My King Charles

-This is the story of King Charles III by the people who know him best.

-The other boys had decided that they were going to "get" Prince Charles.

[ Camera shutter clicks ] He was the boy who walked alone.

-Prince Charles was so frustrated by the narratives that have been put out that are wrong about him.

He was even reduced to tears.

-The intimate glimpses that I do get are this person who has passions, and passions are good.

-It's the untold story of the king revealed by close friends, including those who've never spoken before.

-We had a friendship and a relationship.

They called me "The Blonde."

-No other of his girlfriends have ever really talked to the press.

That's what turned me into the kiss-and-tell and the blabber girl.

-I actually had thought I was going as his girlfriend for the weekend, but when I got there, Camilla Parker-Bowles was there.

-Friends, who at the most pivotal moments of the king's life, were by his side... -I'm speaking now about all this because I've said nothing for 40 years, and I've just listened so often to lies.

And it's quite frustrating.

-Both princes begged their father to not marry Camilla.

-This is the woman that Diana had been crying her eyes out about, who she called the Rottweiler.

-They're a spectacularly dysfunctional family.

-Right now, we're seeing another disastrous scandal swirling around.

-There are even reports that he did say, "I wish you boys would stop making my final years miserable."

-In the 1970s, King Charles enjoyed a very different reign, as the world's most photographed "Playboy Prince."

-Naval Lieutenant Prince Charles is taking to the air again, this time in a helicopter.

He's already qualified as a jet pilot with the RAF.

-Being the Prince of Wales and single, he had this great reputation of being very eligible and quite rightly so.

-The prince has clocked up almost a thousand flying hours in a variety of aircraft.

-He was a man of action.

You know, he flew well.

He played polo well.

-Charles, like his father, is a great sportsman and doesn't miss an opportunity to play polo.

-He was handsome, charming, the Prince of Wales.

I think he had a lot of girlfriends.

He would tell me that women would come rushing up to him like when he was in Australia and would kiss him.

[ Movie projector hums ] -Jane Ward first met Prince Charles in 1978 while working at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor.

-Charles would come up from Windsor Castle and come and play.

And so, I just think we just sort of gravitated towards each other.

He was about to become 30, and I was going through an early divorce at a very young age, at 23.

Here are some photos of when I was introduced to Prince Charles and I do actually feel there was probably an instant attraction.

And it was a definite turning point in my life.

What I thought about Prince Charles or King Charles is that he looked quite a lonely figure.

-Jane urged the solitary prince to join the social life of the club, inviting him to a Pimms polo party with a twist.

-One of my bosses had thought it would be quite quirky to have Pimms in a plastic container.

And so, I was in the room but didn't mix with him.

And then I saw that he was about to go.

So, I rushed round the back and said, "And how did that go?"

And it was fascinating, actually.

And he drew himself up, and he looked at me and said, "I'm not used to drinking out of a carton."

And I went, "Oh, my God!"

And that was virtually almost the end of him coming in to have drinks.

[ Laughs ] I was also given a cottage up at Windsor Castle, close to the Polo Club.

So, I was very much on tap because I was living on the job, really.

We were just very comfy.

We could talk about anything.

He's a very charismatic person.

He's very cheeky and flirtatious, I think, is the word.

-However, the royal flirt sometimes left them both blushing.

-I walked in wearing a shirt with 11 cockerels.

You know, those sort of farmer sweatshirts.

And he didn't realize that Andrew, my husband at the time, was behind, and as I walked through the door, he said, "Good God, is that how many cocks you've had?"

You can't put that -- cockerels.

And then he looked up, and he saw Andrew's face, and he knew that he'd...

Yes, but it was just funny.

Prince Charles had said he'd very much like my company at Windsor Castle.

And then I did go and have dinner.

I think that's about all I'm going to say.

[ Laughs ] And we, you know, and yeah.

-Robert Jobson interview, take one.

-Royal writer Robert Jobson has traveled the world with the king for 33 years.

-He had lots and lots of girlfriends.

But I don't think any of them really came close to the one girlfriend who he had met years before.

That was Camilla Parker-Bowles.

-Charles first met older woman Camilla while studying at Cambridge University.

Petronella Wyatt has known Camilla since her teens and reveals how her friend gave the royal student a harsh early lesson in love.

