Comparing Charles and Harry's Personalities

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Psychics, spirits, astroprojection, check, check, and check. You may think we live in a world where there's a logical explanation for anything out of the ordinary. But after you spend some time with me and my pals, you might have your doubts and find that you too are woo woo When our lobster overlords come . You heard it here first . Join me for a podcast that turns the mysterious tales of my funny friends into a spirited conversation . Search for Woo woo with Rachel Dratch, wherever you're listening now . Harry and Meghan betrayed the royal family. Why do you think they want to come back? Well, I think you can summar itiz ined two words desperation and failure. Megalan is someone who is desperate for fame. She is desperate for money of course and status and it just seems to her that a visit to the royal family would give her or restore her the credibility she once had. I think for Harry it's worse. He misses England and somehow wants to worm his way back into the affections not only of his own family, but of the British people . Will the king and his officials allow the Sussexes to somehow come back into the fold without apologizing for their appalling behavior? Hello, I'm Tom Sykes. This is the Royalist. We are thrilled to have you with us. It has been an extraordinary week. Meghan Markle who denounced the United Kingdom and the Royal Family as racist, cruel and h,ate ful, is apparently returning here in just over two weeks' time with her children to stay in a royal palace provided by the king himself. We've got the legendary Tom Bauer to sort fact from fiction, from spin . Also, dueling Father's Day posts from the Royals, The King becomes the first modern monarch to publish his personal tax bill and the Daily Mail's Bizarre vendetta against Prince William as they launched yet another attack on him for being work shy, all of that and more on today's show . So without further ado, let's get into our royal rundown . First , our Royal News Update . The King publishes this tax bill, William is workshy, apparently, and is the mail gearing up for another summer attacking the air ? Then it's time for Tea with Tom and I'm glad to say Paula Frolick is back and we're going to be talking about the Father's Day Photo War. Three households , three photographs, three very messages and then the moment you will all be waiting for our royal insider, Tom Bower . Despite everything they have done and the extraordinary damage Meghan and Harry have inflicted on the crown, they are being rewarded with a royal palace to stay in next month, allegedly . To sort through all of this, I am delighted to say we have none other than the mighty Mr Bower, the celebrated biographer and author of Revenge and Betrayal . So without further ado, let's get into today's first item our Royal News Update And it is all about the King's Tax Bill . So every year the royals publish their accounts at the end of this big week of formal ceremonial occasions. We have trooping the colour, we have Askot. This is the time where they get to set the agenda. Then in the old days they used to whack the accounts out then and then theeen Qu would take off on holiday for about four months, which I have to say, even by European standard, is quite a long time . A similar patent still exists today, and the royal accounts will be published in the next week or so. But what we've had this weekend is some flagging that King Charles was to become the first British monarch in modern times to publicly disclose his personal tax bill. Now it's less significant than it seems in some ways because as Prince Charles, he always disclosed his tax bill. So in a sense he's just continuing to do what he did. It would have been slightly odd had he suddenly said, Well, now I'm king, I'm not going to tell you anything about it. But it does matter because British monarchs are actually legally exempt from paying income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, really any tax. They don't have to pay any tax. They don't have to tell us what they earn . But since nineteen ninety three, the late Queen agreed to voluntarily pay income tax after public money was used to restore Windsor Castle after the fire there. And the monarch has paid income tax, capital gains tax as a sort of goodwill gesture to us peasants . But the figures that the monarch pays have never been made public until now, and Charles is going to publish the amount he paid in tax for the twenty four twenty five financial year, covers his income from the Duchy of Lancaster , which generated around twenty four million last year pounds, that is at about thirty million dollars , his personal investments, his private estates. And the palace is obviously presenting this as you know , the king's commitment to transparency. And sure, credit where credit is due , it is a good thing that the King is trying to be a bit more transparent . But this argument that the royals are incredibly transparent, I mean, look at the National Audit Office findings the other day, which frowned, you know, not only that Andrew had been sub letting cottages on the world largest estate while paying no rent , not only that Beatrice and Eugenie have been living in properties in St. James's Palace and Kenneth Palace, rent p aid by the king for twenty years , but also that Edward , who's largely escaped blame so far, has also got a very advantageous property deal and also rents out proper ty on his estate to cover his own exp enses . So look, publishing this voluntarily is better than not doing it, but there is a long way to go until we get any kind of proper transparency. And transparency of course is something that Andrew Looney and Norman Baker have tried to kind of get people to get on board with. Well, I have to say their campaign to do that has slightly