It is no secret that King Charles has a strained relationship with his youngest son.
After quitting frontline royal duties and moving his young family to California in 2020, the Duke of Sussex, 40, has been left in the dark when it comes to his father’s cancer battle, only learning of his recent hospital visit on March 27 through media reports, according to People Magazine.
And when Harry flew across the pond in early April to attend a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London – a mere 2.5 miles from Buckingham Palace – he did not meet Charles.
But the well-documented rift between father and son may go back even further than royal watchers realise.
According to Diana herself, Charles was desperate to have two children – one boy and one girl.
‘I knew Harry was going to be a boy because I saw on the scan,’ she explained to Andrew Morton for his bestselling book Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words.
‘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.’
So when Diana gave birth to their second son, Harry, in the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital on September 15, 1984, Charles could barely hide his disappointment.
‘First comment was: “Oh God, it’s a boy,” second comment: “And he’s even got red hair,”‘ Diana recounted to her trusted biographer Morton.
In his own bombshell memoir Spare, Prince Harry said he was 21 the first time he heard the story of ‘what Pa allegedly said to Mummy the day of my birth: “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and a Spare – my work is done.”
‘A joke. Presumably,’ Harry penned. ‘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.’
Outside the hospital, Prince Charles appeared to hide his true feelings and told the waiting journalists: ‘He’s wonderful. Absolutely marvellous.’
It is no wonder the Diana would go on to tell friends that ‘spiritually’ their marriage ‘ended the day Prince Harry was born’, according to Morton.
Charles told his official biographer Jonathan Dimbleby that he picked things back up with Camilla in 1986. Meanwhile it is alleged Diana’s affair with army captain James Hewitt started around the same time.
The royal couple, who had separate bedrooms at their homes for years stopped sharing the same sleeping quarters during an official visit to Portugal in 1987.
The next few years saw Charles and Diana plagued with rumours of marital problems, culminating in the blistering tell-all of the collapse of their marriage as published by Morton in 1992.
The Princess of Wales had secretly contributed to the book by providing Morton with audio recordings which would later be included in a 2017 ITV documentary.
Diana claims in the recordings that Charles’s disappointment at having a second boy rather than a girl persevered until Prince Harry’s christening on December 21, 1984.
After the ceremony at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the future king allegedly told Diana’s mother Frances Shand Kydd: ‘We’re so disappointed, we thought it would be a girl.’
Frances then ‘snapped his head off’ and told him he should ‘realise you are lucky to have a child’, Diana added.
The doomed royal couple announced their separation just months after the publication of Morton’s book in 1992 and finalised their divorce in August 1996.
Elsewhere in Morton’s explosive biography, Diana reveals that the birth of her first son William – the heir – came with its own set of issues.
The Princess of Wales told Morton she had to choose a date to be induced that fit around Charles’s busy polo schedule.
‘When we had William, we had to find a date in the diary that suited Charles and his polo,’ she said.
William had to be induced because I couldn’t handle the press pressure any longer, it was becoming unbearable. It was as if everyone was monitoring every day for me.’
Princess Diana added: ‘Anyway, the boy arrived, great excitement.
‘Thrilled, everyone absolutely high as a kite – we had found a date where Charles could get off his polo pony for me to give birth.
‘That was very nice, felt grateful about that!’
Culled from Daily Mirror