-The nature of that relationship was a passion that sprang up on Charles' side.

Camilla was fond of Charles.

I don't even know how far it went.

Nobody really knows how far it went.

But I think she found him a bit immature, and I think she wasn't in love with him then.

[ Movie projector hums ] -Put in to sea in a six months' tour of the West Indies, sublieutenant Prince Charles reported to his new ship, HMS Minerva.

-Next stage of his career was with the Royal Navy.

And he was being posted on a tour out in the Caribbean and even took Camilla on a tour of the ship before he departed.

He was in the West Indies, I think, when he heard that she was getting married to Andrew Parker-Bowles.

So, he was definitely brokenhearted.

There's no doubt about that.

-The prince's status as one of the world's most eligible bachelors soon helped mend his broken heart.

-I got a letter that Prince Charles wrote to me in 1975, when he was on HMS Hermes, and he just writes, "My dear Janet, what a glorious evening that was yesterday.

Thank you for a thousand times for making it such a fun and particularly special evening.

I loved every minute of my night out in Montreal with the most exquisite Welsh girl I've ever met."

[ Laughs ] I laughed.

I said, "But, Charles, how many Welsh girls have you dated?"

So, he laughed.

It was very flattering.

Of course it was lovely.

-Janet Jenkins first met Prince Charles in 1975.

-In the 1970s, in Montreal, I was working for the British Consulate and met so many amazing people, including the Prince of Wales, of course.

His ship had come into Montreal to dock.

And they were going to give a reception on board.

So, naturally, we were all invited.

We were in the line to be presented to him.

And he got to me, and he was asking my name, and I said I was from Wales.

And he said, "Well, I'm the Prince of Wales."

I said, "Yes, I know."

I said, "I hope you get a chance to see Montreal, and I hope you really enjoy it."

He said, "Well, I will if you'll show it to me."

So, that's how it started.

And then he said, "I'll have my private secretary call you tomorrow."

He did actually contact me, and I showed him a lot of Montreal.

We had a sort of drive around, and that's how our friendship started.

-The couple discovered they had something in common -- a mutual love of bungling French police detectives.

-We liked the same things.

We both loved the movies that we had chosen, which was "The Pink Panther."

We're both big fans.

So, we went in to see the movie, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they were just protecting the whole building while he was in there, which was quite funny.

-The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP, the Mounties -- 5,400 men who maintain the law superbly well in Canada.

-He came to my apartment, and we had RCMP outside my door, on the roof of the building, on the fire escape.

So, it was not exactly an intimate evening, but, anyway, it was really nice.

And they'd given him a panic button.

We were very careful about the press because they would get word of things, and they would be hounding us everywhere.

But we were very lucky, very lucky to keep it quiet.

-Next stop for intrepid traveler Charles, the Arctic.

-He looks so good there, doesn't he?

I mean, I think he looks pretty handsome there.

I love it when he comes out, and he deflates it.

[ Laughter ] [ Laughs ] Oh!

-It's not possible...

Very interesting indeed, I must say.

Bloody cold!

-He's so funny.

-Well, I tell you.

We put the air in here, you see, and it will now do an amazing thing.

[ Air hissing, crowd laughing ] [ Applause ] -I mean, do you see how funny he is?

There's a really fun side of the Prince of Wales.

And that's what people don't realize.

-Two years later, Charles invited Janet to the U.K. for the queen's silver-jubilee celebrations.

-They called me "The Blonde."

And then at one of the polo matches, they said, "Typical type of girlfriend -- tall and pretty and shy, standing back."

But they didn't know my name.

-The prince then whisked "the blonde" up to Balmoral, the royal residence in Scotland.

-I flew into Aberdeen, and then I was met in Aberdeen, and we were not staying at the castle.

We were staying in the little guesthouse they had.

And then unfortunately the press got wind of somebody there with him, and they sort of ruined the whole thing.

He said, "You really have to go back," he said, "because now they've got the long-range things.

They can see us."

I was really upset about it.

And he said, "Oh, you know."

He gave me his handkerchief.

He said, "Oh, you will be all right."

You know, he wasn't good at that.

I think the stiff upper lip was very much what you did.

And so, showing emotion was just something that he didn't know how to react to.

-Charles, when it came to his emotions, was not the most demonstrative person.