hit the buffers in the face of kind of institutional resistance . And Norman Baker qu'ites interesting in this context because he's got this piece in the mail over the weekend branding William Workshire William. I mean, a charge we've heard before because he completed just fifty seven Royal Engage ments in the first five and a half months of this year compared to Charles seventy six and Princess Anne's one hundred . Now we've been here before, right? I have talked about this before and I think it's really not correct to misrepresent William as incredibly lazy because he doesn't engage in this kind of competitive presenteeism . But what I actually find really fascin ating is what this tells you about the male's relationship with the palace. Like Norman Baker is completely beyond reproach, you know, he's given a huge part of his life to campaigning on royal financial transparency. So I don't mean it as criticism of him at all. He would have had this published wherever he could get it published and the mail is a great place for him to meet his audi . But the mail seems to have this agenda with William that comes out every summer , you know, all these reports about where they're on holiday, they're on a luxury yacht, they're doing this. He's lazy. He doesn't do enough. He's running the Duchy of Cornwall. He's making too much money and I just think the idea that he's worked sharpy , after his wife's been through cancer, he's got three young children. I mean, I just I think it's a really odd thing for the male to keep pushing . And I find it baffling in some senses that they keep running these pieces . But let's be honest, the mail has been very close to the king's office . It's always the Mail on Sunday in particular was always very close to Camilla , traditionally, that was the way it was seen . And of course , the King's press office is now run by a former executive from the mail . And so I think that actually what you're seeing in this workshop, William it's very similar. Do you remember there was a Barbara Davis story a couple of weeks ago that sort of saying that William didn't do enough stuff, wouldn't get on planes , you know, and it was kind of covered up with this thing of him, you know, wearing a jokey moustache disguise when he wanted to go out drinking with his friends or what have you. But it's definitely the There definitely is this weird agenda in the mail against William . And it speaks very much to what Harry actually talks about in Spare where he talks about members of the family briefing against each other. Although I don't leave this a case of briefing, this specific example , but he speaks to way in which when one is down, the other is up and the male's relationship , close relationship with the palace I think is reflected through this and through this conf rontational relationship that they seem to have with William and his family. And I think partly it's to do with William being much less willing to play the sort of traditional game of access for coverage , not doing quite the same level of sort of cozy briefings and not feeding feeding the beast in quite the same way . So I thought it was an interesting insight and it's something what I want to say is it's something to keep your eye on over the summer because is the mail going to spend the next few months like it did last summer attacking William simultaneously running very sympathetic stories towards the king . That'll if you keep your eyes peeled and your senses are tuned, that'll tell you a fair old bit about the direction in which the editorial wind is blowing. Okay, so that's our Royal News update. Now let's move on. It's time for tea with Tom and I'm delighted to be joined by my old friend Paul, a Frolick. Paula, let's talk about the Father's Day Photo War. What happened? Tom there were two fathers not mentioned at all in the Royal Father Day Roundup . Charles pictured with his father, Prince Philip, lovely , you know, wishing he could be there , you know, to all the people who couldn't be with their fathers to day . Eh Me it's probably about Harry but we'll move on . Then Megan puts up a picture of Harry about how he's the best papa Sussex ever , which by the way, I always thought sounded like Papa Smurf and they should not call him that, but we'll move on . And then Catherine puts up a photo of William and Charlotte , which is lovely. But there are two very big main daddy characters not mentioned in any of these. Number one is Charles and number two is, of course, Meghan's father, Thomas Markle. Tell me Paula, is there a reason that Meghan didn't wish her father a happy father's day? I'm confused . Yes, she still has never talked to her father who lost a leg and the Philippines has come back for treatment in the states. She refuses to see him because he embarrassed her. Remember when he did the whole like I'm reading , you know, reading about myself and my daughter in the barber shop in Mexico . And she's, oh, you took money for photographs. I'm done with you never spoke to him again. He's never met his grandchildren. It's just insane to meet, Tom. Like the cold heartedness of it is just It's a lot for a woman who thinks she's so kind . It was an interesting array of photographs, wasn't it? Because the Kensington Palace photograph of Charles of William with Charlotte . It was quite formal. It was William in his Welsh Guards kit. It was taken after trooping the colour. Shot I noticed by a professional, none of this, we're going to do our own photos anymore after the Photoshop disaster a couple of years ago . I thought it was actually a really intelligent photograph to release because there could have been a temptation, couldn't there to do a shiny Instagram friendly, glossy , all fuzzy we're with our bids and our sweaters and our jumpers rolling around with our feet out in the sand . But it was a much more like this is stability , this is normality, there's all this chaos going on everywhere else. Don't worry, the future of the monarchy is in great hands. Did you kind of get that vibe or am I reading too much into it ? No, I'm with you on that one, but I also thought it was quite sweet because there was William in full Beaver Habregalia and he's doing his duty. And then there's Charlotte and it was just an impromptu hug. It was lovely. And it was like, yeah, Daddy might be future king, but he's still a daddy. Paul had a bit of hots for William in his beef eater hat I did. Let's be honest, he's a good looking man and yeah, when he's got a hat on, you're just like, ooh my God, I would swipe right on that . Hub a hubba as the Americans once used to say. Once used Meghan's photo of Harry captions They're so lucky to have you. We all are , you know, again , it's like very predictable. The children's face is hidden. And it's a very interesting contrast. It's a very interesting corner that they've backed themselves into now, isn't it? With this endless hiding of the children's faces because I mean, I think that anybody with a basic knowledge of social media, clickbait, anything who's ever used the internet understands that what is being created here is what is called in marketing a curiosity gap . And what the Walesers have done very deliberately from the beginning is released very caref ully controlled images of their children's faces that show exactly who they are to destroy the market for illegal pictures of the children . But ultimately this is going to be very hard to maintain going forward , isn't it? I mean, where does this kind of end? Are we never ever going to see their faces? Are we only ever going to see half their face? And does it really give them any privacy or protection? I don't think it gives them privacy or protection at all time. For number one, they've already shown Lily in full half profile. We've seen enough of Archie's face while decorated in an egg. We all pretty much know that if we saw them on the streets of Montecito, you'd be like, Yep, there they are, boom . So I think it's really it's part of their marketing ploy, but there's a school of thought that the children may be shown this summer. I don't think they will . I think Meghan and Harry are going to keep on with this kind of hokey ploy of like we don't put our children up on the internet. They do. And then when we do, it's only personal well personal is business for you because they're so intertwined as we know as, ever is Meghan Markle and Mark Megan Markle is as ever and all the other failed brands she chooses to be a part of . So it's interesting because she does want to do a more family friendly brand. As I've talked about, Azer has about technically two more years before you can fail in a business . Your business can lose money for five years and you get massive write offs. At the end of the five years , it's done. She's got about two more years. So in that time, she's going to sunset as ever, do another family friendly brand and then just kind of kick as ever to the curb . So if it's a family friendly brand, you know , we're certainly going to be seeing much more of the family because Meghan will once again try to market herself as family friendly mother, birth mother , etc . I would agree with you that I don't think that their faces will be revealed on this trip to the UK, which is coming up in a little over two weeks' time . I think it would just be so open them up to accusations of being so cynical that I think even they would blanch at it. I suppose the only way that it might happen that we get a photo of their faces is if the king does agree to give them a photograph. And let's be honest, although there's already briefings saying that they're going to get they're not going to meet the king. We know they are going to meet the king. Maybe they get a photograph as well. Maybe they don't. But I would find it if they do get a photograph, which I hasten to add, I think is unlikely , I hesitate to believe that the king continue to allow them to manufacture this curiosity gap. First of all, they're not getting a photo with a king because Meghan would sell the outfits on one off and that would not be okay . That would be the king basically saying, yes, it's fine to merchandise the monarchy. Give Meghan ten to twenty five percent of that fifty thousand dollars outfit she's wearing, which she probably has dubbed How to Meet Your Evil In laws . So I doubt that is happening . You know, I reported before it was announced before Meghan had decided to go with the children . I reported that there was no schedule there was nothing on Charles' schedule for Harry and that he was not planning on seeing Harry . Now there still is nothing on his schedule . However, I agree with you. I think if the kids come , as we all know they're being used for emotional blackmail that he will try to see the children. You and I also both know that there's no way Meghan's letting them go anywhere without her . So it'll be interesting. I mean, there's been so much back and forth on this. So the mail at the weekend saying that the king might find himself very busy, that he wouldn't have time to meet the children, the son today saying that he will meet the children and Meghan. I mean, I have to say my money is on that he does meet them. Funny enough, I am not as convinced as you that he won't do a photo with them just because the Royal family really liked communicating through images . And I've always felt that Charles wants this feud over and there's no clear way to show the photo is the feud is over that he's resolved it, that he's broken the log jam , you know, than with a photo. But I would put the chance of a photo at like ten, twenty percent. But I don't think it's impossible actually. Funnily enough. All right, well, you know what, Tom, this is why we're such good friends, because