Just In: King Charles’s bombshell question about Royal succession revealed
Just In: King Charles’s bombshell question about Royal succession revealed
A new book by Valentine Low, titled Power and the Palace, has revealed a time when then-Prince Charles found himself in a difficult position with the government.
An excerpt published in The Times on August 29 details a story from 2013, when Charles was reportedly kept out of the loop on the Succession to the Crown Act.
This new law would change the rules of royal succession to favour birth order over gender, and with William and Kate expecting their first child, the topic was on Charles’s mind.
In December 2012, Charles unexpectedly invited Richard Heaton, a high-ranking civil servant, for tea.
Low wrote, “What, Charles wanted to know, would happen if his first grandchild were a girl, and she married a Mr Smith? Would the royal house be Smith or Windsor?”
He also had other questions about the law’s implications, including what would happen if his grandchild married a Catholic and how the new law would affect hereditary peerages.
Although it wasn’t Heaton’s area of expertise, he did his best to answer the prince’s questions.
It turned out that government officials had been instructed to work directly with Buckingham Palace on the succession changes, intentionally leaving Charles out of the discussions.
A few weeks after the tea, however, a story appeared in The Daily Mail stating that Charles had concerns and that both he and William “appear not to have been consulted at all, which rankled with the Prince of Wales.”
Low’s book goes on to explain the government’s reaction to the leak. When the article was published, Heaton was on vacation, and when he returned, he asked about the situation.
According to Low, Heywood said, “He’s in the doghouse.”
Why was Charles “in the doghouse”? Low’s book offers three reasons: The government felt Charles had misrepresented the conversation with Heaton, he or someone on his behalf had leaked a private conversation with a civil servant, and he was criticising government policy, which he was not supposed to do.
Despite the tension, the future king seemed to smooth things over with Heaton. Not long after, Charles invited Heaton on a trip on the royal train to visit a pottery supported by one of his charities.
“It wasn’t an apology,” Low said, “but it was the next best thing.”
The Succession to the Crown Act of 2013 ensured that all royals born after October 28, 2011, would be placed in the line of succession based on birth order, regardless of their gender.
This historic change was seen when Princess Charlotte retained her place in the line of succession after her younger brother, Prince Louis, was born in 2018.
