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The queen is “deeply upset” over Harry’s royal accusations
Prince Harry’s diatribes against the royal family over the parenting skills of Prince Charles and the queen and Duke of Edinburgh—and much else—have rather unsurprisingly “deeply upset” the monarch, according to a royal source talking to the Mail on Sunday. “Harry’s grandmother has taken this very personally and is deeply upset by what Harry has said, in particular his comments about Charles’s parenting and suggesting his father knows no better because of how he was brought up, the source said. “It has been a very upsetting time.”
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As The Daily Beast reported, in his new documentary with Oprah Winfrey, The Me You Can’t See, Harry accused his father of bullying him. Harry said Charles told him that because he had to “suffer” so would Harry.
As a result, Prince Charles is—again, quelle surprise!—feeling “wretched” a friend told the paper. “Charles is such a gentle man and a dedicated father first and foremost. He’ll be feeling wretched. He wants to seek a reconciliation. He is not vindictive at all… Charles will want to engage, but it’s fair to say what Harry has said in both interviews with Oprah has been seen as very callous within the family. If Harry was to attack the Queen in a more personal way, Charles would close ranks with the Queen without a doubt and Harry would be out in the cold.”
However, the friend added, “I don’t think the Prince will cut his son off despite what Harry has said.”
Prince William talks about “the dark days of grief”
Prince William has spoken about finding “sanctuary” in the church the royal family uses when at Balmoral, the morning Diana died.
“Scotland is a source of some of my happiest memories but also my saddest. I was in Balmoral when I was told that my mother had died,” William said, visiting the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. (The queen has appointed him the Earl of Strathearn and Lord High Commissioner.)
William added, “Still in shock, I found sanctuary in the service at Crathie Kirk that very morning, and in the dark days of grief that followed I found comfort and solace in the Scottish outdoors. As a result, the connection I feel to Scotland will forever run deep. Alongside this painful memory is one of great joy because it was here in Scotland 20 years ago this year that I first met Catherine. Needless to say the town where you meet your future wife holds a very special place in your heart.
“George, Charlotte and Louis [his and Kate’s three kids] already know how dear Scotland is to both of us and they are starting to build their own happy memories here too. We have no doubt they will grow up sharing our love and connection to Scotland from the Highlands to the Central Belt, from the Islands to the Borders.”
William was speaking after blasting the BBC over its failures as sketched out in Lord Dyson’s report into the underhand methods employed by Martin Bashir when securing his infamous 1995 Panorama interview with his mom, Princess Diana. “What saddens me most, is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived. She was failed not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions,” William said. He added that he believed the documentary should never be shown again.
Martin Bashir on Diana: “We were friends”
As The Daily Beast reported last night, Martin Bashir believes he should not be “held responsible” for the impact that the BBC Panorama interview he conducted with Princess Diana had on her. “I never wanted to harm Diana in any way and I don’t believe we did,” he told the U.K. Sunday Times
He also tells the paper that Diana was a close friend of the Bashir family, arriving at the hospital after his wife gave birth to offer her congratulations. Bashir showed The Sunday Times a picture of the moment. “We were friends,” Bashir said. “She was spectacular. She said to me: ‘You must let me know the moment the baby arrives,’ and an hour later, there was a knock on the delivery room and in she walked.” Diana also allegedly suggested the family join her on holiday.
“We loved her,” Bashir insisted. “That’s what we wanted to protect, and that’s why I have never taken money, never said anything, never written anything.”
Of the forged bank documents, he created, Bashir said, “Obviously I regret it, it was wrong. But it had no bearing on anything. It had no bearing on [Diana], it had no bearing on the interview.” He never showed Diana the documents, he said.
Praising the trailblazing example Diana set, Bashir said, “I don’t understand what the purpose of this is ultimately? OK, maybe you want to destroy me, but outside of this, what’s the point? I did something wrong... but for pity’s sake, acknowledge something of the relationship we had and something of what she contributed through that interview!... One of the saddest things about all of this has been the way the content of what she said has almost been ignored.”
The Sunday Times asks Bashir if he is able to forgive himself. “That’s a really difficult question because it was a serious error. I hope that people will allow me the opportunity to show that I am properly repentant of what happened.”
Bashing the BBC
The British press, which loves to hate the BBC—seeing the national broadcaster as unfair, publicly funded competition—has lost little time piling on to the corporation in the wake of the revelations of Bashir’s malfeasance. The most striking of these attacks, perhaps, is a comment piece in the Telegraph saying that the BBC is “one journalistic lapse” from collapse.
The author of this piece is the corporation’s ex-chairman, Michael Grade. The same Michael Grade who was controller of BBC One in the 1980s while Jimmy Savile abused children? Why yes, the very same. (Grade dismissed suggestions of a BBC cover-up as “ludicrous” in an interview with Channel 4 News.) Elsewhere, The Times reports that the BBC faces losing expected increases to its £3.2bn ($4.5bn) of expected future funding, with a source saying the corporation was “tarnished” by the affair.
Keep on keeping on
Although the queen has always explicitly set her face against any form of abdication or stepping back from the role of monarch, there are many who believed that after the passing of her beloved husband she would retreat significantly from public life.
In a clear sign that she is seeking to scotch those unfounded rumors, the queen has carried out multiple public engagements since Philip’s death, but until now they had all been done with another member of her family for support. On Saturday, however, she went one further and performed her first solo public appearance since the passing of her spouse. She was all smiles as she landed in style on a helicopter on the Royal Navy’s most powerful vessel, the aptly named HMS Queen Elizabeth (which is nicknamed Big Lizzie in the service, the Sun says) hours before the boat headed off on a tour of duty of the Pacific.
The Telegraph reports that Her Majesty “was greeted by the ship’s commanding officer Captain Angus Essenhigh, and Commodore Stephen Moorhouse, commander of the U.K. Carrier Strike Group.”
This week in royal history
485 years ago this week, on May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, had her head struck from her shoulders. She was 35. Many suspect the real reason for her decapitation was her failure to provide her husband with a male heir.
Unanswered questions
When is Meghan Markle’s second baby going to arrive? The couple themselves said their daughter was due in “the summer.” The Royalist was always taught summer started in June, but there have also been rumors the baby was due sooner than that, so we think the answer is “any day now.”
