As anyone who has been through one knows, there’s not much like a health scare—whether it is your own or someone you love—to make one reevaluate one’s life and priorities. That seems to be happening with King Charles in the aftermath of his cancer diagnosis earlier this year, and The Mirror reports that the King has told friends that he’s not happy with only seeing his grandchildren Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet on video calls, and that he wants to be more present in their lives going forward.
For example, as Marie Claire reported on last week, when Lili turned three on June 4, the King reportedly sent along what The Mirror called a “heartfelt gift and card” as sources tell the outlet the King is “keener than ever” to focus on his family and “make up for lost time,” especially in regards to Archie and Lili.
“Those who know the King best say he has been in a reflective mood and considers his close bond with his son [Prince] William’s three children a blessing,” The Mirror reports. Charles is a “fantastic and enthusiastic” grandfather to Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, who William shares with his wife, the Princess of Wales (who, too, is battling cancer). The Daily Beast reports that George, Charlotte, and Louis call the King “Grandpa Wales,” perhaps a nod to not only their surname (as their parents are now the Prince and Princess of Wales), but to Charles’ former title of Prince of Wales, which he held for 64 years before becoming King in 2022—the longest-serving Prince of Wales in history.
Interestingly, despite rumors of discord between Harry and his stepmother, Queen Camilla, The Mirror reports that the Queen “is also understood to be a driving force behind his [the King’s] decision to ramp up efforts to see his other grandchildren.”
“The King is absolutely committed to being present in all of his grandchildren’s lives,” a source said. “He values family above everything, and whatever the course of his relationship with his son, he would never be content with just seeing his grandchildren on the odd video call.”
Royal author Ingrid Seward, who has written a book called My Mother and I: The Inside Story of the King and Our Late Queen about Charles and his relationship with his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, said that “Family has always been important to the King. He remembers his own somewhat fragmented childhood as his parents were always busy doing their duty. It is a great sadness to him he doesn’t see more of Archie and Lilibet.”
She added “That is why he will never break ties with Harry. He does not want a FaceTime relationship with his son’s children. He wants to know them and be involved with their lives while they are still young enough to be able to learn from his wisdom. His cancer has made it all the more poignant to him, as he knows that he won’t be around forever.”
Though geographically the King lives an ocean away from the Sussexes—he in the U.K., and they in California—a friend of Harry told The Mirror “There has never been an issue with the King being in their lives, and there never would be. The door’s always open.”
The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes writes that “cynics might argue that, if the King really wanted to see more of the Sussexes, he wouldn’t have stripped them of their U.K. home” of Frogmore Cottage. Sykes continued that “Prince Harry’s camp have long argued that he [the King] has made it more difficult for Harry to visit the U.K. safely with his family by evicting him from his home on the royal estate, Frogmore Cottage, where Harry’s children’s security would have been assured by being within the royal protection envelope.”
Omid Scobie, in his 2023 book Endgame, said that Harry himself made this exact point to his father, saying to him after Harry and Meghan were told to pack their bags and move out of Frogmore last year, “Don’t you want to see your grandchildren again?”
Frogmore, Scobie wrote, was regarded by the Sussexes as the “only true safe option when visiting the United Kingdom,” as the royal estate was guarded around the clock by armed guards. Perhaps at least in part because of this, “Charles is understood to have seen Archie only a handful of times and has only met Lilibet, who was born in America, once,” Sykes wrote.
