As many people noted last week, King Charles did not reference or mention the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at all throughout the Christmas holiday. I still believe that Charles and his minions did the most to brief the media, a month ago, that the Sussex family was not welcome in the UK and that they were not invited to Christmas at Sandringham. You could tell that stuff was coming from Charles’s camp because A) it didn’t center or mention Prince William’s rage towards his brother and B) there was zero mention of how the Sussexes wouldn’t have come to the UK even if they had been invited. Well, I don’t know why Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast is still fussing over this, but he seems quite upset that there were zero Sussex references over Christmas. Sykes also blames the whole thing on William.
King Charles’ has been criticized for not acknowledging his son Prince Harry, his wife Meghan Markle, or their two children in a Christmas address, which focused on how the holiday was “a chance for family and friends to come together.”
The closest Charles came to acknowledging his family in California was when he spoke about the need to protect and safeguard the environment “for the sake of our children’s children,” however, no direct reference was made to Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. By contrast, multiple images were shown of his son, Prince William, and his wife, Kate Middleton, and their three children, Princess Charlotte, Prince George and Prince Louis.
The refusal to acknowledge Harry’s family went almost entirely unremarked in largely fawning accounts of the annual televised speech in the British media but was criticized on social media.
The Daily Beast has been told that Charles would like to reconcile with Harry but is being blocked from bringing him back into the family by William, who is implacably opposed to any such move. The elder son believes Harry’s betrayal of the family in his books and interviews, in which he accused a member of the family, later revealed to be Kate, of racism, has put him beyond the pale. William’s consent is needed because Charles, who is sick with cancer, feels he cannot bequeath his heir a settlement with Harry that William cannot live with.
“…But was criticized on social media.” Sure. You can find a tweet/post to justify saying “Charles was criticized,” but honestly, I think most people just shrug about Charles at this point. It’s been abundantly well-established that he’s a horrible father and grandfather. It’s been abundantly well-established that he only gives a sh-t about Camilla (and even then, theirs is not a grand love story, despite their PR). Even if you believe that Charles has an okay relationship with William, the fact that Charles’s people are still tossing William under the bus over the Sussex situation shows that Charles still uses William as a scapegoat and fall guy.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