-Charles was a sensitive young man, bullied by his father.

And his father was a man's man who felt that the king, Charles, would have to toughen up.

He was quite hard on his son and the schools that he chose for his son.

-Despite the protests of the queen mother, in 1962 Prince Philip sent Charles to the secondary school he himself had attended.

-Gordonstoun was famously tough.

Some people actually called it "Colditz in a kilt," Colditz being a German prisoner-of-war camp.

-Johnny Stonborough shared a classroom with Prince Charles for four years.

But it was on the playing fields that he witnessed the persecution of the prince and the future king's surprising reaction.

-He was in the scrum.

And I know that a couple of the other boys had decided that they were going to "get" Prince Charles, and this involved punching him and pulling his ears and kicking him.

But, you know, the amazing thing is that he never responded.

He never reacted.

He was very stoic about the whole thing.

The never complaining, never explaining is deeply ingrained in him.

But it was almost impossible for him to have friends because anybody who was deemed to be a friend of the prince's was teased brutally, as well.

He used to have a duffel coat, a blue duffel coat, and he would have his hands in his pockets, and he would pull the duffel coat in front of him and be walking by himself.

He was the boy who walked alone.

-Two years after leaving school, the 20-year-old prince was asked what kind of woman he hoped to marry.

It's clear from his answer that it already troubled him.

-You've got to remember that, when you marry in my position, you're going to marry somebody who perhaps one day is going to become queen, and you've got to choose somebody very carefully, I think, who can fulfill this particular role because people like you, perhaps, would expect quite a lot from somebody like that, and it's got to be somebody pretty special.

-There were some rather strange medieval conditions for marrying the Prince of Wales.

She had to have a clean past.

She couldn't be divorced.

She had to be pretty squeaky-clean.

Living with somebody sort of meant that you got scratched.

It's another world.

-I was a divorce, so the fact that I was a forbidden fruit made our relationship so much easier and more relaxed.

And, you know, we could just be ourselves totally.

I didn't have any pretensions.

I mean, there were jokes.

My one boss, he had a T-shirt made "Jane for Queen," which was very funny.

I mean, the body language is quite telling, isn't it, really?

Of mine.

[ Chuckles ] You know, I don't look as if I'm very worried by it all.

You know, cigarette lighter around the neck, you know.

He must have said something that made me laugh.

I don't know.

Nice photos.

[ Chuckles ] -The couple's body language may speak volumes, but the press needed proof that the prince and the divorce were a couple.

And it was about to come from a surprising source.

-The golden rule for girlfriends was to never speak to the media about a relationship with the prince.

As soon as that happened, they were finished.

-A royal correspondent to The Sun, James Whitaker, who had become a bit of a sort of friend, he rang me to say, "Jane, it's been blown to the newspapers that you are the new girl in Prince Charles' life."

And he said, "You're headlines tomorrow."

And he said, "Well, can I come down and see you?"

And I just was so in shock that I thought he was a friend at the time.

And they came to the cottage.

And I just said, "We just like to sort of lark around," and I probably mentioned something like, you know, "We just like to tease each other."

Unbeknown to me, because it was a quote from me, that went into the press.

And I was knifed, because it was a quote from me, and that's what turned me into the kiss-and-tell and the blabber girl.

So, it was a stitch-up.

I was so mortified to what had been put in the papers.

They feel it's a betrayal.

They do close ranks.

He was probably told, "Stay away because she's a chatter," but because he knew that I'd been set up, he was always there in the background, hoping that I was coping, which I wasn't.

I remember asking for some help from one of the press secretaries.

And he said, "You're in it on your own."

So, I did feel very vulnerable at the time.

Of course, in hindsight, it would've been nice but don't put me in that category.

I would not be a suitable queen.

[ Bells ringing ] -Now that he was 31 years of age, great conjecture had already been shown over when and who he was likely to marry.

Often, it was headline news.

-Prince Philip was definitely pressuring him, as well, to get married and produce an heir and a spare, as they say.

I think they wanted him to just sort of be settled.

-Out of an ever-dwindling pool of virginal aristocrats, one potential princess stood out.

-At that time, he'd just started dating Diana Spencer.

-Lady Diana was born into a world of large country houses set in huge rural estates.

