For millions of individuals of a particular age, one of the lingering impressions of the Queen and her son and heir Charles is the look of maternal pleasure, pride, and devotion on her face when she placed a coronet on his head establishing him as Prince of Wales.
At the Prince’s 21st birthday party at Caernarvon Castle in 1969, no one could have predicted he’d describe his mother as cold and distant 25 years later.
The world read Jonathan Dimbleby’s official biography of the Prince, and this unfeeling attitude became many people’s view of the Queen, despite the fact that she breastfed all four of her children.
Lord Mountbatten, whom Charles called his ‘honorary grandfather,’ told historian Robert Lacey that the Queen loved ‘nanny’s night off’
When Nanny Mabel was off duty, Elizabeth could wash, read to, and put to bed her kids.
At the Prince’s 21st birthday party at Caernarvon Castle in 1969, no one could have predicted he’d describe his mother as cold and distant 25 years later. The Queen and young Charles in 1950.
Was the Queen really distant? Or were Charles’ childhood recollections marred by ambiguity and unhappiness?
The Prince bitterly recalled a childhood in which nursery staff, not his emotionally repressed parents, taught him to play, observed his first steps, reprimanded and rewarded him, and helped him put his first thoughts into words.
He was almost 46 at the time and had been accused of being irresponsible with his own two sons.
According to the Queen’s friend and cousin, Margaret Rhodes, these memories hurt his mother.
Mrs. Rhodes said, “She cares about her children like any mother.” She thought the critique misunderstood her ‘undemonstrative’ mother approach.
Another famous mother-son photo exists. It shows Charles, 5, shaking his mother’s hand as they returned after a six-month Commonwealth trip.
Here was a mother separated from her children – Anne was 3 — by duty and continuing to obey traditional rituals since age 10. Why didn’t she bring Charles and Anne?
Was the Queen really distant? Or were Charles’ childhood recollections marred by ambiguity and unhappiness? In 2012, Charles kissed the queen’s hand.
Charles’s governess at Buckingham Palace could have accompanied them.
Mrs. Rhodes (who died in 2016) said, ‘People don’t understand — it’s much healthier for little children to be at home in a familiar atmosphere’
She said, “Charles is naive.” When he and Anne were little, the Queen took them to Balmoral. She made them make their beds and wash dishes. She made bangers and hot potatoes for dinner.
These were lovely, loving moments. Charles underrates her closeness to the children.
True, she didn’t embrace them like Princess Diana did with her children, but they were different times.
The Queen loves Charles, but they have different perspectives and often disagree. He’s a glass-half-empty type, while she’s optimistic.
During much of her reign, the Queen feared Charles would endanger the kingdom she had fought for. She often called him “infuriating.”
It took till he was in his 60s and the monarch was in her 80s for Charles to admire his mother’s wisdom and grasp her care for her children’s happiness. The Queen’s acceptance of Camilla into the Royal Family was key, as we’ll see.
Charles’s early complaints about being distant were probably unfair, as he grew older. She was a working mother whose role carried her over the world, especially as a young Queen eager to be seen.
Lord Charteris, her longtime private secretary, once said, ‘She was learning and had too much on her plate to appreciate Charles and Anne.’
The Queen only reluctantly accepted Charles and Camilla’s marriage. Charles and Camilla leave St George’s Chapel following their wedding blessing.
Was motherhood and national duty divided wisely? Charles disagreed.
Many agreed with him, attributing his self-absorption and self-pity to the Queen’s, while a faultless monarch, ‘separated from the lives of her children’ — which obviously damaged her eldest.
According to family acquaintances, the child lacked confidence and felt unloved.
Charles was saddened by the Queen’s seeming parental coldness, as the Dimbleby disclosures showed. Charles disclosed his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles in a spin-off ITV interview. Initially, Camilla embodied the unsettling divisions between mother and son.
In 1998, William and Harry hosted their father’s 50th birthday party at Highgrove without the Queen. Camilla’s presence kept her from going.
At the time, a year after Princess Diana’s death, she couldn’t attend. Some interpreted this as the Prince of Wales putting his mistress before his mother, so it’s not unexpected that mistrust and misunderstanding followed.
He had to marry her if he stayed with her. The Queen pushed him to decide. 2006 photo of Queen, Charles, and Camilla
She criticized her son’s excess. A courtier said she thought his ‘kit and staff’ were disgusting.
In the days after Charles’ 1996 divorce from Diana, a Queen’s assistant suggested he’retire’ to the country, marry Camilla, and transfer the succession to Prince William.
This perspective was communicated to the Queen, who ‘did not react strongly’ and appeared to wonder if it could be a solution.
This was possibly the worst of the Queen’s years of care about Charles and his public image, which focused on his relationships with Diana and Camilla.
Not that the Queen was manly. When she learned that her then-bachelor son was sleeping with Andrew Parker Bowles’ wife Camilla, she said nothing.
