In the days and weeks ahead of Trooping the Colour, there were so many conversations about whether the Princess of Wales would be seen on the day and whether the Wales kids would be seen as well. Kate and the three children had not been seen out in public since Christmas Day, and it did feel like they would have to be a package deal for Trooping, it wasn’t like Prince William could just turn up with Prince George and call it a day. One of the conversations was also: if Kate and the kids show up, will they overshadow King Charles at his big birthday parade? The answer was yes, they did overshadow Charles. But it looks like Charles was playing a much bigger game. He’s now using Kate and the Wales kids’ appearances for his own “grandpa embiggening” campaign. Buckingham Palace clearly ran straight to Becky English at the Mail with a full briefing which centered the Wales family’s reappearance solely on Grandpa Charles. There’s also a low-key admission that Charles needs to be seen with George, Charlotte and Louis publicly because the cat’s out of the bag that he’s a dogsh-t father and grandfather.
To his grandchildren, however, he is just known affectionately as ‘Grandpa Wales’. While much has been written — not all, it has to be said, complimentary — about the King’s role as a father over the years, it is his unbridled enthusiasm as a grandfather that has shown Charles in a softer new light. An enthusiasm that explains why, despite the family’s personal difficulties, the Prince and Princess of Wales were so keen that their children, George, ten, Charlotte, nine, and Louis, six, joined their ‘GW’ at Trooping the Colour on Saturday.
In order for the youngsters to be there and play a full role — riding in a carriage on The Mall, watching proceedings on Horse Guards and joining the family ‘balcony moment’ — Mummy needed to be there too to keep the ‘kiddies’ (as she calls her young brood) in check as Papa was on horseback. For Kate, there was also a determination to support the father-in-law she has become increasingly close to over the years and with whom she now shares the unenviable bond of a serious health battle.
In recent years the King has become a central part of William, Kate and their young family’s lives — a relationship emphasised by the lack of personal contact with Harry and Meghan’s two, Archie, five, and three-year-old Lilibet. He has only met his youngest granddaughter in person once since she was born, and Archie barely a handful of times.
Recently, it was suggested that the King was unhappy with the situation and ‘keener than ever’ to build a relationship with them that wasn’t just confined to video calls to California. The story was not universally welcomed as it put Buckingham Palace in an impossible position: those close to the King genuinely never speak about the Sussexes’ children to avoid inflaming transatlantic tensions, but to deny it would be to suggest that the King doesn’t want greater contact with them — which clearly isn’t true at all.
And the situation is particularly complicated because of Harry’s repeated attacks on his father and family, his dogged insistence in the UK courts that he isn’t safe bringing his family to the UK, plus Charles’s inability to travel to the U.S. because of his health issues and responsibilities. When I asked a well-placed source whether Harry could bring his children to see the King at Balmoral this summer as a compromise, the answer was a resounding snort. Read into that what you will. His relationship with his other three grandchildren is in a far better place.
The family’s relocation to Windsor, where they live in Adelaide Cottage in Windsor Great Park, along with the King’s decision to spend more time at the castle, has given him the chance to see more of the little Waleses. One close friend says: ‘He cherishes being a grandfather and enjoys enormously the time he spends with them. He loves playing with them in the garden and reading to them.’
I’m told that the King has even named an area he has created at his Scottish home of Birkhall ‘Prince George’s Wood’.
‘While people don’t see often him with his grandchildren that much because most of those moments happen behind closed doors, I know he is very careful to ensure he makes time for them in his busy schedule,’ the close friend says. He is, another source tells me, ‘doting in his own way’.
I’ve pointed out before that Charles is actually breaking a significant royal tradition, where royal kids are often mentored by their loving grandparents. Charles was mentored by his grandmother (the Queen Mum), Harry and William had a close bond with QEII, etc. Charles doesn’t give a sh-t about his grandkids. He evicted the Sussexes and refused to give them security for their visits. He barely spends time with the Wales kids, and he only uses them as props for “loving grandfather” PR. I came into this story surprised that Charles is basically making Kate’s reappearance sound tangential to the need for the KIDS to be there, then I was doubly surprised that there’s a section about the Sussexes. Someone in Buckingham Palace (not Charles) understands that he looks like a horrible father and grandfather because of his cruel actions against the Sussexes. He couldn’t have Kate and the kids missing in action too.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.