Anna Wallace banana Wallace had the class the background the spirit that that it took I thought to be a proper partner for a Prince of Wales but she didn't like the way he treated her and she wasn't going to put up with it and she let him know about it and then a ball when he spent most of the night dancing with Camilla parker-bowles and not her she just flounced out and said you know nobody treats me like that not even the Prince of Wales baton was Charles's mentor Jars confided his secrets to the elderly Earl and asked his advice on matters close to the heart they called each other honorary grandfather and honorary grandson because of course his grandfather the King had died when he was only three or four Mountbatten was a worldly wise man who gave child's very direct advice particularly about women and made his home broad lands available to the Prince he told him he should sow some Wild Oats and various girlfriends of the princes but including Camilla parker-bowles were entertained at broad lands while Mountbatten looked the other way but his real ambition was the Charles after he'd turned those Wild Oats should marry his own granddaughter Amanda knatchbull Mountbatten's hopes died with him he was assassinated by the IRA in Ireland in 1979 it was a devastating blow for Charles who bravely read the funeral lesson they are carried up to the heaven and down a game to the deep their so melted away because of the trouble Matt Benton's murder by the IRA in 1979 was a huge blow to Charles it left an enormous void in his life he's always had this yearning for older wiser figures as mentors from Lord Butler at Cambridge to Van der post I think it Charles left Charles adrift for a while it was after that that he proposed to Amanda knatchbull perhaps to try and retain the link with his grandfather at a time when he was said to be trying to contact Mountbatten via huger boards and spiritualists so big was the hole in his life 19 year old Lady Diana Spencer had watched Lord Mountbatten funeral on television the first time he really sat up and took any notice of Diana was on a hay bale on a Sussex farm in 1980 when she found herself sitting next to him and she said oh you poor man you looked so sad at Lord man battens funeral you need somebody to look after you properly and he was still vulnerable enough to be very touched by this and don't did a sort of double take and thought maybe there's more to this little girl and I noticed so in a funny way man Burton's death led him to Diana my baton would very much for proof death of Diana Spencer as a bride for Prince Charles she was aristocratic she was beautiful she was apparently a virgin she was everything that he had always advised Prince Charles to look for in a wife when his close friend Nicolas Soames married Charles took his fiancee to the wedding but Diana had no idea of the complex secrets of Charles's private life and even in close social proximity Camilla's husband gave nothing away by then Prince Charles had been having a love affair with Camilla parker-bowles for almost 10 years through her marriage to Andrew I think what characterized the whole thing before during and after Charles's marriage to Diana was that Andrew Parker Bowles was an old-fashioned enough Englishman to regard it as his public duty to allow the Prince of Wales to exercise what used to be called Raptor señor over his wife many people find this hard to understand but Parker blowers has been a very loyal courtier but he was prepared to look the other way while the Prince of Wales had an affair with his wife and really didn't capitulate until Charles admitted adultery in 1994 in his television interview and that was the last straw for Pachelbel's public humiliation he put up with private humiliation but public humiliation that was when he went for a divorce Charles had hidden his affair with Camilla the mother of two young children from his fiancee but Diana had grown suspicious she was just 20 and days away from her own wedding the constant strain of media attention and her secret fears over Camilla caused her to break down at a polo match she was led away and comforted by Lord Ramsay and by Charles but it was a sign that all was not well we have to remember that Charles did give up Camilla when he got married however he remained in love with her but he did actually physically give her up and I think that the thought that he might still be in love with her was very much swept under the carpet by the royal family who were delighted by the narrow let's not say anything to the country they were thrilled they thought it was very suitable the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh absolutely delighted with it on his honeymoon Charles apparently read five volumes by his friend the elderly philosopher laurens van der post he insisted on reading these aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia much to Diana's dismay while the public thought that the golden couple were enjoying a luxurious cruise seeds of marital discord were being sown I think poor Diana realized as early as the honeymoon that there might be enormous trouble making this marriage work she'd had her suspicions already in the months of the engagement about Camilla parker-bowles who was always around who always seemed to know what was going on before Diana did and when they went on honeymoon aboard Britannia Charles tended to spend all day reading Vanda Lawrence van de post books and of course they were evening they had dinner with all the officers and the officers mess so it wasn't exactly a touchy-feely being alone together honeymoon like