The Royal Family #41

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CuriousCat92

CuriousCat92

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New thread as the last thread had reached 50 pages.
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Much discussion on Charles, Diana and Camilla. I wonder, if in spite of all the PR work, Charles will ever really escape from his marriage to Diana. My feeling is she is always there as a memory to those of us who lived through those years. But when he deals with younger people he is fighting against indifference (at best) toward the idea of a royal family.

Either way, his trip to Kenya is going to be fascinating. Perhaps his first real test as monarch?
 
Libbylulu said:
He clearly adores Camilla and their relationship has stood the test of time with enormous bad publicity, media interest with criticism, every way they turned.
I like them and hope they are happy in their senior years.
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I don’t wish them ill at all… but it was wrong of him to make her queen or give her official duties. If they had to marry, I think Camilla should’ve supported Charles from the background and done her own thing.

It feels ridiculous that she’s queen. A slap in the face to everyone and a brush over all the pain they caused to others around them.
 
He talks about one of Diana’s sisters turning up at his school on his birthday (which wasn’t very long after Diana’s death) and giving him a game boy or something (I can’t remember what the gaming thingy was called) and the sister telling him his mother had bought it for his birthday just before her death. He mentions visiting Diana’s grave with William on his uncles property. I can’t remember what else but there’s no hint of any discord when it comes to the Spencer’s. Only nice stuff.
 
lilieverland said:
Does Harry mention his relationship with Diana’s family in Spare? I wonder what their relationship is like. I feel like they were barely mentioned in his book. Maybe they didn’t want to get involved in all the drama which I don’t blame them for tbh.
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He obviously is close to his aunts … when Archie was born the DM ran several huffy Articles on how they had seen the baby before William and Kate … and they were both in the Christening photo, one has a particularly natty hat. Weren’t they also supposed to have been at Lilibets as well?
 
sonjabruja said:
He talks about one of Diana’s sisters turning up at his school on his birthday (which wasn’t very long after Diana’s death) and giving him a game boy or something (I can’t remember what the gaming thingy was called) and the sister telling him his mother had bought it for his birthday just before her death. He mentions visiting Diana’s grave with William on his uncles property. I can’t remember what else but there’s no hint of any discord when it comes to the Spencer’s. Only nice stuff.
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I wonder what they think about the hatred between William and Harry. I’m assuming they have a relationship with the both of them.
 
lilieverland said:
I wonder what they think about the hatred between William and Harry. I’m assuming they have a relationship with the both of them.
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I don’t think there’s hatred there… just a lot of sibling rivalry. Plus they seem like very different people. I get the sense Harry has gravitated towards them a lot more than William.

The current earl Spencer is weirdly down to earth. I remember watching a documentary on Diana and he said something along the lines of “the Spencer family are basically sheep farmers who got lucky”.

In total contrast to the RF who believe they are special and appointed by god. I wonder if that’s why Harry aligns with them more?

Interestingly, in Spare, Harry mentions how William threw him under the bus in an interview… they were living together at the time and William started telling the interview how messy Harry was etc. Harry couldn’t really understand why William did that, and attributes a lot of the blame for that rivalry on William.

I went and had a look at the interview he mentioned in YT, and you can see that actually, Harry was goading William too. It kinda confirmed the underlying feeling of lack of accountability Harry has for himself in the book.

The royal family centres on the belief that the position of monarch is special and holy. But only one person can be the monarch, and it’s not based on capability or talent, just sheer chance of birth. So it’s an environment that fosters rivalry and competition at its core. Small wonder siblings don’t get on.

Interview is here



Looking back, I don’t know how the press didn’t pick up on the tenseness between them. Looking back, it feels so obvious.
 
sonjabruja said:
He talks about one of Diana’s sisters turning up at his school on his birthday (which wasn’t very long after Diana’s death) and giving him a game boy or something (I can’t remember what the gaming thingy was called) and the sister telling him his mother had bought it for his birthday just before her death. He mentions visiting Diana’s grave with William on his uncles property. I can’t remember what else but there’s no hint of any discord when it comes to the Spencer’s. Only nice stuff.
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He was caught out with that lie though as the gift was an XBox console he was given in 1997 but they didn’t actually come out until 2001!
 
cee-bee said:
I don’t think there’s hatred there… just a lot of sibling rivalry. Plus they seem like very different people. I get the sense Harry has gravitated towards them a lot more than William.

The current earl Spencer is weirdly down to earth. I remember watching a documentary on Diana and he said something along the lines of “the Spencer family are basically sheep farmers who got lucky”.

In total contrast to the RF who believe they are special and appointed by god. I wonder if that’s why Harry aligns with them more?

Interestingly, in Spare, Harry mentions how William threw him under the bus in an interview… they were living together at the time and William started telling the interview how messy Harry was etc. Harry couldn’t really understand why William did that, and attributes a lot of the blame for that rivalry on William.

I went and had a look at the interview he mentioned in YT, and you can see that actually, Harry was goading William too. It kinda confirmed the underlying feeling of lack of accountability Harry has for himself in the book.

The royal family centres on the belief that the position of monarch is special and holy. But only one person can be the monarch, and it’s not based on capability or talent, just sheer chance of birth. So it’s an environment that fosters rivalry and competition at its core. Small wonder siblings don’t get on.

Interview is here



Looking back, I don’t know how the press didn’t pick up on the tenseness between them. Looking back, it feels so obvious.
Click to expand...


Towards the end of the interview William starts sticking up for him telling the interviewer he wasn’t being fair to Harry. There was nothing wrong with the interaction between them as siblings and they were just being playful. Tbh I think things like this show there’s probably no way back for their relationship. It was a relatively playful conversation with no visible malice, but all Harry remembers is William laughing at him for being messy. When it gets to a point where you have so much resentment that all you see is the negativity and disregard any positives that came from an interaction it’s difficult to mend a relationship.
 
I get the impression a lot of aristocratic families don’t foster close family bonds.

Too much money, too much free time. Sending kids to boarding school but it’s family tradition and they need the Eton connections.

Will and Kate seem relatively more hands on, but I remember seeing a video of George not too long ago, maybe around the time of the jubilee? He was just interacting with someone in a line up and honestly, his mannerisms were like that of a miniature adult. He seems like a kid that’s way too serious for his age, like he’s had to grow up too quick.

The whole institution of monarchy seems to be extremely cruel to the people who are trapped within it. But everyone tells them, and they tell themselves, that it’s special. So none of them feel like they can just walk away. Even Harry mentions himself that it never occurred to him that he could do things outside the family protocol.

For anyone who has been brought up in dysfunction, that’s how it feels. Invisible rules and ways of conducting yourself, that you abide by without even realising it.

Even though he’s walked away from it and moved away from the states, Harry is still trapped in that mindset. His issues aren’t with the inherent problems of a monarchy, it’s just that he didn’t like being higher up in the hierarchy. Didn’t like being accountable for the position he was born into, without seeing the issue was that he was born into it, not that he was held accountable.
 
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