Robert Hardman is one of King Charles’s go-to biographers/commentators. Hardman, like Robert Jobson, has a lot of “insider sources” connected to Charles and Camilla. But both Hardman and Jobson will sometimes play it like they’ve got some tea on Prince William and Kate. I would imagine that William and his people are in regular contact with these kinds of biographers too, especially when the authors “add chapters.” I could go on and on about this and cite Robert Lacey and Valentine Low, but suffice to say… trust me, bro. This happens all the time, where William’s people call up a biographer and dump a lot of sh-t on them for the paperback edition. That’s what happened with Hardman’s King Charles book too. The new chapters have a lot of sh-t about William, Kate and the Sussexes, of course. Here’s some new stuff about William’s lack of faith and his “strength of character.”

The changes at Kensington Palace: Whereas the royal operation around the King and Queen had not altered a great deal since his diagnosis, there had been great changes afoot in the smaller household of the Prince and Princess of Wales, with its 66 staff. Earlier in the year, the Prince’s private secretary Jean-Christophe Gray had returned to the Civil Service, from where he had been seconded. The Waleses had jointly hired a new chief operating officer, Sean Carney, brother of former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, to run the financial side of things.

William didn’t inherit many of his father’s staffers: As one aide puts it: ‘Since the death of the late Queen, it has been a case of redoing the plumbing – hiring a finance team, an HR [human resources] team and all the rest.’

William’s lack of Christian faith: Might the health scares afflicting his wife and his father have led to a little soul-searching? ‘No change of course there,’ is the firm response from one who knows him well. ‘He is a modern young man,’ says another, ‘and I think he gets embarrassed by certain aspects of ceremonial and religion.’ The Prince’s position, say those in a position to know, is that, when the time comes, he will observe all his constitutional obligations to the Church of England. He will not, however, suddenly become a regular worshipper or feign an enthusiasm for something that he does not feel personally, however bleak the situation.

Kate is getting slightly more religious: The Princess, on the other hand, is said to have become rather more interested in questions of faith as a result of her condition. ‘I would say that things are more hopeful there,’ says one church- going friend of the family.

William’s lazy as hell: Since becoming Prince of Wales, the new heir to the throne had not accumulated a vast portfolio of patronages, as his father had done, but was keen to keep his focus on a deeper connection with a smaller number of organisations. There was also his contrasting attitude to public disclosure, be it with regard to those Duchy accounts or the Princess’s illness.

William doesn’t want an old-hand consigliere: How the Waleses choose to handle their communications is one of those issues on which the King knows well to steer clear. If there is one element of the Kensington Palace operation that does concern some old hands in royal circles it is a sense that the Prince of Wales lacks the odd wise old consigliere who might step in to point out a potential misstep.

William’s Gaza misstep: One veteran of the late Queen’s era points to the Prince’s intervention on Gaza in February and the lack of consultation with the Foreign Office as ‘a worry’. The Prince had called for ‘an end to the fighting’ and ‘a desperate need’ for humanitarian support. Though perfectly benign sentiments, they were not entirely in line with government policy. Senior Foreign Office sources now say that the Prince’s statement had not been authorised. ‘We were briefed it was happening,’ says one, ‘but we were certainly not asked in advance.’ However, the Palace veteran adds: ‘I have to hand it to [William]. When he does appoint staff, he does choose very good people.’

William doesn’t want to do anything on his father’s behalf: ‘William is just doing what his father did,’ says a former member of staff who worked for the King in princely days. ‘If Prince Charles was ever asked to do something by Buckingham Palace, he would triple-ask. He would say: ‘Who told you? Why?’ He might well ring his mother to check.’

William’s “uniquely difficult situation in 2024.” ‘He’s lost his mother, he’s effectively lost his brother, his wife’s got cancer, his father’s got cancer and he’s trying to keep the show on the road. It could hardly be more stressful,’ as one friend puts it.

William’s trip to Normandy for D-Day: ‘There he was among twenty-odd world leaders, having just done events with the Canadians at Juno Beach and a walkabout in the crowd at Arromanches, speaking a bit of French, following big events in Portsmouth the day before – and he looked entirely comfortable and statesmanlike. We know about his commitment to duty and service. But what you’ve seen since the start of this year, more than ever, is the Prince of Wales’s strength of character.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I’m not particularly religious and I don’t like a lot of the ceremonial aspects of organized religion either. But I’m also not the next in line to be Defender of the Faith of the Anglican Church. Would it simply not occur to William to feign more interest in his religion? It’s so weird, it’s like William wants credit for being terribly uninterested. It drives me crazy that William and Kate are both so incurious, lacking in imagination, lacking in work ethic, not to mention anti-intellectual and anti-spiritual. They have this enormous platform and access to top-tier advisors, scholars, experts and intellectuals, and instead of doing anything with all of that access and with that platform, they just hole up in Norfolk and watch TV and whine about every single f–king thing.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.