What if King Charles’ biggest enemies were far closer than he thinks?
You might think the biggest threats to a monarchy are external threats such as enemy nations and rival world leaders. With King Charles, though, the biggest threat may very well be part of his own family.
At least, this is what journalist Angela Levin would have us believe. Releasing today, her new book Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall: From Outcast to Future Queen Consort drops some major bombshells surrounding the Royal Family. And one of the biggest bombshells is that Prince Andrew allegedly plotted against King Charles!
What was Andrew’s plot? Is the plot still active, and does King Charles need to watch his back more than ever before? Keep reading to find out!
A complex plot revealed
Even as far as alleged royal plots go, this gets weird very quickly. It all goes back to when Princess Diana was still alive. Diana, reeling from the disastrous end of her marriage to Prince Charles, revealed in her infamous interview with Martin Bashir that she didn’t believe Charles was fit to be king.
As it turns out, Levin’s book alleges that Diana teamed up with Prince Andrew to try to bypass the usual line of succession. As reported by the New York Post, Diana and Andrew wanted to “push Prince Charles aside.”
To this end, Andrew lobbied Queen Elizabeth with a very unconventional plan to keep Charles, then embroiled in controversy over his affair with Camilla, from ever becoming king.
The plan went like this: if Queen Elizabeth passed away when Prince William was of age, the crown would pass directly from the Queen to William, skipping Charles altogether. But if she passed away before William turned 18, Andrew would serve as William’s regent until he became an adult.
That’s right, Andrew, then fourth-in-line to the throne, had come up with a plan for him to rule as king instead of Charles, at least until William came of age.
Andrew likely thought his request would work because of the Queen’s affection for him (it has long been rumored he was her favorite child). But Elizabeth dismissed this plan out of hand, with an insider saying they were “told it was one of the rare occasions he didn’t get his way.”
According to the insider, Andrew “was apparently very angry that he couldn’t rule the country in some way” and his “behavior was very, very negative and extremely unpleasant” when the Queen disagreed with his plan.
While Andrew and Diana’s bold plan seems crazy to consider, many members of the public may not think so: in recent years, William has historically been more popular in YouGov polls than Charles, with many suggesting England would have been better off with a younger king rather than Charles.