Queen Elizabeth carefully controlled what the world saw during her reign, projecting restraint in public while revealing a “sharp” and “decisive” side behind palace doors, as royal biographer Robert Hardman recently told Marie Claire. Now that King Charles is on the throne, he’s modernized and streamlined the monarchy in his own way while staying true to the traditions at the heart of the Crown. Although Prince William has discussed his own plans for change, Hardman says that the Prince of Wales is actually not nearly as “radical” as his father.
As King Charles settles into the role he spent a lifetime preparing for and Prince William begins outlining his own vision, the late Queen’s influence is emerging in different ways. “He is, I would say, as happy as I've ever seen him,” Hardman says of King Charles, who the biographer has been writing about for more than 30 years.