you and I have always been able to agree to disagree on certain things, civilly and then go to lunch after exactly, exactly. Now I did feel I know he wasn't Father of the Year , but I did feel a bit sorry for Charles not getting any Father's Day wishes from anyone. And I hasten to add that in my family we actually don't really celebrate Father's Day because we're slightly of the view that Father's Day is a bit of a hallmark holiday and mothering Sunday , of course , existed really because women got such a terrible deal from society and the patriarchy in general that it's actually a religious observance in the church mothering Sunday . So we don't actually celebrate Father's Day in my house, but at the same time, I loved the fact that my kids did say to me, you know, happy Father's Day and my son gave me a little gift and a little card, you know, and I did feel a little bit sorry for Charles that nobody said Happy Father's Day to him. Yeah , of course, him and Thomas Markle. But if we're going to talk about Charles specifically , I mean, I get it. I called my dad and we had a wonderful conversation . And my dad also, you know, men of a certain age and of a certain era, they were not perhaps the best fathers because I don't think they knew how . However , in my father's defense, he has definitely tried and he has learned. And I also feel in Charles's defense, he has also tried and he has learned. And so it did hurt my heart a little that he wasn't mentioned by anybody at all . And of course, then there's Thomas Markle, who I mean, it's just cruel at this point. Megan the longer this goes on just cruel. He's in the states . There's no reason for her not to contact or at least pay for his bills. Her one off shenanigans could do that in two seconds. But then again, they could also pay for Scott Snow's bill, the Canadian veteran who is left thousands of dollars in the hole after being hit by hurt during Invictus Dusseldorf . They don't like to pay other bills. Got it. They like to talk about kindness. They're not that nice. Okay , and neither of them are being nice to their fathers at all . And of course , so much of the context and so much of the detail around how Thomas Markle paid for his daughter's educ ation , paid for her university, continued paying off her loans after university after she went to Northwestern was, of course, provided by Tom Bower , who, as you will know, is going to be our guest later on in this show. So very excited to talk to the great Mr Bauer shortly Paula, thank you so much for being with us. Paula has got like so much stuff going on at the moment. So Paul where are all the best channels if people want more frolic in their lives? Which of course they do because Frolic means happy in Germany, in German . So if you want to be more frolic, where do you get more paula? I'm on YouTube at Polyfrolic . I'm on Substack, Polyfrolic Uncensored . And I also just got a new News Nation show Paul The Scoop with Paula Ferroleg . So yeah, I'm like a cockroach tom, I'm everywhere. A very, very busy, a very, very busy one. Paula, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's great to see you. Have a wonderful day. You dear friend and now it's time for our Royal Insider . Now I'm told by people who work in the reputation management field that one of the worst sentences a famous person , a businessman, or indeed a royal can hear is the follow ing Tom Bowers doing a biography of you. Well, in the week that it was confirmed that Meghan and the children will be joining Harry in Well, I shouldn't say confirmed. I should say reported slash claims because Buckingham Palace have not yet confirmed this, that Meghan and the children would be joining Harry in the UK next month and that they've been offered a royal palace to stay in. I am only delighted to be joined by Mr Bower himself, whose new book betrayal, the follow up to his first installment of the Sussex Story Revenge is a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Tina Brown and the observer called it juicy, saying a bauer news bomb is always something of a publishing event. The Times called it explosive. The evening standard called it a fascinating read. And as I said on this very podcast when it came out , it is a sensational , brutal forensic takedown of the House of Sussex at its most fragile moment yet. Tom, welcome back to the Royalist. Thank you very much. Tom, as the title of your latest book makes clear , Betrayal , it is a forensic account of the many , many ways Harry and Meghan cynically and ruthlessly and in an incredibly self serving fashion betrayed the royal family and continue to betray the royal family . Why do you think they want to come back to this awful , racist, snobbish , cruel society and institution? Well, I think you can summarize it in two words desperation failure. They have reached sort of a headwind . They run out of ideas. They can't anymore work for Netflix or Spotify or any of the main streamers . And their finan ces are basically in jeopardy over the long term . And Megalan is someone who is desperate for fame, she's desperate for recognition, she's desperate for money, of course, and status , and it just seems to her that a visit to the royal family in Britain would give her or restore her the credibility she once had . I think for Harry it's worse because Harry is isolated in California . He has actually now got no role at all and I'm sure he now misses his family. He misses his roots , he misses England and somehow wants to worm his way back into the affections not only of his own family, but of the British people. So I think we're seeing them effectively crawl on bended knees back to Britain and they are to some extent going to be pathetically grateful if the king agrees to let them be not there on any of their terms. Such an interesting analysis, Tom. And as you say, crawling really on bended knee , back to British society, back to the Royal Family. One of the things that I've always been told by their side when I've said, well, why doesn't Harry Meghan, if they're so desperate for their father to see the grandchildren, why don't they come back and spend a few days at Sandringham or Balmoral or somewhere within the security envelope. And you're always told, well, you know , because if they do, it'll all be on the royal family's terms, it'll be on not on their own terms, everything that they f'veought for, their right to say what they want and speak what they want will be denied . But effectively do you think that's what's happening? Do you see this as they are having to they are having to submit to what Charles wants. Because in a way, both of those offers are still outstanding, aren't they? Like Charles , the Royal Family's offer is sort of in a sense still there. Come back if you behave yourself and keep your noses clean and don't denounce us. And their offer or their demand , which is we want to do our own thing, but we want to be half in half out royals . Who do you think has won this? Because it seems very unclear to a lot of people is now holding the upper hand. Well, I don't think we know anywhere near the end game yet. I think you got to go back a step and remember that Harry said he'd only come back . He the royal family publicly apologized to him for the appalling treatment he suffered as a child that apologized to Meghan for the appalling way in which she had been treated after she arrived in the Royal Palaces in twenty sixteen . We don't hear any apology whatsoever . That means straightaway that they're not coming back on their terms . But I'm not sure if the terms have yet been agreed. I think we are seeing at the moment the Sussex is rather paltry , low level press machine churning out stories about their return , without anything coming , as you rightly say, from Buckingham Palace, confirming their view and their opinion of what they think is going to happen . I think it's all still very much in the air and I think that's for two reasons . On the one hand, I don't think Harry is going to get the Rabbeck agreement for protection he wants from . This is the committee that decides whether his life is at risk and therefore he and Meghan as he demanded should have armed protection throughout . But also I think people are forgetting we are awaiting the judgment in his case against the Daily Mail Associated Newspapers. Now Harry's reputation , in my view, is going to take a very heavy battery in that judgment because during his testimony he says something which at the end of the case was shown to be untrue about his relationship with a famous journalist . He denied it, the evidence showed he was wrong and that he hadn't told the truth. And therefore, I think the royal family is waiting to see whether the judge condemns Harry in terms which would embarrass the royal family in any event having the Sussexes in Britain at that time . And the judgment is likely to be published before Harry arrives in Britain in mid July. So I think that a lot more means that we don't know on what terms they come, but I'm pretty sure that whatever terms they come on will be dictated by the palace and not by them . This is such an interesting point Tom that you make about Harry being caught out in these lies in the Royal Courts of J ustice in his case against the Daily Mail. Of course, one of the features that and you have so many fans amongst my community in the Royalist, I can hardly tell you, if you would like a massive ego boost, please come on and join the comments when this show goes live on Tuesday evening , well at ten PM UK time, five PM Eastern time . You will see so many comments , thanking you for your work, praising your books . One of the things that people say when you're on is how methodically you have exposed not just Meghan's, but Harry Anne Meghan's, but very much principally Meghan's lies in both your books on the Sussexes . And I use the word advisedly and I use it deliberately and I will defend it for our lawyers when they look at this because you expose ruthlessly the multiple times that Megan has lied in her public account in re tooling renarrating her past, her present, all these kinds of things . I just can't help feeling there's a terrific risk for the p alace and the king in restoring a platform whatever caveats that platform comes with to a proven liar and to two people who have used those li es to try and damage the crown, to try and damage Charles and to try and damage William and Catherine . Well, not try , Tom, I mean, they actually did damage. I mean, it caused enormous damage around the world by Meghan's false assertion that there was this racist agenda against the unborn Harris Archie. I mean, that was a sh ocking lie to have told , which was instantly picked up everywhere, but it didn't help because the damage has been done continues to be done. And of course, Harry' accsount in his autobiography spare about his relationship with Charles and William and Camilla and even the Queen are so damaging, such treachery that it's hard to forgive him let alone Meghan for the damage and the dishonesty and the betrayal that they committed . But I think that Charles wants to have some sort of reconciliation because he is weak and he's ill and he somehow rightly feels that Harry is somewhat feeling sad for himself and somehow wants to make amends. But I don't believe that they're going to give them what Meghan really wants , which is a royal welcome . I mean, you've got to look back and I describe this deliberately in detail in the betrayal the book . There so called royal tours in Nigeria and Colombia where Meghan and Harry really did pretend to be members of the royal family or were treated as members of the royal family . And that has suited Meghan enormously because not only did that promote