CB and I are going through Finding Freedom piece by piece, and I have to admit something: I did not think that there would be so much info/gossip about Prince Charles’ relationships with his sons and daughters-in-law. I am not surprised by the narrative in Finding Freedom though, because much of it we heard in the British press in real time as it was happening, which is that Meghan came into the fold and she was well-liked by Charles almost immediately. Charles saw Meghan for what she was: a confident, modern woman who would change the monarchy for the better. But of course, “sources” lean into the “sassy black woman” stereotype (does it matter if it’s said positively though??).
Meghan had her own reasons for admiring her father-in-law, who had poignantly walked her down the aisle when her own father let her down. At the time, a trusted confidant said Meghan “found such a supportive and loving father in Charles, which has really changed her life for the better.” Not a father-in-law but a “second father,” according to the source.
A friend of Charles’s said that the Prince of Wales had “taken a real shine to Meghan. She’s a sassy, confident, beautiful American. He likes very strong, confident women. She’s bright, and she’s self-aware, and I can see why they’ve struck up a very quick friendship.”
Charles liked Meghan’s energy. “The Prince of Wales has always been fond of people from the Arts, like Emma Thompson, who he’s been mates with for years,” another source said. “Meghan ticks the boxes. Most of all she’s married to his beloved youngest son and made him whole. Charles takes enormous delight and pleasure in that.”
[From Finding Freedom: Harry, Meghan, and the Making of a Modern Royal Family]
Charles legitimately loves artists, I think because he’s got quite the artist’s soul too. He paints, he loves art, the theatre, actors and singers. But I think Charles just liked Meghan because he saw her as a breath of fresh air, especially after years of William and Kate purposefully snubbing him. FF also confirms a story we heard at the time, which is that Harry and Meghan went to Scotland in 2018 and spent time with Charles and Camilla in Caithness, at the Castle of Mey, which is owned by Charles. As for Meghan seeing Charles as a second father… I can see that too. Perhaps a Sassy Second Father.
Photos courtesy of WENN, ITV, Avalon Red, Backgrid.
And, like her real father, he promptly threw her under the nearest bus when it suited what HE needed/felt (insert here: jealous, outshined, less popular, threatened….). I think Meg needs to stick to just her mother, her husband and kid(s) for immediate family, and her network of close friends for support. Her husband’s family of back-stabbers would throw her an anchor when she’s drowning.
Charles got much benefit from escorting her down the aisle, he got accolades for what he did. He did not follow through, and certainly must have been aware of the nastiness in the media about Meghan and Harry. There was one garden party that they attended with Charles and Camilla. That was pretty much it. Charles also did not have words with William about all the things he was doing to shun his new sister in law and all the gossip about Meghan and Kate (which Kate should have denied publicly).
@Tessa, William is a futher King of England whom only the Queen can officially take to task. Things will be different once Charles is King, but presently he can only scold William as a father and we’ve all seen how William and Kate respond to that … by cutting off Charles’s contact with is grandchildren.
I was surprised by Charles telling William to make more of an effort with Meghan. And we can all see that William ignored that as well.
If he likes her so much and she views him as a second father, why didn’t he step up when she needed him?
Because The Crown comes first. That was beaten into his head from birth.
From another book I have read on the matter, QEII and Charles did not want to waste “media capital” on going to the tabloids over matters they considered “tittle-tattle” such as the price of Meghan’s clothes and the cost of renovations to Frogmore cottage because all British Royals wear expensive clothes and all British Royals live in historic houses that have under gone costly renovations.
There were very serious personal attacks on the couple, some downright twisted.Charles never did anything about it. The worst was when Charles’ own grandson Archie was attacked, and he stayed silent.
Maybe Charles did not stay silent on the attack on Archie and we just do not know anything about what did or did not happen.
I say this because, by the time Archie was born, the tabloids were determine to drive Meghan from the UK and their commentariats were out for real blood.
Hhmm not sure I buy this second father thing but that’s where I feel like this book protects the Firm.
