Princess Charlotte covers this week’s issue of People Magazine, and the cover story is extremely bizarre. While I think Prince William and Kate are wrong to bring their kids out to public events so often, I understand that “providing regular photos of the kids” is a huge part of William and Kate’s arrangement with the press. But I cannot understand why William and Kate would authorize any friendly magazine or outlet to write about one of their kids’ personalities, character and qualities. It’s an institution engaging in narrative-building on little kids who are just trying to figure out their little world. Speaking of narrative-building, everyone is suddenly super-aware of the fact that the Windsors only care about the heirs and they’ve always treated the spares like sh-t. So that historical reality is now being built into how the press writes about Charlotte and Louis.
As Princess Charlotte turns 10, Kate Middleton and Prince William remain mindful of the royal path ahead for their daughter.
There are thorny questions ahead for Charlotte and her parents as they navigate the complexities of her unique position. Being the spare to Prince George, the future heir, is a vulnerable place — one fraught with potential pitfalls that her uncle Prince Harry, who also grew up as the spare, has made all too clear.
“The late Queen [Elizabeth] was always very conscious of that extraordinary and challenging role of the No. 2,” royal biographer Robert Hardman, author of The Making of a King, tells PEOPLE in this week’s exclusive cover story.
“That’s why she had a particular soft spot for [her sister] Margaret, for [her son] Andrew and Harry. She understood being second place in a strictly hierarchical family and institution has its challenges,” he says. “Everyone is conscious of that.”
Especially William, Hardman adds, who regards one of his most important duties as not just “preparing to be King himself but to make the whole royal existence approachable and not scary for all his children.” The Prince and Princess of Wales are parents to Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, who turned 10 on May 2, and Prince Louis, 7.
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry reflects candidly on the pain and identity struggles tied to his role as the “spare” in the royal family. “I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy,” he wrote.
“She’s the spare, just like Harry” and then “Well, QEII was extra-gentle on her spare” with zero mention of how Charles treated his siblings (he sent Anne out with bruises still on her face and he’s always been jealous of Andrew) or how William treated his spare (with violent malevolence). So, no, I do not think that William and Kate are “conscious” of what they’re doing to their kids or what kind of example they’ve set by how they’ve treated the Sussexes. William and Kate are too busy being incandescent with rage that Archie and Lili aren’t in the UK to be used as scapegoats for their kids. They’re too busy singling out George for special treatment so that Charlotte and Louis understand that they are not as important as the heir!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince George, Prince Louis of Wales and Princess Charlotte seen on the palace balcony to view the VE80 Celebrations and Red Arrows Flypast on Monday 5 May 2025 at Buckingham Palace, London. . Picture,Image: 995381591, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Julie Edwards/Avalon.Red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards/Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince George, Prince Louis of Wales and Princess Charlotte seen on the palace balcony to view the VE80 Celebrations and Red Arrows Flypast on Monday 5 May 2025 at Buckingham Palace, London. . Picture,Image: 995381750, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Julie Edwards/Avalon.Red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards/Avalon
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- Princess Charlotte and Prince George seen near the Queen Victoria Memorial to view the VE80 Celebration Parade on Monday 5 May 2025 at Buckingham Palace, London. . Picture,Image: 995388031, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Julie Edwards/Avalon.Red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards/Avalon
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- Princess Charlotte, Prince George and Prince Louis seen near the Queen Victoria Memorial to view the VE80 Celebration Parade on Monday 5 May 2025 at Buckingham Palace, London. . Picture,Image: 995388352, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Julie Edwards/Avalon.Red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards/Avalon
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- Camera Press Rota 04734598. Members of the royal family and the prime minister join second world war veterans to watch the VE 80 Parade, military procession arrive at Buckingham palace,Image: 995421969, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Camera Press Rota, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Joanne Davidson/Avalon
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- Camera Press Rota 04734688. The 80th Anniversary of VE Day. Members of the royal family watch the VE 80 Parade flypast at Buckingham Palace. 05/05/2025,Image: 995421982, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Camera Press Rota, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Joanne Davidson/Avalon
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- Camera Press Rota 04734691. The 80th Anniversary of VE Day. Members of the royal family watch the VE 80 Parade flypast at Buckingham Palace. 05/05/2025,Image: 995422166, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Camera Press Rota, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Joanne Davidson/Avalon
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- Camera Press Rota 04734701. The 80th Anniversary of VE Day. Members of the royal family watch the VE 80 Parade flypast at Buckingham Palace. 05/05/2025,Image: 995422603, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Camera Press Rota, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Joanne Davidson/Avalon
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Members of the British Royal Family watch a military procession marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and in honour of those who served during the Second World War on May 5, 2025 Pictured: Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, Prince Louis, William, Prince of Wa BACKGRID USA 5 MAY 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: Zak Hussein / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Members of the British Royal Family watch a military procession marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and in honour of those who served during the Second World War on May 5, 2025 Pictured: Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte BACKGRID USA 5 MAY 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: Zak Hussein / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
QEII was only sensitive to spares because she was raised by one. William and Charles were not and aren’t people accustomed to thinking of others. So good luck to Charlotte and Louis. They’d be better off raised by wolves.