her status, but it promoted all her clothes and she was able to earn commiss ion on four changes of clothes a day . And you've got to remember they're coming over to England for the pre rehearsal of the Evictus Games. This special game is for disabled servicemen . Now I went to Vancouver last year to watch the games and of course the Evictus games are really just the Meghan games. No one is interested at all unfortunately in, these poor soldiers competing, the auditoriums are completely empty. What everyone wants to see is what will Meghan and Harry do? And Meghan of course milks that occasion for all its worth. Now, she will hope to do exactly that in Birmingham in England in July when Harry comes for this rehearsal . And that is exactly what I hope the palace will prevent. They won't allow Meghan to parade herself as a member of the Royal Family and the Duchess in Britain itself to actually earn money and earn glory from being having married the prince . I mean, we are then into really sordid controversial territory if in any way she's allowed to exploit that situation . You said at the beginning of this discussion, Tom , that the reason that they're coming back and I'm summarizing, but you said essentially that Meghan's motivation was primarily money and that Harry's recognition was status or purpose or to do . really understand what is in this for Harry and Regan M andegh Ian, completely understand why they want to come back, whether it's on their terms or someone else's terms or whatever, as long as they can spin it as being on their terms . But I don't understand what is in it for King Charles ? And Tom Bower , as everybody watching this will know, is the author of a remarkable book about King Charles originally called Rebel Prince, later reassured as Rebel King. It paints a picture of a capricious, impatient headstrong, arrogant man who won't listen to advice . I mean, you could use any of those adjectives about Harry, couldn't you, Tom? I mean, are they temperamentally very alike? And is it true that Charles ultimately has more in common with Harry than William and maybe gets on with Harry better than he does with William . Well I think that my description of what was then Prince Charles in twenty eighteen was absolutely crushing and damning. He had behaved appallingly during the previous forty years , not only in treating people, but in terms of his money affairs and his relationship with the professions. But on the other hand, he did an enormous amount of good work on architecture , on the environment, on gardens , on religion, education. I could go on in music, the crafts. He was a very very, sophisticated supporter of a lot of wonderful people in Britain who enormously admired his support for their interests and their professions and their way of life . So he was in many ways a gentle and hired figure, a conflicted person , an insecure person , an unhappy person for many years because of his unfortunate marri age to Diana. But at the end of that story in twenty eighteen, of course , he did have the woman he loved as his wife. He had to some extent the queen's approval and that had been very hard walk. But he was a very, very ruthless but also intelligent and hypersensitive man. I don't think you can say any of those descriptions about Harry . Harry is pretty unintelligent. He's very uneducated . His interests are very limited . Emotionally he is more unstable than his father . And I don't think he has actually is able to rationally out his own position in this world . So the real problem for both Harry and Charles is, I don't think they ever got terribly on terribly well . Charles on the whole was a negligent father . After Diana died, he spent most of his time on his princely duties or with Camilla and effectively abandoned Harry as a child and as a teenager . They did grow together more, I think, once Harry became an army officer and found some stability . Harry's misfortune was and there was that he is a very depressed man and very unstable when he came back from Afghanistan and couldn't forge a proper relationship with any woman until he found Mega. And of course Mega as, we know, I show my books exploited his vulnerability enormously, but in the end he saw her and did use her as a safety net and it worked. There's no doubt from Harry's point of view it was, emotionally it worked and from Meghan's point of view, it was a great commercial upside which has exploited ever since. But in terms of Harry and the King together their relationship , I think they were getting on okay . I mean William and Harry were after all their mother's sons rather than Charles's sons and of course they sided with her against their father for understandable reasons . But now , I think that Harry and Charles have absolutely nothing in common at all . I think that you could n't find two people who have more diverse interests and more diverse characters and personalities . And therefore , I don't think that in terms of other than father and son , there is much in common in any way . Except now of course Charles is seventy eight , he is seven seventy eight. He's clearly in remission from cancer, but who knows how long he's got and he doesn't want to aggravate a situation if he can somehow find a way and this is very, very complicated , a way to somehow restore some sort of relationship with his son . And his son, from his point of view , can't do it without Meghan's agreement, Meghan's approval . And that has now become having said she'd never returned to Britain, she now wants to, but she'll be stubborn to try and get her own terms . But I think therefore there's an enormous amount to wait and see and what mirrors allowed to do in the meantime while they work out the relationship and what they can do in private and in public . I think anyone would have huge sympathy for as you put it, Charles wanting to restore his