What Queen Elizabeth would prefer we not know about Prince Charles

Mere moments after Prince Charles was born, he was whisked away to be viewed by the royal courtiers who had served his grandfather, King George VI (Elizabeth’s II’s father). This was no ordinary newborn: this was Britain’s next king. Unlike Queen Elizabeth II, who did not become heir to the throne until she was ten (that was when her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated, changing the line of succession forever), Charles was immediately under the public’s intense gaze, with Elizabeth’s mothering under intense scrutiny.

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When Jonathan Dimbleby interviewed friends of Prince Charles for his authorised biography, The Prince of Wales: A Biography, they noted that Queen Elizabeth had been somewhat “detached” as a mother, according to Prince Charles: The Passion and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life. While delighted with her firstborn, the 22-year-old Elizabeth spent little time with him during his first year. It wasn’t that she was indifferent to him so much as that royal duty called, and from the moment of his birth, Charles was being groomed for those same duties.

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In his biography of Prince Charles, Dimbleby noted that Charles was often “cowed” by his father’s brusquely critical personality. “Friends who spoke with Charles’s permission described the duke’s ‘belittling’ and even ‘bullying’ his son,” Vanity Fair writes. And while Philip’s intention was to help Charles to “toughen up,” it may well have been one of the reasons he’s been described as extraordinarily sensitive, as well as a people-pleaser.

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When Prince Charles was bed-ridden with the Asian flu while at boarding school in 1957, Queen Elizabeth declined to visit him (despite that she had been inoculated), writing him a “farewell” letter instead (she was leaving for a royal tour of Canada). Four years later, when Charles came down with the measles, she declined again to visit him because she and Philip were on tour, in India.

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When Elizabeth and Philip were reunited with their five-year-old son after a six-month separation, they greeted their boy with a handshake. The Queen Mum (Elizabeth’s mother) was warm and affectionate, never hesitating to shower him with hugs and attention. “My grandmother was the person who taught me to look at things,” Prince Charles told Dimbleby.

It’s pretty widely known now that Queen Elizabeth wasn’t pleased with The Crown’s depiction of Prince Charles’ experience at Gordonstoun, his father’s alma mater, but what the show doesn’t address is that Prince Charles had already attended, and hated attending, another boarding school. He was originally enrolled in Cheam School in Hampshire, where he suffered from acute homesickness, “clutching his teddy bear and weeping frequently in private,” according to Vanity Fair.

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Queen Elizabeth knew that Cheam was “a misery” to her son, according to To be a King: Biography of H.R.H. Prince Charles, by Dermot Morrah.

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In To be a King, Morrah observed that Queen Elizabeth thought Charles to be a “slow developer.” Clearly, she no longer thinks this as she has been handing over more and more of her royal duties to Charles.

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Under the influence of South African author Laurens van der Post and his circle of artsy intellects, Prince Charles experimented with vegetarianism, sacred geometry, horticulture, educational philosophy, architecture and Sufism, according to The New Yorker. These are not the sort of pursuits favoured by the Queen.

“The stances he takes do not follow predictable political lines but seem perfectly calibrated to annoy everyone,” notes The New Yorker. “Conservatives tend to be upset by his enthusiasm for Islam and his environmentalism; liberals object to his vehement defence of foxhunting and his protectiveness of Britain’s ancient social hierarchies. What unites his disparate positions is a general hostility to secularism, science and the industrialised world.”