Prince William plans to keep doing the school run when his father dies and he becomes king, according to a bombshell newspaper profile that will do little to assuage speculation about the health of the cancer-stricken King Charles III.
The profile, in The Times of London, says William will be an informal monarch, more comfortable at a football ground than a racecourse—as shown by his recent pre-game analysis at a match between Aston Villa and Paris Saint-Germain.
He will focus on projects that deliver “impact” at “scale,” sources tell the newspaper.
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But it is the notion of a “school-run king” that jumps out from the extensive Times report, appearing to back the suggestion—previously reported in detail by the Daily Beast—that the U.K. is indeed in a “pre-succession” era.
British news outlets are restricted in what they can say about the king’s health by strict press and privacy laws, but the profile, headlined, “What will change when William is king?” makes it abundantly clear that William’s team are already prepping for the death of Charles, 76, who is now entering a second year of cancer treatment.
The Times says that William will bring a more relaxed style to the “top job,” and continue to protect his family’s privacy. It goes on to cite one “well-placed source” as saying that William will continue to do the school run as king.
Given that his youngest son, Prince Louis, turned 7 this week, and the royals typically attend boarding school from the age of 13, that suggests that royal insiders are thinking about a six-year timeframe for the succession.
The inference is likely to infuriate the king’s closest aides, but it meshes with what sources have told the Daily Beast.
In October this year, for example, the Daily Beast reported, “When King Charles III ascended the throne, most people expected he would live as long as his mother (96) or father (99). Since his diagnosis with cancer (of a still-unidentified type), few but the most ardent optimists really believe that any more.”
The Daily Beast has also reported that Prince Andrew is seeking to “run out the clock” on Charles, fighting attempts to evict him from Windsor’s Royal Lodge in the knowledge that, come the change of reign, his living arrangements will be fairly low on King William’s list of priorities.
While Buckingham Palace has been far more open and honest about the king’s health than it has been with the health conditions of previous monarchs, they have not said what specific type of cancer Charles has, or what the prognosis is. They have said that he continues to receive treatment on a weekly basis to manage the cancer.
The king has appeared spry and in good form in recent weeks, if sometimes looking drained, and his wife, Camilla, said recently that he was “getting better.”
Charles’ staff typically decline to comment on Charles’ diagnosis beyond information that is already a matter of public record, and did not comment to The Daily Beast for this report.
They are fiercely loyal and understandably protective of anyone speculating about his health. There is a fear among many in Charles’ office that if he is widely thought to be dying, it will distract from his work and diminish his authority.
This, of course, is why serious health concerns of kings and queens is usually kept top secret. Indeed, the severity of George VI’s lung cancer, which killed him at the age of 56, was unknown even to him.
Jason Knauf, the loyal-to-William aide who denounced his old boss Meghan Markle as a bully and was recently given a plum job as CEO of the Earthshot Prize, told The Times that William’s goal was “reinvention,” adding: “How do you communicate to the generation that you serve? It has to be different. It’s not change for change’s sake, but a question of how you’re going to cut through in a world where people are consuming things much more in terms of images than anything else.”
Sources tell The Times that as king, William could still be doing the school run, with one source described as “well-placed” making the kind of speculative comment that triggers the ire of the king’s staff, saying: “He’ll be asking, if [the children] are still young when I take on the big job, how do I maintain that privacy? I’m pretty sure that they won’t move into BP [Buckingham Palace]. You can’t imagine him saying, ‘Great, let’s move back to central London.’”
Another source says, “William has played a very smart hand. He has chosen it. He has shaped it as he wanted to. He was thinking about this early because he didn’t want to drift and then find that he hadn’t had a say in it. It’s one of the defining qualities of the man.”
In another section of the article, friends of William seem to troll Prince Harry, referencing Harry’s comment to Oprah Winfrey when he said: “My father and my brother, they are trapped. They don’t get to leave and I have huge compassion for that.” A source described as “knowing both brothers well” tells The Times it is William who has moved on while Harry is now stuck. The source says: “How ironic that Harry is the one that feels trapped. What does he do? He doesn’t seem to have any more idea of what to do with himself now than when he left.”
Another source says: “Three words come to mind when I think of William… Normal, private, control. These are the things he wants: as normal a life as possible; private time for his family; and control over how he organizes his life and work. Kate is just as strong on control and privacy as him. In that glare of publicity and scrutiny they are very tight, very close, very strong, and cancer has made them closer and stronger, which is very common in families facing these challenges. She’s hugely influential behind the scenes in hiring and decision-making and they approach it as a team. Like the late queen and Prince Philip, and the king and queen, they’re a good double act.”
The article says that “courtiers will inevitably be thinking to the future as the 76-year-old king enters a second year of cancer treatment.”