She grew up in Park House, practically next door to the queen, whom she called Aunt Lilibet.

-The queen mother was very old-fashioned.

I think she kept pushing Diana because she was too young to have a past.

But, at the same time, Charles had started seeing Camilla again.

-Going back to when I was at that polo dance in Cirencester, I did notice when I was dancing that Prince Charles was a lot of the time dancing with Camilla.

Were they having an affair then?

Well, I didn't know any of that then, but subsequently it's come about that he wasn't exactly a saint.

-People did spot Charles and Camilla having a fond sort of cuddle, as it were, but her husband, Andrew, was doing the same thing.

Diana Spencer had no experience with men whatsoever.

And I was told that their relationship was not consummated until their honeymoon.

So, there wouldn't have been much of a sexual nature to the courtship.

So, I doubt he would've thought he was doing anything terribly wrong if he kissed Camilla at a party.

But having said that, all that did stop once he and Diana became engaged.

-He was in a relationship with a married woman in Camilla that was never going to be able to be his life's partner.

There was this, you know, vibrant, beautiful young girl showing an interest in him.

And, at that time, Charles felt under immense pressure to marry Diana.

-Then, on the 24th of February 1981, from Buckingham Palace came the news that the whole world had been waiting for.

The heir to the throne presented his beautiful bride-to-be.

-Can you find the words to sum up how you feel today, both of you?

-Difficult to find the right sort of words, isn't it.

really?

Just delighted and happy.

And I'm amazed that she's been brave enough to take me on.

-And, I suppose, in love.

-Of course!

-Whatever "in love" means.

-Yes!

-Diana made a point about it, how shattered she was by his answer, but I think she was being very sensitive because she knew about Camilla.

We now know that she was so aware of Camilla Parker-Bowles.

I mean, had he said to her, "Okay, it's over.

I will never see her again," it would've been a different thing.

But he wasn't prepared to do that.

But I don't believe that he would've married her or agreed to marry her if he hadn't had strong feelings for her.

-I remember getting the call that I was going to be invited to be a bridesmaid to Charles and Diana.

-India Hicks is King Charles' goddaughter and has known him all of her life.

-I was thrilled to have been invited.

Of course I was.

And wow, that was quite a dress.

The '80s is all about, you know, puff balls and taffeta and over-the-topness.

And Diana wanted a 25-foot train.

No one else had ever had a 25-foot train.

And I had that job of dealing with the train.

And there is Diana with her large and quite ailing father.

And there wasn't much room for all of that train.

So, by the time they opened the door and they got her out, the bloody thing was very crumpled.

It was quite something.

It did look amazing.

I mean, it did look amazing.

All you really see is my bum in the air because I spent most of the time trying to sort that thing out.

-When Janet Jenkins studies photos of the ceremony, she's surprised to spot one particular guest in the congregation.

-I think it was in bad taste to have gone.

Not a good way to start your marriage.

-I think Camilla, she's a worldly wise woman.

She would have seen this beautiful, young girl come along.

She was clearly by that stage in love with Charles and maybe thought there was nothing wrong, that he would have his wife, they would have a few kids, but she would still have this role as the mistress in his life.

And she was right because, like it or loathe it, Charles was in love with somebody else.

-Charles and Diana had an apartment in London's Kensington Palace but made his bachelor pad, Highgrove, their country home, along with a tight-knit staff of 12.

-Mervyn Wycherley.

I was head chef to the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer for 13 years and finished in '95.

[ Camera shutter clicks ] [ Crowd cheers ] The early years, it was so exciting.

It was an absolute buzz.

I mean, I don't think they even knew what had hit them, really, with everything going on.

But it worked, and they got on enormously well.

Those first few years were, it was great fun.

-He had been the playboy, the life and soul.

He was the one in the photos.

And then he married this shy, little girl who turned into an absolute megastar.

And all the press wanted was this very pretty girl.

And I think he had his nose slightly put out of joint.

-Well, I'm not a glove puppet so I can't answer for that, I'm afraid.

But I think you enjoyed it.

Didn't you, darling?

Be an idiot if she didn't enjoy dancing with John Travolta, wouldn't she?

-I think he became a little bit resentful of the superstar that he married.

-In his role as live-in protection officer, Ken Wharfe was part of the family's everyday life.