Harry apparently has a testy relationship with Charles& in a leaving speech pointedly just refers to what his mother taught him yet he’s also meant to be a second father to Meghan?
This reads like a CH source or even from fan’s speculation back when Thomas Markle was first letting Meghan down and people actually thought that the Windsor’s would be the decent family to Meghan.
Harry has a complicated relationship with Charles; William has the testy, competitive, hold you tight to stab you in the back relationship with Charles.
Let’s not forget, Diana told William all her issues and especially the ones she had with Charles. William was Diana’s confidant. Bad position to put a child in. No wonder Charles and William have a bad relationship. (Not giving Willam a pass, he’s an adult now, not a child, and he needs to step up and do some work).
I do think Charles liked her and there was a good relationship there, which is why it was always so bizarre that Charles just ignored the abuse the press was aiming her way every.single.day. Charles may not have been as active in the smear campaign as William, but his silence meant he was complicit in it.
At the very least I hope he tore William apart for the budget plane stunt.
He worked to get them away from William’s control with the BP Household. And he was willing to do the half-in, half-out arrangement. But he always defaults to 1) his own PR and 2) his fear of and weird relationship with William.
The comments about him not wanting to waste capital with the media about the clothing stories makes sense, but when it got more racist he should have stepped in, especially that BBC guy who called his grandson a chimp.
Also he’s cowed by William always threatening to leave. They need to call that bluff because William has no plan to ever leave. He has nowhere to go and his son would end up King way sooner. It will never happen.
Yeah – I don’t think that Charles (or KP even) needed to respond to every negative story. and I don’t think they needed to respond to the criticisms of the clothes – Meghan’s clothes WERE pricey. But when Kate started rewearing outfits repeatedly (which we have never seen her do, not like she did in 2018/9), Charles should have told William to have Kate knock it off. Same thing with the budget plane stunt. Of course we don’t know what happens behind closed doors, and maybe Charles tried to get them to stop feeding the beast, and it didn’t work, but somehow I doubt that.
And at any rate like you said – once the attacks became more blatantly racist (so that even someone like Charles would see them for what they were), CH or BP should have stepped in.
I wonder what Charles thinks about “Rose Who?” and William’s gardening hobby.
I doubt he cares, he’s hardly the epitome of monogamy himself. He’s probably annoyed that Kate’s attempts to cut out Rose put the story out into the gossip universe, but I doubt he cares about the actual cheating.
To me, Charles’ affection and admiration of Meghan was on full display when he greeted her in the aisle at the wedding. It was real, and it was lovely. The fact that he couldn’t stand up for her later is a display of his inability to stand up to The Firm. It’s as though there’s a part of him that is still the little boy shaking his mother’s hand.
FACT.
Charles has always had a thing for black & biracial women.
FACT.😉😉😉
TRUE! TRUE! TRUE! This is documented in several books written in the 1990s and I have read this factoid many times in many places.
@BayTampBay –
As Oona King, Alesha Dixon, June Sarpong, Naomi Campbell, Naima Belkihayti and many, many, others can confirm.😘😉😛😁😎😎
@Jegede – You left out Sheila Ferguson, a lead singer for The Three Degrees, who Charles was supposedly hot-n-heavy with in the 1970s per Lady Colin Campbell.
He is very fond of Tungsten, to be sure!!
😁😁😁😁😁 @Tungsten
Charles stood up to the Firm. He made Camilla non-negotiable and pressed for his marriage to her. But with Harry and Meghan apparently he could not be bothered. IMO.
I wept when Charles walked Meghan down the aisle. Her biological father had let her down so horribly and Charles stepped in and it was very moving. Prince Charles should have stood up for Harry and Meghan and his weakness and cowardice is a sad reflection on him.
Ugh. This just makes me sad for she and Harry that this relationship started off so strong-but ultimately Charles failed them both so strongly by his lack of support and yes, throwing them under the bus when it suited his purposes.
I believe it. It seemed like Charles and Meghan genuinely liked each other.
Book downloaded last night. I love these threads but maybe need to give myself a little time to savor all 400 pages.