relationship with his son and trying to figure out how to do that . But it seems to many people that Charles is enabling this return in some way or other. I mean there's one way it seems hard to imagine that this is happening in the teeth of opposition by Charles. And in fact, we have , you know, this a lot of briefing that they're going to be given a royal palace to stay in , that there's going to be a meeting between them . It'll seem to many people like Charles is rewarding their betrayal to use the word that you titled your book , of the Sandringham Summit, their betrayal of the entire royal family with accommodation in a royal palace. Now I agree it's not a royal tour of like they're not going to get a royal welcome like they did in Colombia and Jordan and all this country where it's been very useful and they've commercially exploited it. But do you Do you not think that people are going to be pretty agast at Charles rewarding this couple who, frankly, not only called the Royal Family racist and the media racist, but implied that a large section of British society was prejudiced towards them. And it worse than that in the Netflix series by allowing all these Marxist historians condemned the queen as well and the British Commonwealth. I mean, it was just terrible what they facilitated in the Netflix series and other interviews absolutely shocking . But I think that is the delicate path which the King has to purs ue and negotiate. He can't be seen to be rewarding the Sussexes for any betrayal. He can't be seen who in any way condoned their appalling behavior . And so I think that everything contrary to what Harry wants, which is, of course, a public display of reunification, a public display of Charles supporting the Evictor's games, he isn't going to get that. But I can imagine a private meeting, no photographers allowed . And as for the accommodation in a royal palace , well, we've got so many empty royal palaces at the moment. I don't think that's going to be a huge issue. The issue will only be if they allow themselves to be filmed and photographed as if they were members of the royal family . I hate that is where the line's going to have to be drawn . Will the king and his officials allow the Sussexes to pose as members of the royal family somehow coming back into the fold? Without a pologizing for their appalling behaviour , appalling betrayal of Britain and the Royal Family . And that is something which I imagine is now being negotiated. So Tom, actually it's interesting that you're talking about the possibility of a photograph there because I was talking about that with Paula Frolick earlier and I was saying that funny enough, I wouldn't completely rule out a photograph emerging because as we know, the royal family loves to communicate with symbols. I mean, I qualify this by saying that I think it's unlikely it's in the ten or twenty percent realm that they get that photograph. But Charles , you've done so much writing about Charles. And part of the reason why I wanted to talk to you about this is you're such an expert on Charles . Does he not desperately want to be seen as the reconciler, the man who brought peace, who brought unity, who brought the royal family back together . And wouldn't that photograph of him with Harry and Meghan and his grandchildren , that would do the trick, but you think there's just no way he's going to give them that commercial boost I think if he would, it would be a terrible mistake . And we were hugely resented not only by the majority of Britain's, but of course even more by his other son, Prince William and Kate . I mean, the idea of in any way giving the Sussexes any advantage in their visit to Britain for their own status and commercial value would be just anathema to the Cambridges or the Prince and Brises of Wales. And I think rightly the British people would be absolutely sh if the king actually bowed down to Meghan's greedy commercial ambitions . And therefore it would have to be resisted. The problem is there might be some people in Buckingham Palace advising the king to be gracious and generous and reconciliatory , but I think his own sense of righteousness and his son and Prince William's own position, which I think is absolutely steadfast from this will say you can come, but you won't be seen with us and you won't be seen in any royal context and you better behave on these terms. Otherwise it's not going to work. There'll be uproar. I don't think the monarchy is in a strong position at the moment because of the Andrews saga to actually in any way risk reputational damage by giving the Sussexes the advantages which the Andals really hoped to get it . Such an interesting point, isn't it, Tom? Because I mean, actually there was new polling this weekend from Ipsos showing that support for the monarchy has declined from sixty five percent three years ago fifty five percent today . Well, we know what those three years coincide with. They coincide with the reign of King Charles . They coincide with the appalling mismanagement of the Andrew affair where despite Charles' insistence that it's all his mother's fault, we saw Charles actively trying over and over again to rehabilitate Andrews, bringing him back into the fold and now we're seeing what some people think is the same mistake being repeated again with Harry and we're seeing what looks to many like an attempt to bring Harry back into the fold . And I know that in your book Rebel King and cor,rect me if I'm wr ong, but I think you mentioned that book that you were able to secure interviews with Mark Boland for the book. And Mark Boland, of course, was the Machiavellian architect of Project Camilla, this mission to make the public accept Camilla. Do you think there's a part of Charles that just thinks, well, you know, dash them all. I've pulled it off with Camilla. Nobody ever thought I was going to do it and I'm