-When I first worked with William and Harry, and they were five and three.

They were young kids.

They'd go down to the kitchen, they annoy the chef.

Or they go to the chauffeur, annoy him.

They'll find someone that will actually play with them.

-They were very, very different.

William has always been more reserved and thoughtful.

-I look back at their early years, and Harry was very much the joker, the entertainer.

And that sort of didn't sit very comfortably with William, because, you know, Harry was "a bit more popular than me," you know, and everybody knew that.

-By 1986, staff were aware that all was not well in the royal marriage, a situation confirmed to Ken Wharfe on a trip to Spain.

-Diana said, "Ken, I wanted to tell you all about my relationship, both with my husband and" -- at that time -- "with James Hewitt."

She told me about the relationship that her husband was having with Camilla.

I remember asking her.

I said, "Do you love the Prince of Wales?"

And that for me so early on in my career was a big question.

She said, "Yes, of course I do.

Otherwise I wouldn't be here."

But at that particular time, Diana naively believed that a reconciliation, you know, could be had here.

-I'm speaking now about all this because I've said nothing for 40 years, and I've just listened so often to lies, silly stories.

And it's quite frustrating.

-Allan Peters served as protection officer to Charles and Diana throughout the 1980s.

-There are only a few of us that can say what really happened.

And I've decided that my time might be coming to an end.

So, I'm going to do it now.

Harry must have been maybe about a year old.

Something like that?

And on one occasion we did use a royal protection officer, Barry Mannakee, to go with her for four or five days up to Scotland.

And when they came back from that trip, I started to notice her conduct in the presence of Mannakee getting more and more strange.

It was clear that something had gone on, so I took it upon myself to challenge her on what I'd seen, and she eventually agreed, "Oh, yes, it's all so wonderful, and he's so marvelous."

As far as I could ascertain, they were having an affair.

lt was a recipe for disaster.

The thing was to try and help it to stop before it got too bad, because, as I explained to her, she would lose the marriage, lose the boys, lose everything.

When Barry Mannakee was told that he was being transferred out, he obviously rang her, and I was in my office at Kensington Palace.

And the first thing I knew was she was in the doorway throwing her shoes at the back of my head, upset because she was putting the blame on me.

She was distraught, and life was quite difficult for everybody.

And the prince said to me, "I need to have a word with you, Allan.

What is happening with the princess?

What on earth is the matter with her?"

I didn't want to explain at all what's happening, and eventually he said, "Well, the only thing that seems to be upsetting her is that Barry Mannakee is leaving.

And if that's the case, I'll say that he doesn't need to leave.

He can stay."

And at that point I felt that I had to say, "Well, if he stays, sir, then I can't stay.

He has to go."

And I think at that point the penny may have dropped as to what was happening.

I can categorically say that the first person that strayed in the marriage was the Princess of Wales.

He didn't until after he knew she had strayed.

-Do your tastes coincide?

-On what?

-Pop music.

-Well, yes.

Sometimes, yes.

Not always.

-Charles and Diana had an age gap that seemed even wider than it was because they had nothing in common.

The age gap wouldn't have mattered if she'd shared his interests.

She hated Balmoral.

She hated shooting.

She hated hunting.

She liked pop music.

Charles liked classical and opera.

She couldn't stand it.

It's worse than chalk and cheese.

-The prince confided in close friends as to how difficult family life had become.

-We would speak on the telephone all the time.

He did say that it was very volatile.

He said that they thought she had bulimia at that point.

And he said, "You know, she threw herself down the stairs."

She would be crying in the bathroom, and William would be trying to put Kleenex underneath the door saying, "Mommy, it's okay."

You know, that's traumatic for any child to see that instability.

So, he was very worried about that.

He hoped that the children would remember that when, you know, she'd be yelling and screaming at him, that he didn't yell and scream back, that he was trying to be the voice of reason.

-Diana was often perceived and seen as the troubled wife, the woman that was a problem.

She's mad.

Diana is damaged goods.

-Tonight, an explosive, new book by Andrew Morton detailing the marriage collapse of Prince Charles and the Princess of Wales hits the shelves.

-I think her own involvement with Andrew Morton in her book, "Diana, Her True Story," was effectively her biography.

And what we got was the truth.