Yeah ok. Charles supposedly liked her so much, the queen found her respectful and attentive…and yet none of those happy feelings translated into the RF giving protection or even showing the most basic decency towards Meghan. Charles and his mother are some sorry ass excuses for “leaders” of their sad little firm.
The spotlight on HM and WK preserves their status quo and when push comes to shove, William will come first. And of course Andrew would bring the whole house down so he has to be protected by Queenie. Being the privileged people that they are, they cannot see racism. They will simply think, hey the media also attacked us, just grin and bear it. Or, are you sure the courtiers are unfair to you? They don’t act that way with us.
“I knew it would be difficult, but I thought it would be fair.”
“If you knew what I knew…”
Remember these words from HM.
Meghan is the mother of his grandson Archie, his son Harry’s wife, certainly he could have made her non-negotiable like he made Camilla non-negotiable.
Like the Queen, I think he liked her but not enough. I still think he (and the Queen/BP) had a hand in the smear campaign but it’s clear the Cambridges (in conjunction with the media) were the heavy hitters behind it.
My current theory is that the smear campaign was 100% Will and Kate, but Charles and the Queen were complicit in it by looking the other way and burying their head in the sand because Will is the heir.
Good theory.
I agree with that too. I do think some of the CH and BP courtiers were leaking, but it definitely seems that the bulk of the leaking was from KP.
But it makes sense that it was W&K, because they were the ones who benefited from it. Charles did not look good, if anything the whole thing made him look worse because if you thought that he was encouraging the GSC, then it seemed like he was a 70 year old man still jealous of other members of his family who couldn’t handle his son having a charismatic and hard working wife. That makes him look petty and insecure. And I think Charles is media-savvy enough to know that.
W&K, at least initially, were the direct beneficiaries of the GSC – poor Kate, mean Meghan made her cry! It seemed like for every bad story about Meghan that got pushed, there was one about how William and Kate were the future – William preparing for his role, Kate is the future queen, etc.
But like you said, the Queen and Charles were complicit in it, they could have reined in the Cambridges and did not.
@Snuffles – Agree with you 100% and have been saying the same thing for months.
I agree but I would add that Andrew probably contributed a bit a well, especially pre interview and relating to Eugenie’s wedding. The book mentions someone working for Eugenie and Andrew leaking some information to the media.
That said Christian Jones and his Bf were clearly providing Wootton and others with information. And since Jones still works for KP and has not been fired for leaking then they have confirmed that William and Kate approve of the leaks to the media about H and M as in any other circumstances a staff member who leaks about royals gets fired. It couldn’t be any more obvious.
Maybe if Christian Jones and his Bf were fired from KP then Dan Wootton would write a complete guide to Rose Cultivation and Gardening in England.
I think this is called “pulling a Blunt” in British Royal circles and this behavior by a high-ranking QEII courtier is very well dramatized in “The Crown”.
@Nic, specifically, what that “someone” leaked was the fact that Harry was dating Meghan, which wasn’t publically known at that point. The book reports that Eugenie knew about the relationship, she and Harry were close, and she was happy for him.
Maybe an employee did see big bucks for themself by leaking the story. But could just have plausibly been Fergie, needing money, or Andrew, looking to cause controversy, that he could 1) angle for a future advantage to his family; or 2) use as a cover for something else going on.
Given that Meghan had said in an early interview promoting Suits that she’s not sassy, I’m not sure how she would take this “compliment”. From Charles aide or source, all I’m just getting is racist tropes and unconscious bias, eek! It’s good that he liked Meghan but it’s obvious along the way he also became jealous of her. The tiara story came from his authorised biography and then last year we saw his staff complaining that she didn’t come to the unveiling of Charles’ 70th birthday exhibit. Charles also used Meghan and her mother to boost his public. In the end, it doesn’t seem like Charles fought to keep Harry and Meghan in the family, he willing participated in those heirs photo-shoots and he let Harry and Meghan leave.
Compared to Kate, any female would be “sassy”.