The late Dean of Windsor stated the news wouldn’t have astonished the Queen. Her reply would have been that this was natural for a young man.
The Queen learned the virtue of pragmatism over her long reign. She knew her son would be a greater ruler with a loved one by his side, as she had. King Charles and Camilla outside Buckingham Palace today.
The Queen recognized Camilla’s hard work behind the scenes for the Crown, never upstaging Charles like Diana did. Charles and Camilla departing Buckingham Palace
Later, the Queen was as bewildered as Prince Philip by a man with a young wife having illicit relations with an older woman. Mrs Parker Bowles appeared “quite used” to her.
She knew Diana was difficult to live with and, in private, called her a “impossible girl.” But the way she phrased it showed she recognized what the Princess was going through being married to the finicky Prince of Wales.
Charles was uneasy about the Queen accepting Diana’s part of how he treated her during their marriage. It was well accepted.
After Diana’s death, Charles was rehabilitated and praised for his efforts as a single parent raising two sons who had lost their mother.
After Diana’s death, he gently raised Camilla’s matter with the Queen in Balmoral.
He wanted her permission to take her out in public and be seen with her.
He realized his error immediately. His mother’s short reply shocked and angered him.
Former courtier: ‘He couldn’t see it.’ He didn’t realize that asking the Queen so soon after Diana’s death was premature.
The Queen told her son she didn’t want to talk about ‘that terrible woman’ and wanted nothing to do with her, said a Prince confidant.
The Queen and Charles’s relationship could have been catastrophic. Pictured: The Duchess of Cambridge, Camilla Queen consort with the Queen in 2021
‘He was devastated. He couldn’t understand why she had taken so bitterly against the woman he loved.’
To the Queen, her son’s bewilderment at her response was the clearest proof of the self-absorption that had always frustrated her. How could the Queen signal even the smallest aspect of approbation for a woman seen by millions to have been the wrecker of a fairytale marriage?
For his part, Charles believed that neither his mother nor his father understood him and that they provided him no encouragement.
In his need for maternal acceptance, he was disappointed that his mother never praised how he started and built the Prince’s Trust, his principal charity. Her approach was usually ‘don’t talk about it, get on with it’, remembers a lady-in-waiting.
Charles was advised to wait by wiser heads. And this tactic paid off when it eventually became evident that, for the welfare of the monarchy, the Prince of Wales had to ‘regularise’ his relationship with Camilla.
He had to marry her if he stayed with her. The Queen pushed him to decide.
Charles joyfully announced the wedding. Sir Michael Peat, the prince’s then-private secretary, said their friendship had ‘never been better’
The Queen only reluctantly accepted this marriage.
The Queen learned the virtue of pragmatism over her long reign. She knew her son would be a greater ruler with a loved one by his side, as she had.
She and Prince Philip didn’t attend their son’s second marriage ceremony at Windsor’s Guildhall, but she hosted a celebration for 700 afterwards in Windsor Castle, where she toasted the bride and groom by welcoming them ‘into the winners’ enclosure’
The Queen’s deep Christian faith made her uneasy about Mrs Parker Bowles becoming King Charles’ queen (Charles and Camilla pictured talking in July 1975)
That incident, which brought Charles to tears, changed the Queen and her heir’s strained relationship.
All his life, Charles had yearned for his mother’s praise, hoping to hear her call him a winner. How ironic that the moment occurred only after he put a ring on “that wicked woman’s” finger.
As time passed and the Queen began to show indications of weakness and Prince Philip, then in his 90s, began to retire from public life, she began to see the son she had perceived as excessively dependent, fragile, emotional, and self-centered in a different light.
He took on her responsibilities with grace and panache.
This increased regard led to fast cooperation between opposing royal households. Courtiers who were used to pursuing opposing agendas at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House were shocked by this reunion, and relieved.
Queen’s aides have believed Charles’ household was focused only on his appearance at the detriment of others. Charles became ‘co-head’ of the ‘Firm’ when the Queen’s health worsened, ending the competition.
She was mainly delighted with the new system, but not with Charles’ plans to narrow down the monarchy by pushing Edward and possibly Princess Anne to the edges.
Camilla remained a problem. Part of this was due to the Queen’s deep Christian beliefs, which made her uneasy about Mrs. Parker Bowles becoming King Charles’ queen.
Then, on the 70th anniversary of her own accession in February, Buckingham Palace announced that it was her’sincere wish’ that her daughter-in-law be known as Queen Consort alongside King Charles when the time came.
Camilla worked hard for the Crown behind the scenes, never upstaging Charles, as Diana was often accused of doing. Her son’s happiness with his second bride was obvious.
The Queen and Charles’s relationship could have been catastrophic. Monarchs and their heirs have always clashed. By the time of her death, mother and son had reunited and their ideas joined.
She rethought him. She finally felt he might be king. Charles had also rethought his mother.