The Windsors are always whining about how people – mostly dumb Americans – believe The Crown is a documentary, that everything happened exactly that way. You notice that the Windsors don’t say the same thing about Peter Morgan’s script for The Queen, the 2006 film about the week following Princess Diana’s death. Morgan centers the film around QEII’s actions and Tony Blair’s attempts to talk some sense into her, and it ended up being pretty generous towards QEII’s motives overall.

What the film missed out was the palpable anger towards Charles, QEII and the rest of the family for how they treated Diana, and how many people believed (almost immediately) that the Windsors were responsible in one way or another for Diana’s death. What Morgan missed is that the Windsors were f–king terrified, and that’s why they used William and Harry as human shields, making those two grieving boys do a walkabout and talk to people, then forcing them to walk the funeral procession. Harry has spoken a few times about how traumatized he felt about the procession in particular, which happened just days before his 13th birthday. He still blames his father and his family for forcing him to walk behind his mother’s coffin on the world’s stage. But… does Charles have any regrets? I doubt it, but here we go:

A haunting decision. King Charles III deeply regrets making his sons Prince William and Prince Harry process behind Princess Diana‘s casket during her 1997 funeral after learning how much it impacted them.

“I think it haunts him because it haunts them, and they’ve spoken about it,” Christopher Andersen exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, November 1, while speaking about his upcoming biography, The King: The Life of Charles III. “I’ve written that I believe it’s a form of PTSD.” The author added that while researching the book, which hit shelves on November 8, he learned that the Duke of Sussex, 38, has found it “triggering” to fly into London sometimes.

“[He said] it reminds him of that day when he had to walk behind the coffin, and they were more or less bullied into doing it by the palace — by the men in gray who really run the palace, the people that Diana used to complain about,” Andersen said. “[Charles, Earl Spencer], Diana’s brother … has also said that he felt that he was tricked into doing it and regrets it. He said it was like walking through a tunnel of grief.”

The entire experience was particularly upsetting for the Prince of Wales, 40, and his younger brother, who were forced to grieve the loss of their mother in front of thousands of mourners.

“I think both William and Harry thought, ‘Who are these strangers who never met her?’” the writer continued. “So they were angry about what had happened. And Charles, I think, understands that to some extent he was responsible for them having to suffer through [that].”

[From Us Weekly]

Yeah, Andersen has it wrong. Charles has no regrets about it. He did what he had to do to survive that moment in the short-term, which was feeding his grief-stricken sons to the slaughter. He would continue to throw them under the bus for his own convenience and PR whenever he wanted, especially Harry. As much as the Windsors have managed to convince everyone that they had William and Harry’s best interests in mind the moment Diana died, that was not the case. The Windsors just carried on like nothing happened, so much so that Harry had a hard time believing his mother really died. Queen Elizabeth wouldn’t even allow the local church to have a special prayer for Diana. Also: this wasn’t something that the courtiers masterminded, it was all a giant royal f–kup. This was QEII, Philip and Charles using William and Harry to shield themselves from very deserved criticism.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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