King Charles once suspected family members were plotting to oust him from his position as inheritor of the throne after his popularity plummeted following his divorce from Princess Diana, with his brother Andrew instead becoming regent, a new biography says.
Author Nigel Cawthorne writes about these fears Charles allegedly had in the 1990s in Windsor Spares: The Prince Harry and Prince Andrew Soap Opera! For over 70 years, Charles was first in line to become king if his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, became incapacitated or died. However, in the 1990s the popular prince's public image crashed following his separation from Diana, amid claims of infidelity and irreconcilable differences.
In 1995, Diana did a bombshell interview with the BBC in which she told interviewer Martin Bashir that she had doubts as to whether her husband could handle being king. Following the interview, the couple divorced, lowering the prince's popularity among the public even as it eliminated the possibility that the princess would one day become queen.
"When Charles's popularity hit rock bottom after the break-up of his marriage and his continuing association with Camilla Parker-Bowles, he began to suspect that brothers Andrew and Edward were plotting against him," Cawthorne wrote.
"After Diana said in an interview on Panorama that she did not think Charles would be king, he convinced himself that Diana and Fergie [Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson] had plans to replace him as heir and announce that, in the event of the Queen's death or abdication, Andrew would be regent until [Prince] William was eighteen," he continued.
"History was studded with regents who went on to become king. Even Britain had one in George IV, formerly the thoroughly disreputable Prince Regent," Cawthorne said.
Though Diana's comments on the BBC show were damning to Charles' public image, she did not say he would be a bad king. But she did appear to cast doubt on whether the long-waiting prince would ever see himself on the throne.
"I don't think any of us know the answer to that," she told Bashir when asked if she thought Charles would one day be king. "And obviously it's a question that's in everybody's head. But who knows, who knows what fate will produce, who knows what circumstances will provoke?"
Asked if she would rather see her son William take the throne after Elizabeth's death, she said: "William's very young at the moment, so do you want a burden like that to be put on his shoulders at such an age? So I can't answer that question."
Pressed by Bashir, the princess said simply: "My wish is that my husband finds peace of mind, and from that follows others things, yes."
Two decades after the interview, an independent inquiry revealed Bashir's deceitful behavior in getting the interview, and the BBC apologized. In a rare public comment after the results were published, William said that Bashir had contributed to his mother's distress and paranoia in her final years and that the interview "holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again."
In 1995, when the program aired, William was under 18. In the event of Elizabeth's death and a hypothetical abdication by Charles, William would have inherited the title of king. Because of his age, the government would have appointed the next royal family member over 18 to be a "regent," who can perform the monarch's duties by proxy.
At the time, the next royal in the line of succession who was of the required age was Prince Andrew.
This scenario obviously did not play out. William turned 18 on June 2000, nearly three years after Diana died from injuries in a Paris car crash that followed a paparazzi chase.
Elizabeth ruled for another 22 years, dying at the age of 96. Charles finally inherited the throne at the age of 73. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on May 6.
Andrew retired from public life in 2019 following questions raised over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and a sexual abuse scandal. He had denied the scandal's accusations.
The prince attended his brother's coronation but did not take part in the ceremonial aspects of the day, which included the carriage procession and royal balcony appearance.
Windsor Spares: The Prince Harry and Prince Andrew Soap Opera!, published by Gibson Square Books, is available now.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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