I strongly disagree that QEII was “sensitive” to her sister as the spare, QEII denied her any significant role within the institution, denying Margaret a chance to be carve out her own existence, her own role and when Margaret wanted to marry Peter Townsend she was told that she would have to give up her titles, funds and any other “royal” perks. The BRF has a long history of finding ways to force compliance from royal siblings.
Margaret was short changed regarding education. Elizabeth got a better education and had tutors come in. Margaret was unhappy with the very basic schooling she got. Her parents did nothing to help matters. Bertie, later George VI was treated badly by nannies in comparison with his older brother.
Harla that isn’t true. Papers in the royal archive prove qeii made a deal with the govt for Margaret.
She could marry townsend, keep her titles, keep her taxpayer funded homes and lifestyle, keep her royal duties, keep her hrh.
The only difference? Her children would not be in line to the throne. That was not qeiis choice but dictated by the church of England. Townsend was divorced, the children of that marriage would be considered illegitimate.
Margaret chose not to marry him.
Not that I approve of townsend. He groomed Margaret from a young teen. He was sleeping with her on royals tours when she was as young as 16. He groomed his second wife from the age of 11 or 12. He was friends with her parents. He was no hero.
Harla, this is the narrative that the Crown used and it’s *not* accurate. Some of the letters between Margaret and the contemporary Prime Ministers (Churchill first, then Antony Eden) only came into the coverage in papers here relatively recently. But they paint a very different picture. Margaret was asked to wait a year, which she did, whilst Townsend was sent to Belgium as an air attaché, then she was asked to wait until she was twenty-five, which she did, at which point — IIRC — she was free to marry without the consent of Parliament or Commonwealth so long as she was prepared to relinquish her place in the succession. Elizabeth had two children by this time and would have two more. She would not have lost her title as a Princess, IIRC. She might have lost the HRH out of the succession, but in essence the issue was money — she would not have been eligible for the Civil List, as it was, without being in the LOS. So. Elizabeth cleverly set to work establishing a private trust for her sister so that she could *choose* whether she wanted to marry Townsend once she was twenty-five. The choice was hers. The Prime Minister was waiting on Margaret to inform him and she wrote to him inform him she had decided not to marry. Townsend by this time had been waiting — in some dismay and desolation — in Belgium, away from his own small children. It was grim. By the time Margaret chose not to marry him, his wife had remarried IIRC. He later married a Belgian woman but the most intriguing rumour was that his wife was actually a sort of amitie amoureuse to George VI, so the couple — and their children — were entwined in the Windsors’ lives with the kids obviously being collateral damage when the curious foursome of Margaret-Townsend-Mrs T-George VI came undone. Margaret told one story about her father catching her and Townsend in a kind of embrace, both asleep, under a blanket, when she was a teenager. She woke, recognised him, and saw him merely smile and tuck the blanket around her. That’s not something you might do if you *disliked* your daughter’s boyfriend, which he clearly was, by then. George VI died in 1952 when Margaret was 22. He made no financial provision for her in his will, it seems, so it took her sister a few years to set aside funds sufficient to keep her in the style to which she was accustomed, but the choice was hers; the funds were there, the consent of the PM was hers for the asking, she just… didn’t pull the trigger. Probably regretted it for the rest of her life.