most people have after their Mediterranean cruise The Prince and Princess of Wales flew to Scotland to join the other Royals at Balmoral the newlyweds posed happily for the cameras but it was a deceptive performance Guyana was already ill suffering from the eating disorder bulimia nervosa and from depression she was obsessed by thoughts of Camila the irony was when she began to show signs of bulimia and shines of depression as the honeymoon continued that autumn at Balmoral Charles brought up to talk to her of all people laurens van der post his elderly mentor who he thought might try and understand better than he could what was wrong with this young girl and this was the last man in the world she wanted to talk to because he'd haunted her honeymoon in the shape of his book she said he spent more time with van der pasta kneaded with me on our honeymoon Diana's problems were no obstacle to royal tours in 1983 the couple was sent on an official visit to Australia in New Zealand diana later said by the end of it I was a different person I realised the sense of duty the level of intensity of interest and the demanding role I now found myself in six weeks on the road it was cruel and inhuman to do that to the girl I saw how he guided her how he kept patting her hand encouraging her but she shouldn't have been there for six weeks they shouldn't have allowed it she'd had a baby nine months earlier I mean she had to go through a tremendous adjustment from being a kindergarten helper to being the famous royal fiancee bride of the century mother of the year all in a period of 12 months and nobody seemed to take that into consideration they just said right well we'll shove dialer and Charles out on the haul road now because they're terrific publicity for Britain and they did it and of course no wonder the girl got to bulimia she she tried so hard to be the perfect princess and she didn't really know what to do Charles seemed proud of his wife there's a gentleman the last time I was here was two years ago in 1981 shortly before we were married and at that time everybody was saying good luck and 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 it's amazing what ladies do when you're Baxter two years later the couple made a successful tour of Italy they were now an experienced partnership on the surface all seemed as calm as their gondola ride in Venice but behind the visits to beautiful Italian cities there were ominous signs Charles was forging ahead with his interests in art and architecture subjects that the princess found boring he had grown to love painting he was proud of his results and he strove to improve his techniques but it was a hobby he preferred to practice alone while her husband grew more absorbed diana was often left to kick her heels this was not the romantic marriage she had hoped for on a cruise aboard the Britannia after the official tour the marriage began to come adrift Charles felt he had done all he could to help Diana cope with her royal life he settled down with Diana and he really did devote himself to making her happy now this was a very difficult job as we all know because she found it so so awful to cope with the pressure she was under from from transforming herself from a nobody into the world's most famous cover girl virtually overnight so they had a lot of difficulties so he he devoted himself to helping her but he was just a man he's not Superman and he he made mistakes he didn't understand the problems that she had and a lot of it turned him off and his his sympathies were finally exhausted but you know he did try he did get her to a psychiatrist and I think he did as much as any man could have been expected to do but she was a very difficult woman to live with the couple soldiered on but by the summer of 1986 the marriage had privately broken down on holiday in Majorca with the Spanish royal family Charles and Diana played the happy couple in fact Diana hated the attention Charles received from King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia diana suffered serious bouts of bulimia after a few days Charles returned home alone reunited with Camilla parker-bowles he headed straight for the sanctuary of his beloved Balmoral well there are many royal homes but of all of them Charles has always said that Balmoral is his favorite from childhood through adulthood during the decline of his marriage to Diana it was to Balmoral that he always disappeared and there was this pattern where the first time the public really realized something was wrong was when Charles was always at Balmoral and Diana wasn't it's always the place where he goes to think and retreat and recover his spiritual energies and it's always been a great deal more to him than any other home card games of polo with its rough physical challenges helped Charles cope with his inner tensions but sometimes the frustrations showed [Music] Paulo like hunting provided an ideal cover for continued contact with Camilla parker-bowles I think nearly every male member of the royal family as far back as anyone can remember can't remember if they've decided to have extramarital relationships they nearly always invariably choose a married one to have a liaison with the married woman I suppose always has a reason to go home to her husband and she's not gonna put the bite on that particular member of the royal family Camilla parker-bowles would be at Windsor quite a lot I remember spending quite a lot of time there but not certainly you know there was there was there only a pretty impression that you know once the marriage had really got underway that Camilla