King Charles has just given a rare honour to a courtier whom Prince Harry and Meghan Markle seem to dislike quite a bit.
The Daily Mail reports that Sir Edward Young — who served as an aide to the late Queen Elizabeth, then helped King Charles transition the monarchy for his reign, totalling 19 years of royal service — has become the King's Permanent Lord in Waiting.
"His Majesty has great respect for Lord Young and is grateful for all the work he did for his mother, often under great pressure," an insider told the Mail's royal editor Richard Eden. "This new honour is a reflection of that."
While there's no doubt that Charles does in fact have a lot of respect for his new Permanent Lord in Waiting, this development does pose the question of whether the King took into consideration Harry's past difficulties with the man — especially given Charles and Harry's strained relationship these days.
Richard goes on to explain that Harry accused Sir Edward of two perceived offences in his memoir Spare, which was published earlier this year. First, Harry accused him of preventing him from speaking to his grandmother the Queen directly when the Sussexes were preparing to step down from their roles as senior royals.
The Duke had already explained that he had been stopped from speaking to his grandmother via the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, which first aired in December.
Second, Harry accused Sir Edward of being part of the reason why the Sussexes are no longer protected by the Metropolitan Police when they are in the UK. This has led to a major security dispute for Prince Harry, who has argued that his security has been "compromised" on past visits to his native country.
The Daily Mail goes on to explain that the royal courtier Harry referred to in Spare as The Bee is likely to be Sir Edward.
"I'd spent my life dealing with courtiers, scores of them. But now I dealt mostly with just three, all middle-aged white men who'd managed to consolidate power through a series of bold Machiavellian manoeuvres," Harry wrote.
"They had normal names... but they sort more easily into zoological categories. The Bee, The Fly and the Wasp. The Bee was oval-faced and fuzzy and tended to glide around with great equanimity and poise, as if he was a boon to all living things."
Well!
