How Queen Mother told Prince Charles he must NOT put a WOMAN before duty
THE Queen Mother tried to teach Prince Charles to put the country before his personal life from a very young age to spare the monarchy from a potentially deadly crisis.
Royal House of Windsor: Queen Mother drilled 'duty' into Charles
Prince Charles grew up in the shadow of King Edward VIII’s rebellion, according to royal experts.
King George VI’s brother abdicated to the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American actress who had already been married twice, when he was told a king could not stay with a foreigner divorcee.
This move sparked a constitutional crisis in the British Empire, almost bringing down the monarchy and forever changing the House of Windsor.
The Queen Mother, who was not supposed to be Queen when she married Albert, the second son of King George V, had her own life profoundly shaken by Edward’s choice, for which she was said to have never forgiven him.
She would have drilled into Charles at a very early age that duty to the crown and to the country came ahead of everything else
This pushed her to “drill” into her beloved grandson’s mind the importance of the Crown and the necessity of putting it in front of anything else.
Appearing on Channel 4’s The Royal House of Windsor, royal author Penny Junor said: “Charles was very close to his grandmother, the Queen Mother, and his grandmother of course, her life was completely altered, the future she had seen for herself was derailed by her brother in law’s abdication to the throne and her husband therefore having to become king.
“So she would have drilled into Charles at a very early age that duty to the crown and to the country came ahead of everything else.”
But the Queen Mother was not the only member of the Royal Family to be hit by the earthquake started by Edward’s move.
Royal commentator Sarah Gristwood argued all the royals were “appalled” by him choosing Wallis over his country.
She said: “The Duke of Windsor had reacted with rebellion.
“He had made what the rest of the family thought was an appalling mistake of dereliction of duty.
“Everyone was very determined that no future royal would make that same mistake.
Therefore, she added, “Charles childhood was completely overshadowed by the spectre of what happened to the Duke of Windsor”, the title given to Edward by his brother after the abdication.
The harsh teaching Charles received by his grandmother may have had an impact in his decision not to marry Camilla Parker Bowles, his lover, when he first met her but to choose a more suitable wife for a future king, Lady Diana Spencer.
Charles and Camilla, the now Duchess of Cornwall, only got married in 2005, three years after the death of the Queen Mother and eight years after Diana’s deadly crash in Paris.
The relationship between Prince Charles and the Queen Mother was marked not only by the attempt of not repeating another scandal but also by a profound affection.
After she died on March 30 2002, Prince Charles said: “To me she meant everything.
“And I had dreaded, dreaded this moment.
“Above all, she saw the funny side in everything, and we laughed until we cried.
“And oh, how I shall miss those laughs.”