going to pull it off with Harry and Meghan . Well, of course the rehabilitation of Kimila took many years and started like with Harry from a very low level , but it did use the extraordinary genius of Mark Bol and. Harry is not Mark Boland. I'm sorry, the king is not Mark Boland. The king cannot master the art, the dark arts of media manipulation in the way that Mark Bolin did to rehabilitate Camilla . And therefore unless they actually hire somebody to actually mastermind Harry's and Meghan's reentry into Brickland as Royals, that ain't gonna happen. But I think you've got a point if they do hire a media genius like Mark Boland was they could find a way to rehabilitate them. The only problem is that it took ages and in the end as well , it needed appearances like with Charles and Camille the Rits to actually persuade the media to treat her as an equal and as a possible wife for Charles , I think the hurdles for the rehabilitation of Harry and Meghan are far higher, far greater, far more difficult for Camilla, who after all , was just with a girlfriend, with a mistress or whatever. These are people who've done real damage to Britain and to the British crown. This isn't a simple matter of finding some way in which they can pose in a photo opportunity or whatever . This is a matter of substantial efforts to somehow find a way for Harry and Meghan to apologize to the British and admit they were wrong . You see, the Netflix serpence is still available . All the lies , all the Marxist historians they employed to damn the royal family is still on view . They've got a long way to go. There's a lot of repairing to do to be able to in any way be rehabilitated in the way that Camilla was all those years ago . I suppose my question is as someone who has spent a lot of time in King Charles' head , do you think that his success in rehabilitating Camilla when everybody said that he couldn't has imbued a kind of defiance in him to public opinion about Harry and as it appeared to, about Andrew and to think, well, to hell with you all, I can do it. But the big difference is, you see, he was desperately in love with Camilla. He desperately wanted to marry her. He wanted her to be his queen , he wanted to live with her , and he felt was his great passion to actually give himself happiness . And of course, it did make him happy. It has made him a far more comfortable person in his own skin. Harry doesn't come up to that. It's his son who's betrayed him, a son who was somehow distant from him. And of course, I'm sure I understand you rightly, there's a huge emotional tie between the king and his sub . But that's a very different matter than Camilla. I mean, the political fallout of any rehabilitation of the Sussex in Britain does actually put the monarchy at risk. I have no doubt about that whatsoever . Not just because of them, but because of the opinion of the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate. They're against it. They've been hugely damaged by the Sussex . They're in no mood to forgive the Sussexes for all the lies he's spewed out about them. So it isn't just the king acting on his own behalf as a father . He's also going to think of the future of the monarchy and what will the heir to the throne think about it? As much as in a way, what does Prince Anne think about it? Other so called minor royals? So he's not acting for himself as he was with Camilla, he's acting for the whole institution. I think this is what mystifies people Tolman has mystified people so much about this and whether it is spin, frankly by the Sussex es and as I say, hasn't been confirmed by Buckingham Palace that they are going to come back , but it looks like they're going to be given a royal palace to stay in. I mean, if that turns out to be true , it does seem like a terrible slap in the face to William, who's only ever been dutiful and only ever done what he's told and never really put a foot out of place. The only thing that he's really ever been clear that he want s is for Harry and Meghan to be kept in exile . Well, I agree with you. It would be a slap in the face if in any way there's a scene of reconcili ation and peacemaking and somehow forgiveness. If it doesn't come from Harry and Meghan as seeking an apology, it will certainly irk the prince and prisoner of Wales, that he's in any way being treated in the way he wants. In any sense that if Harry and Meghan get their way in any sense at all, I think it's going to cause understandably rightly problems between William and Charles. And I think their relationship in any case is pretty tense for all sorts of other reasons. So that's why I'd be very cautious about Harry and Meghan and the children coming somehow just to sort of enjoy themselves and Harry introducing his children to England. It ain't going to be like that and there's a long way to go before the details between the two sides are settled and I'd be shocked if they were settled in the Sussex's favour . Tom Bauer, the author of Betrayal and Revenge and Rebel King all, three books essential reading if you want to understand the modern monarchy and how we got to where we are. Thank you so much for joining us, Tom. I'm immensely grateful. Good being here. Well, all good things must come to an end and that's it for this week's episode of The Riots. Thank you so much all of you for watching and for listening. Huge thanks to our brilliant guests, Paula Frolick and of course Tom Bauer , and a massive thank you to my producer , Rachel Paser . If you enjoyed the show, please do subscribe on YouTube, hit that bell notification , leave us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify and sign up for the Royalist newsletter on Substack. We've got sixty six thousand subscribers now and the Sunday edition is completely free . We'll be back next week with more from the world of the royals . Until then , God saves the king.