-Morton's book is the most one-sided divorce petition almost in history.

It's almost saint, sinner.

You know, and that's it.

Diana was no saint.

Diana had been having affairs same as Charles had had an affair.

I've spoken to the king, and he said if anything, it was his fault.

He wasn't strong enough when it came to Diana because he knew quite early on that he didn't want to get married to Diana.

He didn't feel they were suited, and he didn't have the strength of character at that time to call it off.

And it's something he regrets, I think, even to this day.

-Camilla suddenly became the most hated woman in England.

They're even reports of her being attacked with bread rolls at a supermarket.

And to be that hated, it's unbelievable.

I don't know how she endured it.

-And he becomes this villain.

It's totally unfair.

But it's what the media then did.

I mean, I was working for The Sun then.

I know exactly.

We just poured poison over him.

It did put pressure on the queen to actually make a decision about what was going to happen with this marriage.

It couldn't possibly go on.

"The Six O'Clock News" from the BBC.

-Good evening, the headlines at 6:00.

The Prince and Princess of Wales are to separate, but they do not plan to divorce.

-Morton's book triggered yet more hostilities between the estranged couple.

-The motivation was to tell the truth because we do face a crisis in the House of Windsor.

It's obvious to everyone.

-In 1995, Diana spoke to the BBC's "Panorama" program.

-She does come across as if she's been done wrong by the prince.

-Maybe it's a bit of an act to get the public on her side.

-A year earlier, Prince Charles was filmed in the grounds of Highgrove in earnest talks with a journalist.

-Charles did an interview with Dimbleby after the Morton book was published.

I think he wanted to justify his relationship with Camilla.

And he wanted to point out that they'd only started seeing each other again after the marriage to Diana was effectively over and dead.

-Did you try to be faithful and honorable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage?

-Yes, absolutely.

-And you were?

-Yes...until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.

-He shouldn't have done the interview.

Like I probably shouldn't be doing this, but...

He shouldn't have done the interview, really.

When she did the interview?

She was still his wife.

-His was before hers.

-Oh, was it?

-Yeah, that was '95.

This is '94.

-So, did he admit in this that he had extramarital?

What an idiot!

[ Laughs ] -There's no dispute that Charles was in a relationship with Camilla as a married woman before they married in '81.

Diana tells me that that relationship continued right through their marriage.

It suits the prince, obviously, the king now, to say that that wasn't the case.

From my own observation, I have no reason to disbelieve Diana.

-His marriage had irretrievably broken down because he understood what was happening.

The Princess of Wales, her relationship with Mannakee was clearly inappropriate.

With him, it's about loyalty, and he'd been betrayed.

But also he never told the truth.

He protected his sons from that.

And that is to be admired greatly, I think.

-Nobody thought about their children.

I mean, when you give those interviews, do you think about the repercussions on your children, maybe not now but when they're older?

I mean, those books and that interview was there forever.

-William and Harry through their early days in the '80s would be blissfully unaware of the personal complications that Hewitt with Diana and Camilla with their father.

But, of course, into their teens, they would have become aware, obviously, of the relationship that their mother had and father had.

And, you know, that was played out through the world's media, and that must have been a very difficult period of their life.

[ Siren wailing ] -Diana, Princess of Wales, has died in a car accident in Paris, which also killed her companion, Dodi Fayed.

-The young princes, William and Harry, were informed of their mother's death by the Prince of Wales.

-They have been told and what a... -Presumably woken in the night with just the most awful news.

-Buckingham Palace spokesperson has just announced that the queen and the Prince of Wales she said are deeply shocked and distressed by this terrible news.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] -One thing the public don't realize is that during the last year of Diana's life, Charles and Diana had reconciled as friends and had actually managed to create this friendship that they'd never created when they were married.

Charles was devastated when she died.

I mean, I heard that he spent hours in France with her body, crying.

And then he had to deal with his sons.

-Biographer and journalist Catherine Mayer gained unprecedented access to Charles over a period of three years.

-People thought that he was this dry, old stick.

And the funny thing is he's actually one of the most emotional people I've ever met.

After Diana died, Camilla's negative popularity was so severe that it was actually almost dangerous for her to appear in public.

And yet he was determined that she should be part of his life.

-Charles employed a PR guru and set him a daunting task -- make the British public accept Camilla as a future queen.

