Camilla Tominey Camilla Tominey

Warring Windsors: the real royal conflict is between Charles and his sons

What looked like a peace summit at Sandringham was, in fact, an escalation of the feud

Three years ago, Sir Christopher Geidt departed as the Queen’s private secretary. For years, he had done much to hold The Firm together, but his influence was resented by Prince Charles. The festering acrimony between Buckingham Palace and Clarence House came to a head in 2017 when Geidt, a Cambridge-educated former Scots Guard, convened a meeting of staff to announce Prince Philip’s retirement without first consulting Charles’s aides. Geidt ended up being forced out after a decade of unwavering service. Many in the family — including the Princess Royal and Prince Edward — now blame straight-talking Lord Geidt’s absence for the bedlam that has since ensued.

Insiders described Geidt in reverential terms, praising him as an ‘extraordinary man manager’ and ‘strategic thinker’, who unlike some of his royal ‘principals’ had the ability to ‘see around corners’ and deftly handle internal palace politics with forceful subtlety. His replacement, Sir Edward Young, while respected and liked, is said to lack Geidt’s strength of personality. So, thanks largely to her eldest son, the Queen lost the only gatekeeper who was able to keep the warring Windsors in check.

Many have questioned why, as William and Harry’s father and only living parent, Charles has not been able to broker peace between his once inseparable sons. The truth is the royal brothers do not really listen to the ‘Papa’ they have long seemed to regard with a degree of affectionate ridicule. Charles has always been desperate for the approval of his two self-confessed ‘mummy’s boys’ and so historically has had to bring in outsiders to read the riot act, such as their former joint private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton.

The brothers do not really listen to the ‘Papa’ they seem to regard with affectionate ridicule

Charles’s aides asked William to praise his father’s role in the boys’ upbringing when the brothers appeared in documentaries to mark the 20th anniversary of their mother’s death.

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