I don’t think she was overly “sensitive” to Harry either. If she had been she would have reeled in Charles when he used him for PR, she would have reeled in PW when he started abusing him and she would have reeled in the press. I think she stoically saw the spare as someone who had to adjust to being used.
I do think she was sensitive to Margaret because they were raised as essentially equals and then she became the heir* and then the sovereign at a very young age. There was definitely a relationship there even with all the bumps and disappointments. I think thats part of the reason why she did seem okay with harry and meghan separating from the Firm. Margaret’s role could have been different and more purposeful but I dont think QEII felt she could make that happen – she seemed pretty controlled by the courtiers, especially in her early years as monarch with tommy lascelles.
(I know she was pretty much always the heir presumptive bc of her father’s status as the second son but she was thrust into that role in a much different way after the abdication, when it was pretty much assured she’d be the next monarch.)
George V and George IV were both spares, so why do the Windsors not treat the spares decently? Hypothetical question, they are a mean, jealous, passive-aggressive, toxic family.
The Windsors have a history of “spares” becoming the monarch?
It’s a pity that those children are put on magazine covers and scrutinized.
If Charlotte retains Williams looks, she will be a dazzling teen/young woman. If she has Diana’s beauty, she’ll be in the DM daily. I don’t think W&K could stop it at that point. The tabloids are kind and overly complementary to her as they should be considering her age, but we’ve seen how quickly that can change.
William’s looks faded quickly as early as University. William was once “cute” but the looks are gone. I hope she looks like some other ancestors.
William’s looks faded because of his personality, let’s be honest. Charlotte won’t go bald at 30, and even if her face starts to take after the Windsors at some point, she’s a woman so she’ll have other ways to be glamorous. I think she’ll be a classic beauty.
I actually wonder how Kate is going to handle Charlotte in later years. Will she be a helicopter like her mum or she will let Charlotte run free and not end up miserable like her and even marry a commoner.
I don’t like carole, but at least she had skills. I can’t think what Kate will have to offer Charlotte when she’s a YA?
I wonder how Kate will handle getting older with a daughter who is in the spotlight, whether they like it or not. We all know Kate hates competition for attention, so how will she handle it when the girl/woman taking attention from her is her own daughter? Right now she is managing the exposure but she won’t always be able to do that.
Kate is many things but I can’t imagine her being jealous of her own daughter.
Kate is jealous of every other female around her, always has been. She will absolutely be jealous of her daughter and brief against her. She’s already jealous of the attention her daughter gets now.
To add, her daughter is ‘born royal’ while Kate’s royal status is temporary and at the whim of William staying married to her. Oh yes she’s jealous of that child.
I have no problem whatsoever believing she will be jealous of her daughter. It’s how she’s been programmed for 3+ decades. To Kate, women equal competition.
Actually, I was focussed on how this article forces Charlotte into a support pillar for her older, incompetent (presumably) brother in an Elizabeth-Anne template instead of a Diana one. I realize all sorts of reasons why this may be, but it’s equally messed up, given how much emphasis there’s been on “normal,” that there is no mention of Kate or her family in Charlotte’s future. No business talent. No airline job. No early years benefit. I actually am not trying to be too snarky–it’s a huge problem putting a tween who is being raised to not work normally but be grateful for what her older brother might do for her in a highly dysfunctional family and only use two women from the royal branch as possibilities.
Carole is not a positive role model. A business woman who never earned the kind of money that supported their lifestyle. That was uncle hookers and blow funding the prince hunt.
A woman who took hundreds of thousands in covid funding for a business that was already failing years before covid.
A woman who misled small business suppliers while she secretly changed over her business model. A woman who ended up walking away from 2.4 million in debt. Legally because of the secret way she changed the business model.
