William Could Be King ‘Earlier than Expected’ & His 1st Order Is For Harry to Be ‘Harshly Dealt With’ For the ‘Ultimate Windsor Crime’
There’s a lot of layers to the issues of what will happen when Prince William takes the throne. And the reality is that it is probably coming sooner rather than later. King Charles is still battling cancer. Prince William is stepping up in his duties to help his father, who reportedly isn’t keen to hand over the throne anytime soon. But his health and his age might leave the decision out of his hands.
“The people I’ve spoken to have said that the succession planning, as they call it, began even before Charles’ diagnosis,” royal author Tom Quinn told Harper’s Bazaar recently. “I mean, he’s the oldest Prince of Wales to become king in history, so succession planning had begun before Charles came to the throne simply because of the age issue.”
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Prince William has also retained new legal representation, switching lawyers from Harbottle & Lewis and its partner, Gerrard Tyrrell—the same lawyers his father used—to Mishcon de Reya, which represented Princess Diana in her divorce from Charles. ”William wanted to strike out on his own,” a source told the Daily Mail about the change. “He did not want to continue using his father’s lawyers. It’s as simple as that. He wants to be his own man.”
And part of wanting to be his own man is William wanting to strike a much harsher tone with his brother, Prince Harry. “It’s no secret William wants Harry more harshly dealt with. He thinks he has betrayed the family from top to bottom, which is the ultimate Windsor crime. It wouldn’t take much to provoke him to flex his muscles when he is king,” a palace insider told The Daily Beast.
Meghan Markle recently reposted a message from the vice president of Ukraine that addressed her as “Your Royal Highness.” However, the outlet made it clear that King Charles wasn’t taking that all too seriously. “Charles isn’t going to open a new front in the civil war on the basis of one Instagram post, and it’s not as if they are calling themselves HRH,” another source told the outlet. “I think everyone is pretty clear, at this stage, what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s position in the family is.”
Another insider told the outlet that while Prince William has a lot of influence on policy, that doesn’t extend to Harry. “Charles has a softly-softly attitude to Harry and Meghan, and so that’s the policy for now, but the gloves will be off when [William] inherits the throne. If they started using the HRH titles on a regular basis, he would take them away for good,” the source said.
Some were outraged at fact that Markle even reposted the comment. “It’s outrageous. Every time you think they can’t make it worse, they make it worse,” another source added. “The deal with the HRH was a way to stop them cashing in while letting them walk away with pride and dignity and trust, and now Markle is using her HRH on a website which seems to exist to sell jam.”
“It’s actually quite a clever way of testing the water, because there is deniability there, she can say, ‘Well, I just wanted to publish this nice letter to raise awareness for Ukraine, and oops! they got my name wrong — but oh, actually, now I think of it, I never gave the title up anyway, and maybe I will start using it again,’” another source said.
Whether these sources are just echoing Prince William’s sentiments or not, the consensus seems to be that when he’s King, things are expected to change. And that means Harry and Meghan are likely to lose their titles. The question is, will they care?
