A new biography has revealed that the late Princess Diana once said that the only thing Prince Charles “learned about love” from his parents “was shaking hands.”
In her book “Prince Philip Revealed,” royal expert Ingrid Seward wrote that because of his upbringing, Charles “couldn’t be tactile with his own wife.” She added that Diana once opened up to her about her ex-husband’s unaffectionate childhood with parents Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Diana, who tragically passed away in 1997 at the age of 36, told Seward that Charles’ “emotional retentiveness” was because of his childhood.
“Diana reckoned that if Charles had been brought up in the normal fashion, he would have been better able to handle his and her emotions,” Seward wrote, according to PEOPLE magazine.
“Instead, she said, his feelings seemed to have been suffocated at birth,” she added. “According to her, he never had any hands-on love from his parents. Only his nannies showed him affection but that, as Diana explained, was not the same as being kissed and cuddled by your parents, which Charles never was. When he met his parents, they didn’t embrace: they shook hands.”
Seward went on to lay out a series of separations that affected the young prince. His father was often away at sea in his role as a naval officer, and he only attended two of Charles’ first eight birthday parties.
“Even when judged by the standards of the time, Philip and Elizabeth saw remarkably little of their offspring,” she wrote.
Philip, 99, and the 94 year-old Queen are currently at their home in Norfolk after spending the summer at Balmoral Castle as they quarantined amidst the coronavirus pandemic. A decision is expected to come down in the coming weeks if Philip will follow his wife south to Windsor Castle when she resumes full-time royal duties this fall.
Seward also wrote in her book that Philip saw Prince Harry stepping down as a senior royal to move to the United States with his wife Meghan Markle earlier this year as a “dereliction” of his grandson’s responsibilities.
“He has struggled greatly, for example, with what he sees as his grandson Harry’s dereliction of duty,” Seward wrote.
This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.
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