A woman who raised her daughters to be community bicycles until they found a man stupid enough to marry them. Charlotte needs to look to aunt Meghan as an inspiration, not the midds or windsors.
Alteya, I don’t disagree with anything you wrote. My thing with this article about a 10-yr-old (!) is that the authors must have written this with the knowledge that Charlotte is going to read it or at least hear about it herself. It’s on the internet, she’s famous, there are a ton of kids, servants, family members, high-society and rich people who may have an agenda and a way of having access to her, right?
Her parents were in a weirdly lovey-dovey (shampoo commercial-like) video and the Middletons were highlighted. You could write that Charlotte loves to play board games like her grandma and bakes cupcakes or something. Failed businesswoman though she is, she’s held real jobs (and you can leave off stuff a 10-yr-old doesn’t need to hear about family?). Her great grandmother smuggled money away to a tax haven, withheld jobs from POC, and was a skinflint, but no one ever writes that about Elizabeth. Her maternal grandmother led the acceptance for AIDS patients and fought land mines. K was the steel fist in a glove or something… I thought this came from KP, but I’m starting to wonder if it was done with BP or the sources were more pro BP instead.
Kate was treated as a golden child compared to her siblings so her track record of responding to women who might outshine her isn’t great.
Besides there is a nanny there and Carole doing the heavy lifting.
Not to mention the shit she sees behind the scenes with her parents behavior to one another. As she gets older she will see what a narcissist her father and mother are and hopefully she will take a page out of Harry’s book and try to make a life for herself. Don’t know if that will be possible because Peg saw his scapegoat get away. Will he make sure she is George’s scapegoat? I bet he will.
So many ignoring how parents in a toxic marriage seriously affects the children. William and Harry have endured it and after a while they didn’t have to pretend because their parents eventually had to make it public and got divorced.
George , Charlotte and Louis are all forced to pretend there aren’t serious issues going on with their parents in public view. That’s not healthy.
I wonder more about school events and maintaining friendships when the RF requires so much secrecy. Harry and William seemed to be raised around so many aristos that are fine with that level of secrecy so in some ways they had that.
All this “spare” and “secret weapon” stuff is an enormous burden to place on a ten year old. I find it very sad. It’s also pathetic the way the press focusses on these young kids, but part of it (aside from obvious public interest) is because the rest of this group is so incredibly dull. And the royal idiots know it. Why else would they sanction these constant ‘secret weapon” stories about Charlotte, Sophie, Louse, Mike Tindall, etc.? If they thought they were winning the public’s hearts with their amazing personalities and work ethic, there would be no need for a “secret weapon.”
As I said on yesterday’s thread, it’s a huge loss to Charlotte and Louis that that they don’t have Uncle Harry to guide them. I do think they’ll connect with him in adulthood. And I hear the Montecito pile has a guest room or two.
That’s a good point that Kaiser makes about how, no matter what, the way the Wales have treated Harry is actually an example to their own children about how a spare is treated. Dark. They can claim it’s Harry’s own fault but that’s only gonna so far.
Harry is absolutely being used as an example of what NOT to do. and its abusive if you think of it from the perspective that the family thinks he just should have stayed and taken the poor treatment, taken the abuse in the press, etc. They are making it clear to C&L that is their job – to sit there and take the press abuse “to protect George.” to accept the poor treatment because they are “less than” etc.
QEII didn’t treat her kids like that – I dont think she was a shining example of a mother but she provided for her kids in a way that charles refused to do. I wonder if william will be like Charles or his grandmother. I think its going to be like Charles because we have never heard the narrative of William wanting to change anything about how harry was treated.
I used this analogy when a friend of mine was messing around with an older, married man: “Just because you are aware of the speeding train racing your way doesn’t mean that train won’t hit you.” Awareness means jack-all if it doesn’t come with action. Right now, all we see is the media creating narratives for young children with their parents’ complicit consent. Everything is being set up to repeat every single mistake that happened in Harry and William’s upbringing. Those kids are being set up to be each other’s rivals, ultimately, which serves the media circus, but will do irreparable harm to the children’s identities and to their relationships with each other.