was pushing her nose in or also determined to be there but I mean clearly her husband was playing and he paid for quite a long time that Andrew Park the world's only de Prince of Wales would have played on the same time Charles his friends fell onto Diana's suspicion even the Parma Tomkinson whose daughters Santa and Terra were regulars on the social scene their mother patty grew close to Camilla and the family became part of Charles's exclusive Highgrove set the Parma Tomkinson czar very long-standing friends starting on the ski slopes where the annual strip to clusters is actually spent in their Chalet but they become very close members of the intimate circle throughout the decline of the marriage etc in England as well as there they particularly bonded during the Avalanche that very nearly killed Charles killed his friend major Humanzee and very nearly killed mrs. palmer Tomkinson who was swept over the precipice with major Lindsay and was very lucky to survive with multiple injuries I think that bonded them all together and it was interesting thereafter that Charles and the Parma Tomkinson decided they must keep going back to clusters year-after-year to cauterize this memory but their Parma Tom concerns and their two sprightly daughters who are famous what I called it girls on the circuit these days are still to be seen on the ski slopes with Charles and tear apart on concern is not ashamed of making use of this royal connection to advertise various designer ski gear and so on that's the kind of girls for years they're very close friends who'd seen child through linear dark hour Charles and Diana both took an active role in their son's upbringing training them for a life of public appearances I've always believed that he was an excellent father you know I think that when Diana fed them with junk food and lots of fun I thought the Charles was preferred to speed their minds and was taken to the Royal Shakespeare Company things like that Diana often complained about Charles's frequent absences and his distance from the family she even suggested that his occasional outings with his sons were just for show but was this fair it's certainly true that since her death he's become a model father cancelling public engagements to spend time with them or postponing them which he'd never done before and I think the pattern is that Duty came before domestic priorities while Diana was alive and it took Diana's death for him to realize that maybe the children should come first but there's no doubt that his children love him and he loves them and I think a lot of the criticism of him being a distant father is rather cruel and unfair Charles his reckless pursuit of dangerous sports caused several injuries in 1990 he broke his arm after a particularly nasty fall at Polo the break was painful and refused to heal it was more serious than at first suspected Charles reluctantly gave in to medical advice and had further surgery Diana took her grimacing husband home from hospital he was still in pain and needed a period of recuperation now married in name only they stage to show of togetherness out of duty the public didn't know that Camilla had visited him in hospital keeping up appearances Charles and Diana returned to Highgrove their country home diana soon left and camilla came over from her nearby home middle wieck house to provide charles with tender loving care camilla had become mistress of Highgrove Highgrove was his HQ near the Pachelbel's is near camilla and it had the atmosphere of camilla to it before they even got married and throughout their marriage close friends of charles would be the Highgrove set and there were several times at the various stages of deterioration when Diana tried to break up this high grave set diana would leave on a sunday afternoon to take the children back to london to go to school and charles would be straight out to the parker poses or camilla would come straight over as soon as diana had gone and of course famously diana when she arrived would always go into Charles's study and press the redial button on his phone and it would go straight through to Camilla's number so there she always felt very uncomfortable very spooked not at home at all it was his house not hers in February 1992 Charles and Diana made an official visit to India rumours about their relationship were rife Diana had already secretly betrayed her husband to an author who would soon expose their sham marriage and Charles's affair with Camilla Diana had discovered that Charles's private foreign trips were not all that they seemed she had learned that her husband had other reasons for making visits to archaeological sites and for his now familiar painting tours he was secretly meeting Camilla abroad in 1989 they had been photographed together during a trip to Turkey when the full story finally became public knowledge in 1992 the press photographed Camilla and her friend patty Parma Tomkinson openly mingling in the Royal Enclosure at a polo match I think it's very difficult to speculate in terms of the relationship between Charles and Camilla it's quite clear that Charles and Camilla have been extraordinary close for a very long period of time that there was a deep level of sexual passion at least from him to her if not necessarily from her to him it's clear also that she's been able to provide him with a level of emotional support of maturity of somebody who shares attitude sense of humor interests country pursuits all of those sorts of things Charles had betrayed Diana within months they separated and finally divorced in 1996 it was the end of an