Sophie Wessex definitely has a “sassy” side as does the Princess Royal.
I think white women get to be “quick witted” while black women have to be “sassy.” 🙄
THIS PART.
+1 Amytoo
Meghan isn’t even sassy. So even though this is seen as a positive compliment it feeds into the stereotype and is harmful.
But But But … We cared for her, welcomed her, thought the best for her. When is the book being released?
if i got a penny for every time someone thought calling me “sassy” was endearing… anyway, this matters a lot less considering what ultimately happens.
I absolutely hate that. I wouldn’t have taken that as a complement…but I guess he was the most “civil” out of all of them.
“sassy” is a stereotype used by white people to label women of colour.
Yes-agreed. And even if you were to give it a generous read and say sassy as being super gregarious and perky-that definitely does not seem like Meghan. Confident yes.
Yup. The updated “uppity.”
🙄
To me, have my family are Southern born, “sassy” describes a person who will take the lead and answer back to anyone if needed.
I don’t know about the US, but sassy here often means someone whose street-smart, who’s together and not naive.🤷♀️🤷♀️
Esp when compared to Kate.
Princess Anne was often described as sassy when young.
@Jegede – Thanks for bringing that up as I now remember reading something over 20 years describing Anne as having a “sass” that most British females of her class do not have but successful American females seem to have in spades.
Yeah, I think there’s definitely people who are sassy in all shades and the word started as a harmless and postive trait (and still is when labeling white woman). But lately I’m sideyeing a lot of adult racists using that word to describe bipoc children victim of domestic abuse, or even the slightest thing like a black woman wearing her hair natural is labeled sassy. I don’t like it, it’s becoming tired, it’s starting to come off as a joke, and a disdainful word to me.
The “problem” with this family will always be “The Crown.” Protect The Crown. Nothing comes before The Crown. Throw your mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, and dog under the bus if it means The Crown is protected. I can easily believe that Charles and QEII liked Meghan a lot. There are a ton of things about the personality we’ve seen from her that would appeal to them. But Charles has had his eye on that throne since Jesus was a boy, and QEII has been on the throne since before Jesus was a boy. Neither of them is going to do anything that they think could jeopardize “The Crown.” If it means allowing their son/ grandson and daughter/ granddaughter-in-law to be terrorized, so be it. What a sad way to live.
Well, you know Americans…we’re young, scrappy and hungry 😂.
Well played! And the royal family definitely missed their shot when it came to defending H&M and keeping them in the family.
Loving this. The Hammy-ness! Lol.
I grew up reading Sassy magazine and always thought it was a positive descriptor. That it meant to be bold, outspoken, and someone who isn’t afraid to shine. I can see now how it can take on a different connotation when speaking of WOC.
Sassy is a dog whistle for ‘Black woman’. It is used in schools with little girls too.
Yep. It also has a negative connotation, both with children (“Don’t sass (me/you father/back/etc.” is a common scold) and adult women (stereotyping/infantilizing). I get that there may be regional differences here, but “sassy Black lady” is a pretty tired and common trope.
oh for the love of god. I think we have beaten the horse to death. There’s no debate about crown before any sort of feelings/compassion. The royal family is all about protecting the firm, and even if Charles wanted to do anything, every teaching since he has been young has taught him no. Otherwise, his entire family is out of a job and money. Why is everyone all shocked that Charles didn’t stand up for Meghan? I mean what do you expect? Sure, he probably thought she was smart, confident and drive…but at the end of the day his family will come first. This family’s entire livelihood and PURPOSE depends on them holding on to uppity traditions that make themselves seem better than others. There’s nothing special about this group of people except for “bloodline”. Neither Charles, Harry, William, or even the Queen are any more talented or special than anyone. Even Harry, take away his title and he is just a regular guy.
Given this info, really gotta wonder what happens with H&M if/when Chazzz becomes king. Are they asked if they’d like to be brought back into the fold with his full support? If so, can he make some things irrevocable so Willileaks can’t roll them back? Is Chazzz just waiting this whole thing out? Hmmm…