The previous generations didn’t have the immediacy of social media to contend with. Kids blame each other, become envious of each other,–all normal things. How will those normal things be weaponized for those kids? I guess it’s a matter of time until we see it.
It sucks that their parents hate Harry more than they want to protect their own kids.
The teenage years, young adult-hood and farther on are going to be hell for all 3 of these kids. The press attention will be overwhelming and no matter how hard WandK try to reign in the press and paps, these kids will be worth millions and millions to the papers and no amount of leaking about the Sussex’s (10+ years after they left) will match what can be made off of pics of George falling out of a nightclub drunk or Char’s skirt hitching up while getting into a taxi.
That’s how Lazy caught the heir Prince so if Charlotte wants to go clubbing without any underwear, she’s just following in her mother’s footsteps.
She could turn out to become like Charlotte of Monaco and I wouldn’t mind that at all for her.
Nah, WanK are absolutely fully conscious of what they’re doing to their kids, and of the ramifications of the roles that Charlotte and Louis in particular are being set up for. They just don’t see a problem with it.
I think it has to pain Harry to see the cycle continue with his niece and younger nephew. I hate the “wise beyond her years” narrative about Charlotte, but I honestly hope there’s some truth to it, if for no other reason than that it might enable her to see past the horrible things that she and her brothers are almost certainly being told about their uncle and aunt, and realize that there is a way out if she needs it.
If QE was so “sensitive” to spares, why did she allow Charles to abuse Andrew and to use Harry for PR? Why did she allow Will to abuse him? Was being close to her supposed to be a salve that made the others abusing him okay?
I checked out People who have more on Charlotte. Seward claims she has a “close” relationship with Grandpa Charles which I doubt. In the Formal portrait from some years back, the boys sat near Charles with the granddaughter all the way on the other side. Then Harry and Meghan are “blamed” because now Lili can’t have a close relationship with Charles. Really?! When Charles evicted her and her family and could have gone to see her but didn’t. And won’t provide security for the Sussexes. Bizarro World.
And Seward states Charles only wanted two children, which is why he did not try for the daughter. More excuses
I still think that one of the reasons that the men in grey and rf have freaked out so much about Harry leaving is that he is showing future ‘spares’ there is a life outside the rf. What happens if Charlotte and Louis decide to leave too? Harry has shown them it’s possible to not just leave but to leave and THRIVE. No wonder they’re freaking out – the rf is a house of cards.
At what cost though? Losing security. It’s always struck me how Harry lived his whole life with an RPO as his shadow. In Spare, he spoke about a secret walk in Paris and that being the first time he’d ever in his life been without one. It must be a terrifying prospect. And if not for Tyler Perry and the fact that Harry and Meghan are charismatic glamorous and hard-working, who knows what would have happened. The RAVEC court case has allowed the men in gray to continue that control for future spares. That’s why, this year, in particular, it’s just not cute to see the birthday covers. It’s more dystopic and disturbing.
Honestly, I do think Will and Kate DID hope to protect their own children (and themselves) from the Firm’s PR machinations, but, as Harry implied in his autobiography, they’d planned on doing this by throwing Harry, Meghan and their children under the bus.
The entire job of the Spare is to make the heir and the monarch look good. Harry left, so now it’s up to this little girl to do that. It looks like she’ll be assigned Anne’s role, while Louis will be relegated to family fuck-up. At this rate, Charlotte will be cutting her first ribbon by 12.
Without Harry and his children, Will and Kate have no choice but to offer up their 10yo daughter to the Press if they want to keep prying eyes off themselves and the questionable state of their marriage.
William and Kate suck as parents. That’s just the plain truth. They’re already allowing Charlotte to be trotted out and dissected.
The child is 10 and she’s already on a magazine cover.
They’re never going to let Charlotte go. She has her own place in the line of succession and if WIlliam dies before George has children, she’d be Princess of Wales. That said, it’s truly disappointing to see the media subjecting her to this now.