The Prince of Wales may have to rise above his hurt feelings for the sake of the Crown if he is to fulfil the role he pledged to his father. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
The look in his slightly glassy eyes appeared to express gratitude for the support of his heir and grief for the loss of his spare.
When the Prince of Wales pledged to be the King’s “liege man of life and limb” at the Coronation on Saturday, the 74-year-old monarch could not hide his emotion as he was kissed on the cheek by his eldest son.
“Thank you, William,” he replied, conscious, perhaps, of the huge gulf that now exists between his two “darling boys”.
The gaping abyss could not have been more marked at Sunday night’s Coronation Concert when, in the absence of his younger brother, it was left to the heir to the throne, alone, to pay tribute to their father.
Had Prince Harry still been a working member of the Royal family, there is no doubt he would have joined Prince William on stage at Windsor Castle.
Instead, the future king spoke not only on behalf of a family but a nation by saying: “Pa, we are all so proud of you.”
The speech, which sensibly avoided any lecturing on climate change, was brief but hit all the right notes.
Touchingly describing his late grandmother “up there, fondly keeping an eye on us… a proud mother”, this was William’s reassuring way of reiterating that the baton had been passed on to someone cut from Queen Elizabeth II’s cloth.
“My father’s first words on entering Westminster Abbey yesterday were a pledge of service,” he said. “It was a pledge to continue to serve. Because for over 50 years, in every corner of the UK, across the Commonwealth and around the world, he has dedicated himself to serve others, both current and future generations and whose memory must not be neglected.”
Reminding the crowd that his father had been more prescient than most in “warning us of the risks to our planet’s health long before it was an everyday issue”, as well as referencing the one million young people he has helped through the Prince’s Trust, the speech was designed to highlight the King’s compassion as well as his wisdom and experience.
'I know my grandmother is up there fondly keeping an eye on us'
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 7, 2023
Prince William deliver a speech at the coronation concert praising his father's service, charity work and dedication to promoting diversity#coronation: https://t.co/iQFIRp2nC4
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/EF50sxpDMj
It was also helpful for William to describe his father as someone who “always understood that people of all faiths, all backgrounds, and all communities, deserve to be celebrated and supported”, not just in light of growing calls for the royals to make slavery reparations but also in response to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s racism claims.
Last month, the Telegraph revealed how Meghan expressed her concerns about the monarchy’s unconscious bias in a letter to the King, sent in the wake of the March 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, in which she alleged that a member of the Royal family had speculated about the colour of her unborn son’s skin.
It is understood that her letter was sent in reply to one from the King, in which he is thought to have expressed sadness over the chasm that had emerged between the two sides of the Royal family.
It is no secret that both the King and the Prince of Wales are disappointed that the Duke and Duchess felt the need to make such high-profile and damaging allegations.
Yet still, the King found it in his heart to raise a toast to the fourth birthday of Harry and Meghan’s son Archie on Saturday - just hours after his youngest son had hot-footed it to Heathrow Airport straight after the two-hour service at Westminster Abbey to be reunited with his family in Montecito, California.
A well-placed source said that while most members of the Royal family “breathed a sigh of relief” that Prince Harry didn’t join them for a private lunch after the ceremony, the King seemed “genuinely quite disappointed that he didn’t stay”.
Before they started eating, William, 40, stood and congratulated his father on such a momentous day. The King then replied, raising his glass to his three grandchildren Prince George, 9, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5, but also making a point of toasting “those that weren’t there” and wishing his other grandson a very happy birthday “wherever he was”.
While the King may be willing to forgive, with palace insiders confirming there had been “genuine cooperation” with the Sussexes in the lead-up to the Coronation, there remains little hope of reconciliation with William who was “absolutely horrified” by what Harry wrote about him and his wife Kate in his bombshell autobiography, Spare. The Duke is expecting an apology - but the Prince wants one first.
But if William is to fulfil his role as his father’s liege man of life and limb, he may be required to rise above for the sake of the Crown.
For what we learned from Sunday night’s speech was how pivotal the Prince and Princess of Wales are going to be to the success of the reign of Charles III.
Regardless of his own hurt feelings, William, who has a reputation for being rather stubborn at times, cannot stand in the way of a royal rapprochement if it’s in the best long-term interests of the monarchy.
That is the sort of personal sacrifice required of someone whose coat of arms carries the motto “Ich dien” (I serve).
He certainly couldn’t be in a better place both personally and professionally to be the bigger man. Supported by the calming influence of his level-headed wife and mellowed by his three children, William has grown in stature precisely because he has proved himself to be such a safe pair of hands when dealing with the various crises that have faced the House of Windsor in recent years.
He was heavily involved in the decisive action to strip his uncle, the Duke of York, of his royal and military ties in the wake of his disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview about his relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. And he was central to the Sandringham Summit that decided the Sussexes’ future in 2020.
If William wants to be seen as the son the King can rely on then that must start - however hard - with repairing his broken bonds with his brother.
Just as the King has his eldest son’s support, the Prince of Wales has the support of the King.
There were huge tensions between the pair when, during the commemorations to mark the 20th anniversary of his mother’s death, William resolutely refused to acknowledge his father’s role in his and Harry’s upbringing.
The King’s aides “begged” William to give him the nod when he addressed journalists before the screening of the ITV documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life And Legacy but he flatly refused. It was left to Harry to pay tribute to his father in a BBC documentary, saying: “He was there for us, he was the one out of two left and he tried to do his best and to make sure we were protected and looked after.”
The incident followed reports that the King had felt “edged out” by Kate’s parents Michael and Carole Middleton when it came to spending time with his grandchildren, and father and son relations hit an all-time low when a previously unseen photograph of Prince George inadvertently appeared in a video broadcast featuring the heir to the throne.
According to insiders, the father-of-three “hit the roof” and for a period, the King became much closer to Harry.
But Megxit changed all that. As evidenced by the playful photograph of William with his arm around his father, taken by Kate and released to mark Father’s Day in 2020 - the drama has brought them together. The King is also now much closer to his beloved grandchildren, gleefully jigging Louis on his knee at last June’s Platinum Jubilee Pageant.
William knows better than anyone the pain the King is going through over what Harry has done.
But if he really wants to prove that he has as much of his late grandmother in him as his father, then he is going to have to summon QEII levels of magnanimity to ensure the Carolean era characterises the Royals as a nuclear family, rather than a thermonuclear one.
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