King Charles III reportedly left Princess Diana in tears at the hospital just hours after she gave birth to Prince Harry.
The then Prince of Wales was allegedly visiting his newborn son for the first time when he made a comment to Diana that she later claimed signaled the end of their marriage. She shared this story with her confidant and butler Paul Burrell, who has now revealed it as speculation swirls about the future of Prince Harry‘s relationship with King Charles following their 55-minute reunion meeting.
“[Diana told me] Charles came into the hospital, looked in the cot and said ‘Oh, red hair’,” Burrell recalls in his new book The Royal Insider, which is available now. “Diana replied, ‘But, Charles, you know that’s the Spencer gene. We’ve all got red hair’.”
Burrell continues: “Then [according to Diana] came the damning blow. He said, ‘Well at least I’ve got my heir and spare now and…. I can return to Camilla’.” Burrell remembers Diana expressing her shock. While she wasn’t surprised about her husband’s affections for the then-married Camilla Parker-Bowles, she was reportedly stunned that he would make such a remark while she lay in bed having just given birth, reports the Mirror.
As we’ve learned from the late Queen Elizabeth II, memories can differ. Only two individuals truly know what was said in that room at the private Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, that night, and one of them is no longer with us. Regardless of how King Charles remembers the events, Paul witnessed firsthand the emotional scars Diana carried from her recollections of that day.
It wasn’t until years after Harry’s birth in 1984 that the Princess confided in Paul during one of their many discussions about her marital troubles. He notes that it was still a raw and emotional memory for her.
“Diana told me: ‘I cried myself to sleep that night knowing my marriage was over’,” shares the former butler turned author. “She said: ‘Four years, Paul, I gave him four good years and he was gone. For the rest of the time I had to pretend and put on a facade to the world’.”
Diana was only 23 when she gave birth to Harry. She had married four years prior and had Prince William two years later.
Charles, on the other hand, was 36 when Harry was born – and, according to Paul, made it clear that the marriage was essentially over once he had fulfilled his procreational duties.
Paul, 67, today discloses he hesitantly shared Diana’s account with Princes William and Harry, following their purported request for a confidential meeting at Kensington Palace in 2017.
He alleged the brothers sought to hear his recollections about their mother on the 20th anniversary of her tragic car accident in Paris.
However, he claims they then questioned him about what he believed went awry between their parents.
Based on what Diana had supposedly confided in him, it was that pivotal hospital moment which transformed everything.
“Harry stared straight at me poker faced,” Paul writes in his book.
“He couldn’t believe what I was telling him. I said to him ‘Harry it’s the truth. I wouldn’t tell you that unless it was exactly what your mother told me’. This happened just before Harry became engaged to Meghan. I think that powered him, and put fuel in his tanks to go forward with everything he felt. “[And it’s] probably why he called his book Spare. “.
Charles and Diana maintained predominantly separate existences from 1986 as the current King pursued his relationship with his present queen, Camilla – while Diana cultivated her own connections.
The pair formally separated in 1992 – which subsequently became recognized as the late Queen’s Annus Horribilis, amid marital difficulties for three of her four children and the Windsor Castle blaze.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.the-express.com ’
