According to a royal expert, there’s one thing that King Charles regrets more than anything else. He’s been going through a rough time since the beginning of this year, due to his battle with cancer.
But the thing that’s been on his mind the most actually has to do with his relationship with his grandchildren. What is it that he regrets so much, and is there any way to fix it?
According to royal commentator Michael Cole, King Charles has been thinking a lot about his two youngest grandkids. If you don’t know, that’s Archie and Lilibet, the kids of Prince Harry, Charles’s youngest son.
Michael recently spoke with The Daily Mail and explained that Charles apparently has a lot of regrets when it comes to these two kids, specifically to do with the fact that he has pretty much no relationship with either of them.
This is a big difference from his relationship with his other three grandkids, George, Charlotte, and Louis, who are Prince William’s kids. Charles reportedly has a great relationship with them. He sees them often and is a really hands-on grandpa who’s just generally involved in their lives.
The same can definitely not be said about Archie and Lilibet. While Charles sees his other three grandkids all the time, he’s only seen Archie and Lilibet a handful of times. He’s met Archie a total of three times, and it’s even worse with Lilibet, who he’s only seen once.
Archie was born in 2019, so he’s five years old now, and Lilibet is three years old. Obviously, they’re still small kids, but they’ve hardly seen their grandpa.
Charles Wants to Make a Change
This is exactly what Charles is apparently worried about now. It’s also the fact that his future is very much uncertain now because of his illness. The whole situation is most likely making him think about his family and relationships more than usual.
This is the one thing he’s truly sorry about. According to the Daily Mail article, he would really like to change this situation and start seeing Archie and Lilibet more.
But that’s something that’s much more easily said than done. There are a lot of things and circumstances standing between him and his two grandkids.
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For one, it’s obviously the fact that Charles lives in the UK and Archie and Lilibet live in California with their parents. He’s pretty much half the world away from them. That makes it hard to organize visits or other kinds of meetups.
But if you’ve been following the royal family at all in the past couple of years, you know that that’s far from the only reason Charles hasn’t been seeing Archie and Lilibet. The real reason is that their parents, Harry and Meghan, are pretty much estranged from the royal family.
Meghan Accused the Royal Family of Racism
There’s been a lot of scandal and drama around this whole situation. It all started when Harry and Meghan decided to leave the UK and move to the US.
This was back in 2020 when Archie was just about one year old. You wouldn’t alone could have caused a complete rift between them and the rest of the royal family.
They weren’t exactly on good terms with the royals at that point. But for the most part, the relationship was definitely still salvageable.
But that was before Harry and Meghan sat down for an interview with Oprah in March 2021. They exposed exactly why they decided to leave the royal family.
Some of the things they said didn’t make the royals look good, especially the accusations of racism that Meghan said she was dealing with while living with the royal family in the UK.
One of the things she brought up was that, allegedly, before her son Archie was born, some of the members of the royal family were concerned about what color his skin would be and whether he would take after the black side of his family. This was pretty outrageous to hear, honestly. The royal family wasn’t happy that Meghan came out and revealed that one of them said this.
She and Harry didn’t specify who in the royal family it was that brought this up. The only thing they did clarify was that it wasn’t the late Queen Elizabeth.
Harry’s Memoir Was the Final Blow
After this interview came out, people were upset at the royal family. Their public image really suffered because of the interview, and it heavily damaged their relationship with Harry and Meghan.
But this was really only the start of everything. Less than two years later, Harry published his memoir, Spare. That’s really when any hope of salvaging the relationship was lost.
The things that Harry exposed in his memoir were beyond what anyone was expecting. After the interview, the royal family’s image suffered. But after Spare came out, it was hit with an even bigger blow.
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Obviously, they’re still the British Royal Family. It would take a lot for their public image to be completely destroyed because a lot of people still completely adore them. But that number has been getting steadily smaller over the years.
Harry and Meghan’s activities and exposés have only expedited the process. All of this obviously damaged Harry and Meghan’s relationship with the royals, especially with Charles, who is now king and the head of the family.
This rift between them is the real reason why he’s not been able to see Harry and Meghan’s kids. It gets hard to arrange visits when the two families are barely on speaking terms with each other. But now, it seems like Charles would like to change that, especially because of his current situation.
Harry Stopped Visiting Charles
He’s been keeping a low profile in recent months. He’s had to step back from his royal duties for a time, to focus on treatment and battling the illness. His public appearances as king have been put on the back burner, at least for a while.
Buckingham Palace announced that he was diagnosed with cancer in February. Soon after that, Harry actually flew to the UK to visit his dad.
According to reports, the two of them only talked for less than an hour. After that, Harry left and didn’t come back.
He has actually visited the UK since then. Harry came back to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games, which is a sports event for injured service people and veterans that Harry founded in 2014. Even though he was physically in the UK, he didn’t actually visit Charles.
The official explanation was that Charles was unfortunately too busy for a meeting with Harry to be scheduled. Honestly, that just sounds like an excuse, especially since Charles is sick and that’s his son we’re talking about.
Charles Is Determined to Fix Their Relationship
It just really looks like he and Harry weren’t able to reconcile their differences the first time he came to visit after Charles’s diagnosis. Now they’re still not on speaking terms, even though Charles’s future is uncertain. It is just really unfortunate news for Charles’s relationship with Archie and Lilibet.
According to the Daily Mail article, Charles is determined to make the situation work somehow and start seeing them more. He reportedly sent Lilibet a gift and a card for her birthday on the 4th of June.
According to another royal expert, Tom Quinn, who spoke to the Mirror, Charles was not invited to Lilibet’s third birthday party. Harry and Meghan reportedly threw her a massive celebration and didn’t invite any of the other royals. Tom told the Mirror that Harry knew that the other royals wouldn’t have come anyway, which was part of the reason he didn’t invite them.
That’s another thing about this situation. Charles is the king of England. It’s not like he can just pack his bags and travel to California.
His visiting another country is always going to be a big deal. So, any visit with Harry and Meghan’s kids would have to happen in the UK, especially now that he’s seriously ill.
But for that to happen, he and Harry would first have to start working on closing the rift between them. But it looks like neither of them is ready to take the first step.
Charles could definitely build a relationship with his grandkids if he and Harry figure out their differences. The question is whether or not they’ll ever get to that point.