His name?

Mark Bolland.

-He called in Mark Bolland, who was a young, clever, public relations guru to handle this operation, "Mrs. PB," as it was called, to try to get acceptance of Camilla publicly.

-Less than two years after Diana's death, Charles and Camilla put Bolland's plan into action.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] -The Ritz was the moment when Camilla stepped out into the public limelight.

There were flashes going off.

There were hundreds of photographers on ladders and whatever outside.

It was Camilla's sister's birthday party, and it was the first time they'd been photographed together.

-We knew it was going to happen.

It was tipped off.

It was an arranged moment, but it was a moment that allowed her to step out in public.

-But everyone knew public acceptance of Camilla as queen-in-waiting hinged on one thing and one thing only -- the blessing of Diana's sons.

-At that point, I would've said that marriage between Charles and Camilla was never going to happen unless William and Harry accepted her, and very publicly accepted her.

-Hope it doesn't fall... -Or snow.

-The woman that Diana had been crying her eyes out about, who she called the Rottweiler, very difficult then to get your sons, the sons of Diana, to in any way warm to this woman.

-But Charles went on and he proposed to Camilla, anyway.

-Buckingham Palace has this afternoon announced the engagement of Prince Charles to Camilla Parker-Bowles.

-But the tabloids were in no mood for a fairy-tale ending, forcing Charles into playing his trump cards.

-What have we done wrong?

[ Laughter ] -Pop, give me a hand?

-Can I ask William and Harry, are you happy at the prospect of the marriage?

-Very happy, very pleased.

It will be a good day.

-They were encouraged to behave as if they accept Camilla.

It was quite a long time until we actually heard either William or Harry speaking for themselves.

[ Crowd cheers ] -If they want to get together, then that's okay.

-Good luck to him.

I suppose he deserves a little bit of happiness now, doesn't he?

-And he has to be allowed to live his own life.

-People's views began to change a little bit.

I don't think they loved her by the time Charles and Camilla got married, but they didn't hate her.

-I saw him absolutely in his pomp.

He was finally in the marriage he wanted to be.

He was happy in his family life, the gradual bringing into the public eye of younger members.

This has been a piece of choreography that's been going on for years.

Obviously, it hasn't worked out quite as anticipated with Harry.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] -In November 2017, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their engagement.

-They recognized that Meghan was a huge asset.

Charles did see that.

And so, I think Charles was genuinely very welcoming to her.

-We're all absolutely delighted.

As you can see, they're so happy.

It's a real joy to have a bit of good news for once.

[ Crowd cheers ] -At their wedding, Prince Charles stepped up to act as proxy dad to Meghan.

-I really think that Charles, especially when it came to Meghan's father and offering to walk her down the aisle, they really, really tried as hard as they possibly could to make her feel welcome.

And they genuinely liked her.

I mean, that's what I heard, anyway.

-What Meghan and Harry hadn't reckoned with was that the press really were extraordinarily racist and misogynist.

-Rather than walk away from royal life, the couple proposed a compromise.

-Harry claims that there were five different potential models of how he and Meghan might continue to work with the royal family -- the half-in, half-out model, where they could have had some kind of private commercial existence and still be doing royal duties.

-Harry honestly believed that he could do six months here and six months there, and they'll buy that.

It was a bit of a shock to him when the queen said, "Look, I understand, you know, where you want to go, and I wish you well."

But there was no way the queen was going to buy that.

-The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have issued a personal statement saying they will step back as senior royals and work to become financially independent.

-And perhaps that was a mistake.

But it wasn't Charles' mistake.

-But the failure to find something that worked for everyone is going to haunt the monarchy and Charles for a very long time.

-At the turn of 2021, Prince Philip was just a few months short of his 100th birthday.

The queen?

Age 94.

-Towards the end of her life and the duke's life, if there were any problems with regard to the way that they parented, I think that was all put behind them.

-The saddest sight was seeing the queen during COVID burying her husband and sitting all on her own -- horrendous for her and for the family, really.

-We have had news from Buckingham Palace that the queen is under medical supervision at Balmoral.

-The Prince of Wales had to fly up to Balmoral.

The queen had taken a turn for the worse.

Obviously, Charles knew what was going to happen.

My understanding is he'd gone mushrooming.