extraordinary partnership weeks before she died Diana said we could have been the best team in the world but it was not to be there were a few more joint appearances always with their sons taking William to see his new school eater [Music] for taking part in ceremonies of wartime remembrance United the whales family for a brief few hours a poignant reminder of what might have been [Music] there last time in public was for Williams confirmation in March 1997 just five months later Diana died in Paris [Music] Charles performed his saddest duty in bringing home his former wife's body to a country and morning with Charles's wishes diana was treated as a royal princess William and Harry saw that their mother was paid every possible honor on her final journey [Music] char's accompanied his sons to Diana's private very little threw up her family home he had responded to her tragic loss with unexpected dignity I think Charles's behavior during the week of the following her death was absolutely impeccable it was also that of a man who was genuinely appalled by what would happen clearly overcome by the deepest mixed feelings I because I think one of the things that has been very frequently misrepresented is the relationship between Charles and Diana it wasn't a loveless marriage if you look at the two of them those shots the very beginning of the marriage these are people between whom there is some very very close time I think Charles was half in love half not in love Diana thought she was in love but she was probably at least as much in love with the idea of being a princess as as in love with Prince Charles [Music] a few weeks after the heartbreak of Diana's death Joslin Harry attended a pop concert in South Africa 13-year old Harry was thrilled to meet the Spice Girls [Music] he thinks it's contemptible to exploit your children for your own benefit that he wouldn't do that he wouldn't put the children through that and I I admired that but didn't get him anywhere going nowhere so you know you can be noble about these things but Diana was bitter and at manipulating the media in her own public image and she got her message across and he got only the message that he was a lousy father the evening was the tonic for both father and son I said to him on the plane I said I think you're awfully brave meeting the Spice Girls again anyway Oh God he said he said you know I've got to meet them a third time in London he obviously was not relishing the idea of meeting them because you know they'd plaster him with kisses the first time and he was a bit worried about that looking undignified but when he did meet there when I was there watching he really joined into the spirit of the occasion he was good fun and then when a Nelson Mandela said it was the greatest moment of his life the prince was much cleverer than that and he said no this is the second greatest moment in my life second greatest man and when we asked him what was the first greatest nobody said well the first time I made them of course this is the old chance the Charles that we knew many years ago reappearing the spin doctors are already representing him as the caring compassionate Prince that he was thought of before Diana ever came on the scene in his 20s it was just that she did it so much better than him she genuinely was the caring compassionate princess that he appeared an old fuddy-duddy stick-in-the-mud interested in things like architecture in the environment which are not really major in issues in people's everyday lives while she campaigned about AIDS and cancer and battered wives and homeless people and sick children which are issues in people's everyday lives now you see Charles touching AIDS patients and himself to some extent becoming Diana [Music] however Diana had publicly doubted Charles's suitability for kingship she believed he was born to the wrong job but could he cope as the King without a wife it is important to have the support of somebody that you can trust and you can totally trust just as the Queen has the Duke of Edinburgh I wonder how she could carry on if he didn't exist it is the real top of the greasy pole and you're there on your own and so you must have somebody to give you some support somebody you can confide your hopes and fears dreams etc to the prospect of a queen camilla may still be unwelcome but would Charles really want to make her his wife after Diana's tragedy the real argument is that there's going to be 20 or 25 years yet before Charles becomes King if marriage to Camilla caught it a great wave of public antipathy and dislike as I think it probably would that would die away in 3 or 4 or 5 years and he'd still have another 20 years so I think a lot of people that public opinion seems to be swinging around to why not now that Diane has gone give those boys a mother etc whether or not the British people want Camilla the woman that broke up the marriage as the ideal stepmother for William and Harry is a different matter I suspect that Charles in the end will prefer the status quo where he has a virtual wife in Camilla who spends several nights a month with him at st. James's Palace and virtually lives with him at Highgrove in Gloucestershire where she has a house in the grounds and that they'll never actually marry but she'll be virtual wife virtual queen that decision may lie in the future for now Charles's immediate role is to raise his sons to maturity without the mother they lost so young [Music] you

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Id: HT6mTdKM9jE

Length: 49min 13sec (2953 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 21 2020