Kate pic confirms devastating Harry theory

A photo shared by the Prince and Princess of Wales’ social media accounts backs up one of the devastating claims previously made by the Duke of Sussex.

Sometimes Kensington Palace just does all my work for me.

Here we are, living in the aftermath of Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex’s opening of the Pandora’s box of complaints and resentments about King Charles’ lousy parenting, and then the Palace goes right ahead and oh-so-perfectly, accidentally, proves him right.

Sunday in the UK was Father’s Day, a moment that necessitates the social media managers for the various royal houses give us, the hungry online masses, some nice touchy-feely new images.

“Awww,” the public is meant to think, “those royals, they truly are just like us” — if “us” also had a staff of nearly 500 people and had never once had to unload the dishwasher.

As has been the case for years now, the shot shared by Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales’ Kensington Palace account showed the prince with their three children enjoying a sweet moment of togetherness and normie short-wearing during their recent stay at their home in Norfolk.

However, the Wales’ accounts posted another picture too, one taken pretty much 40 years ago this week, of a nearly two-year-old William with Charles.

The Prince and Princess of Wales have updated their Instagram account with new pictures for Father’s Day in the UK. Picture: The Princess of Wales

Unfortunately this second shot, in what was clearly meant to be a sweet gesture towards the King, is actually damning evidence that backs up one of Harry’s core claims – namely that their ‘Pa’ has largely flunked at fatherhood.

The contrast between these two photos shared by the Palace, in what amounts to something of a friendly fire incident, is wince-worthy.

Here we have one shot showing William affectionately gathering his children to him as they do some beachy bonding and he explains to Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis why other families don’t require a minimum of three footmen and an undersecretary for an afternoon seaside amble. Still, it’s the Prince of Wales in full-blown dad-mode and it’s charming stuff.

And in the other image we have Charles demonstrating that his idea of parenting seems to have been a lacklustre prodding of a soccer ball with the toe of his hand stitched brogues, all while dressed in woollen double-breasted grey suit, and done in the vague vicinity of the toddler prince. There is no eye contact between father and son nor physical contact nor anything quite so bourgeois as human feeling.

This picture of William and Charles was also shared on Father’s Day. Picture: The Princess of Wales

Catherine, Princess of Wales, arrives to Horse Guards Parade for the King's Birthday Parade "Trooping the Colour" in London. Picture: Justin Tallis / AFP

Really, it looks more like something out of an Edwardian guide to parenthood that instructs that Nanny restrict bothering their Lord and Ladyship with their tiny globs of progeny for more than a militantly monitored 30-minutes-a-day.

Harry could have saved himself a whole lot of words and bother in his memoir Spare and just published several pages of photos like this Charles one and just headed the chapter with ‘SEE!’ written in all caps.

For years now, the Duke of Sussex has been busy telling the world the degree to which he feels like the King failed him as a parent.

In Spare, one of the most heartbreaking moments comes when Charles tells his son that his mother Diana, Princess of Wales had been killed and then proceeds to pat 12-year-old Harry’s knee. No hug, no gathering his young son to him. Just a pat. It’s a devastating image.

Indeed, throughout the book’s 400-plus pages, again and again Charles comes across as a horribly emotionally stunted man, who failed to be able to connect with his boys. For example, his habit of leaving moving letters on Harry’s pillow rather than being able to say the words to him face-to-face.

(L-R) Prince George of Wales, Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Prince Louis of Wales, Britain's Princess Charlotte of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's King Charles III and Britain's Queen Camilla wave on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Picture: Benjamin Cremel / AFP.

This argument about the King is one that the Duke of Sussex has been making for years. In 2021, while speaking on the Armchair Expert podcast he talked about wanting to “break the cycle” and spoke of the “genetic pain and suffering” in the royal family.

Likewise, in The Me You Can’t See, the mental health documentary he co-produced the same year, he charged this family with “total silence, total neglect”.

“My father used to say to me, when I was younger, he used to say to both William and I, ‘Well, it was like that for me. So it’s going to be like that for you’.”

There are more examples from Spare and interviews galore of Charles’ shoddy parenting and I could keep listing them until I wear out the ‘H’ on my keyboard but, you get the point here.

And all of this unflattering, unfortunate characterisation of the King would have to be something that Crown Inc would surely want the world to forget even faster than that one time the late Queen was filmed doing the Nazi salute as a child.

Except now Kensington Palace has unintentionally revived all of this with this 1984 photo.

Whoopsie.

I suppose this Charles image has inadvertently achieved one thing – it makes His Majesty look all-too-human.

Charles might be an incredibly talented gardener, a spiritually-open leader, a wonderful husband to Queen Camilla and a man whose King’s Trust (formerly the Prince’s Trust) charity has helped more than one million young people, but as a dad? He might have tried, tried, and tried but ultimately he was, at least when his boys were young, a bit of a dud.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience

working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as Kate pic confirms devastating Harry theory