He'd gone with his box and his stick, gone into the wildwoods, obviously thinking that this was the moment that he was going to become king.

[ Bell chiming ] -Buckingham Palace has announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

[ Bell chimes ] -Queen Elizabeth's was a life well-lived, a promise with destiny kept.

And she is mourned most deeply in her passing.

That promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today.

-The king comes to the throne battling several storms.

-Have you become an embarrassment, Prince Andrew?

-At the heart of the prince's current problems is his 16-year friendship with this American businessman.

-Could you please give us your name?

-Jeffrey Epstein.

-My name is Grant Harrold, and I was the royal butler to the Prince of Wales between 2004 and 2011.

One of the most difficult things to hit the royal family while I was there was Prince Andrew's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

But then you got Prince Andrew giving an interview on it.

-Prince Andrew's attempts to justify staying at Epstein's New York apartment drew widespread derision.

-But you were staying at the house of a convicted sex offender.

-Yes.

[ Sighs ] It was a convenient place to stay.

-It just was a disaster.

-When Charles became king, he dealt very effectively with Andrew and very ruthlessly.

He told him that he would never be a working royal again or perform a public duty, which, as we know, enraged Andrew.

But it was what he had to do.

So, in that case, Charles very definitely put the interests of the crown first and quite right.

But Andrew's not his son.

-Harry's new book, "Spare," contains salacious revelations and shocking allegations, that his brother, Prince William, knocked him to the ground in an argument linked to Harry's marriage to Meghan Markle, duchess of Sussex.

-I got to know William and Harry as well as I know my own family.

In all the years I was there, I didn't witness fallouts.

I didn't witness arguments.

I didn't witness shouting.

These are things I didn't...

I didn't see any of that.

They were a happy family.

So, that bit doesn't add up.

-He was very close to his brother, and he loved Kate.

And he's changed a great deal.

And it's been since he married Meghan.

So, draw the conclusion that you want.

-In his book, Harry doesn't reserve criticism to just his brother.

-"He'd always given an air of being not quite ready for parenthood -- the responsibilities, the patience, the time.

Even he, though a proud man, would have admitted as much.

But single parenthood?

Pa was never made for that.

To be fair, he tried."

-Harry thanked his father for the way he walked his bride down the aisle.

He thanked his father for the way he helped him shape him as a man and his belief in the environment.

So, I don't really know where he suddenly had this complete about-face on his father.

It certainly has upset the king, I mean, because, of course it would.

-The window display wasn't subtle, but, then again, nothing about this has been.

It is the fastest-selling nonfiction book ever.

-Diana is a central theme to his biography.

And I think that what Harry has reflected upon is understanding that his mother was unhappy for a lot of her life whilst married, because of the relationship that her husband was having with Camilla.

-According to Prince Harry's book, his father's relationship with Camilla continued to be divisive long after his mother died and clearly still affects him.

-"We support you," we said.

"We endorse Camilla," we said.

Just please don't marry her.

Just be together, Pop.

He didn't answer.

But she answered, straightaway.

Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game, a campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the crown, with Pa's blessing, we presumed.

-William and Harry weren't happy about Charles and Camilla's marriage.

Camilla was the person who made their beloved mother unhappy.

-I think that Harry finds it difficult to reconcile in a way with his father because of that.

-The main thing to understand about the Windsors is they're a spectacularly dysfunctional family, and why wouldn't they be?

They grow up in the strangest of expectations and always this kind of public eye looking in on them.

And they are, also, not to forget, always pitted against each other.

They're in competition.

-With Prince Harry set to pen at least one more book, King Charles may soon face the toughest decision of his reign.

-At this moment in time, there's been polls done and the monarchy's popularity has dropped.

Charles, his popularity has dropped.

William and Kate's popularity has dropped.

Harry's popularity has dropped.

What does that say for the future of it?

And I don't think Harry realizes that maybe he's started a time bomb, which could actually be the catalyst to actually destroying the monarchy.

I think the one thing about Charles is he's very protective of the monarchy.

You know, the monarchy is everything, obviously.

And he wants to ensure that it continues like his mother did.

So, if he feels that his son is going to damage or affect it, he has to make the decision, "Do I support my son... or do I support the monarchy?"

He will support the monarchy.