Prince William Is in ‘Heir Mode,’ Leading to Conflict With King Charles

Welcome to this week’s edition of Royalist, The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.

Omid Scobie: Meghan is not a source, or my friend

Omid Scobie has denied that Meghan Markle has had any input to his new book, Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival. Asked if Meghan had contributed to the book, Scobie told the Sunday Times: “No, and I’m not her friend. I didn’t interview her for this book.”

“I have mutual friends with [Meghan], and that definitely helps with getting information and breaking details,” Scobie said, but he denied being on the Sussex payroll.

The book, prior to its publication on Tuesday, has already commanded many column inches, most recently around the allegation there were two, not one, racists in the royal household who had “concerns” over then-unborn Archie’s skin color—one was a member of the family, the other is either a family member or member of the royal household.

‘Total Humiliation’: William & Kate’s No to Harry & MeghanHO HO, NO

Tom Sykes, Tim Teeman

Prince Harry and Meghan (H&M to their staff) are “in a good place,” Scobie told The Sunday Times. “We have to remember that this is a couple that—this is just my own opinion—seem to have bonded over their shared traumas, experiences and battles that they’ve faced together against others. That kind of bond is much tougher to break than anything else.”

He has sharp words for other members of the royal family, however, as you might expect. Queen Camilla reportedly rolls her eyes over subjects such as gender identity or veganism. Camilla also “quietly thanked” Piers Morgan for defending the royals when he called Meghan “Pinocchio Princess” on Twitter/X in 2021.

Kate Middleton allegedly “jokily shivered” on mention of Meghan’s name, and doesn’t want to do anything more challenging than “grinning photo opportunities.”

“In the coverage of Kate we infantilize her massively so the bar is always lower,” Scobie told the Sunday Times. “The small achievements that we’ve seen from the Princess of Wales wouldn’t perhaps be noticed if it was from another member of the royal family, but with Kate it’s like ‘wow!’”

Scobie said the royals are gripped in a crisis. “That crisis being a lack of interest from young people, an apathy, a growing republican movement, questions over whether the family still uphold the morals and values of the crown that the queen did such a great job of. But when you look at the cast of characters … it has been questionable.”

“To stay relevant, the system, in an almost Trumpian twist, leans on patriotism—even jingoism—to shore up its purpose,” he writes. “Rather than ever facing or confronting challenges of modern times, whether that is diversity or other social issues, the institution of the monarchy regularly turns away from that, and relies on support for things of the past as opposed to widening the following of the royal family.”

Prince William is in “heir mode,” Scobie writes, leading to conflict with King Charles. William “knows his father’s reign is only transitional,” Scobie writes, “and is acting accordingly.”

Harry and William’s relationship is even worse. Shortly after the publication of his memoir Spare, Harry asked a mutual friend to help organize a conversation with William. “It got nowhere.” In Endgame Scobie quotes Harry talking to a friend: “I’m ready to move on past it. Whether we get an apology or accountability, who knows? Who really cares at this point?”

Scobie says Kate and Meghan have had “almost zero communication” since late 2019. For Kate, “there’s no going back, even in her relationship with Harry.”

Of a “rumor being spread by a friend of the royal family” that Harry is so miserable that he regularly sleeps in a local hotel, Scobie says, “I know a lot of people that know them (Harry and Meghan), that are in their world, or their space, and I’ve just never come across anything of the sort,” adding that the couple have a “massive guesthouse” at their disposal on their property. “If you wanted to spend a night away, you don’t have to go as far as some janky hotel in Montecito town center.”

The paper also reported that Scobie has suffered racist abuse, social media pile-ons and death threats. “I’m very aware that I’m quite disliked in Britain. The way anything about me is said is as if I’m just the absolute worst person,” he said.

Charles called Harry ‘that fool’

More leaks from Omid Scobie’s book this weekend include the report in the Sun on Sunday that claims King Charles called Prince Harry “that fool” after his Netflix documentary, which lifted the lid on the most savage episode of internecine royal warfare since the days of Princess Diana.

Scobie quotes an aide as saying, according to the Sun: “(The show) took the wind out of everyone’s sails. (He) went from not wanting anyone to talk about his son to openly criticizing ‘that fool.’ ”

The book also claims that Kate and William found South Park’s episode mocking the Sussexes, entitled The Worldwide Privacy Tour, “hilarious.”

For connoisseurs of the rumored extravagance of King Charles there are also some tasty nuggets: Scobie says the king has his shoelaces ironed, travels with 1,000-thread-count bed linen and revisits the famous question of a royal toothpaste squeezer, saying: “Charles likes to have someone squeeze exactly one inch of toothpaste on to his toothbrush for him ahead of his bedtime routine.”

Why the royals ignored BLM

Another interesting line in the book, reported by Page Six, is a claim by Scobie that the royals “chose to completely ignore” the Black Lives Matter movement.

He writes: “During my years covering the royals I have regularly been surprised by the Palace’s blasé attitude when it comes to anything to do with race, racism, or the issues that impact those from minority backgrounds.”

In comments that are likely to annoy the palace, Scobie writes: “As often as I emailed or phoned the Buckingham Palace communications team (more than weekly during the height of the BLM marches), my requests for on- or off-the-record guidance on whether we may see family members acknowledge this hugely important moment went noticeably unanswered—they responded to other queries I had, just not that one.”

The author goes on to detail a meeting with a senior palace aide in August 2021 who he alleges told him: “We didn’t [reply] because it felt like you were trying to get a headline, quite honestly…You would have turned [the family not saying something] into a story.”

Money matters

The Guardian reported this week that King Charles “is profiting from the deaths of thousands of people in the north-west of England whose assets are secretly being used to upgrade a commercial property empire managed by his hereditary estate.”

In Britain, if you die without making a will and no heir can be traced, your money goes to the government, but under a quirk of constitutional law if you die intestate and unclaimed in the region of England bounded by the Duchy of Lancaster, the monarch’s private estate, the money goes to the Duchy (coming to around £61m—$85m—in ten years).

The Duchy has long claimed that these funds go directly to charity, but The Guardian revealed that only 15% of these funds have done so, while the rest is used to restore Duchy properties defined as “heritage assets,” a change introduced by the late Queen Elizabeth.

This week in royal history

On November 26, 1992, the British Government announced that Queen Elizabeth had volunteered to pay taxes on her personal income.

Unanswered questions

Who was the second “royal racist”? How much controversy will Endgame generate when it is published this week? How will the royals respond?