King Charles’ powerful private secretary, Clive Alderton, is contemplating retiring, according to Tina Brown, The Daily Beast’s founding editor, and his replacement could pave the way for reconciliation between Charles and his estranged son, Prince Harry.
Alderton, despite a somewhat antique air, is only 57, and his departure would be a huge shock to the royal system.
The Daily Beast has reported in recent days that some of the king’s friends believe heads should roll as a result of Charles being humiliated by his disgraced brother, Prince Andrew, in their dispute about whether Andrew could continue living at Royal Lodge, which Brown describes as “an un-winnable fiasco.”
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The always well-informed Brown, a close friend of Princess Diana and the author of two hugely influential accounts of the royal story, reported on the potential staffing changes in her new Substack, Fresh Hell.
Citing an “intimate royal source,” Brown wrote that Sir Clive, who she accurately described as “the king’s all-powerful private secretary and gatekeeper,” “is considering retirement.”
She pointed out that Alderton and Harry are “avowed” enemies, with Harry going so far as to christen him “The Wasp” in his memoir, Spare. She wrote that the replacement of Alderton by a figure without a personal animus toward Harry could “create a new, friendlier path for negotiations with Harry.”
Brown is absolutely correct to identify the Alderton-Harry froideur as a key reason for the failure of Charles-Harry makeup meetings, but some insiders doubt whether Harry will ever, as she would like, “resume some curtailed version of his royal duties.”
The king’s trusted biographer Robert Hardman told The Daily Beast just this week that buy-in and consent from Prince William would be required if a meaningful new settlement between the king and his son was to be forged, especially given the king’s ongoing cancer struggle.
Brown wrote: “Despite the passing of years, there is still a gaping Harry-shaped hole in the depleted royal line-up. As a veteran of two military tours in Afghanistan and founder of Invictus, the substantive charity that brings hope through competitive sports events for injured vets, the Duke of Sussex, now stripped of his military honors, surely deserved a place on the balcony. The British nation needs his human touch and so does his ailing father.”
She wrote that the king looked “old and bleak” without Queen Camilla, also sick, by his side on Sunday. She added that Prince William’s “swaggery interview” with the London Sunday Times, in which he said he plans to “do things differently” with more “empathy,” had not helped the overall mood, saying the comments made William sound “like a performative pinhead.”
No one, surely, could take issue with Brown’s fundamental point, that the Harry situation would be better resolved. “No one would have been happier about a rapprochement than Queen Elizabeth, who took a harsh position on Megxit, but in times of crisis evolved her positions, albeit at a glacial pace, as she did when she finally allowed Prince Charles to marry his mistress in 2005. What was always paramount for her was the health of the crown,” she wrote. “And right now, the crown needs Harry.”
