The reported distance between King Charles and Prince Harry may go beyond the miles and miles of ocean and land that separates London from the monarch’s second son’s adopted home of California.
The alleged rift between the pair has dominated headlines ever since Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle decided to step away from royal duties in 2020. That’s despite the Duke of Sussex’s recent plea for a “reconciliation” with his family amid fears he “doesn’t know how much longer his father has”.
But it seems any difficulties in the relationship between father and son may have started a lot earlier than often speculated.
How King Charles ‘reacted’ to birth of Prince Harry
During the course of their 15-year marriage, the then Prince Charles and his wife Princess Diana became parents to two children.
Prince William, born in June 1982, became second in line to the throne from the moment he took his first breath – and is now heir apparent.
Prince Harry came along two years later, in September 1984. However, according to reports, it seems his father King Charles may have been disappointed from the moment Prince Harry was born.
‘Charles always wanted a girl’
The book Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words claimed that Charles hoped for a boy and a girl.
“I knew Harry was going to be a boy because I saw on the scan,” Diana reportedly told author Andrew Morton.
“Charles always wanted a girl. He wanted two children, and he wanted a girl. I knew Harry was a boy, and I didn’t tell him.”
Furthermore, it was claimed the then Prince of Wales didn’t hide his true feelings when Prince Harry arrived.
First comment was: ‘Oh God, it’s a boy.’
“First comment was: ‘Oh God, it’s a boy,’ second comment: ‘And he’s even got red hair,’” Diana recounted, according to the book.
However, posing for pictures outside hospital on the way home, the father to a new son told journalists: “He’s wonderful. Absolutely marvellous.”
King Charles’ ‘joke’ about having an ‘heir and a spare’
Additionally, in his own memoir Spare, Prince Harry wrote he heard about “what Pa allegedly said to Mummy the day of my birth” when he was 21.
Charles reportedly reacted: “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and a Spare. My work is done.”
Prince Harry’s account continued: “A joke. Presumably. On the other hand, minutes after delivering this bit of high comedy, Pa was said to have gone off to meet his girlfriend. So. Many a true word spoken in jest.”
Meanwhile, Diana claimed in audio recordings, later included in a 2017 ITV documentary, that her husband’s alleged displeasure at having a second son continued until Prince Harry’s christening in December 1984.
Charles allegedly told Diana’s mother Frances Shand Kydd: “We’re so disappointed, we thought it would be a girl.”
But she reportedly “snapped his head off”, insisting he should “realise you are lucky to have a child”.
Charles and Diana announed their separation in 1992 before finalising their divorce in August 1996.
