(NewsNation) — The House of Windsor is at war with itself — and this time, the battle lines run straight between the king and his own heir.
According to Tom Sykes of The Royalist, a close friend of the king has revealed that the relationship between Charles and Prince William “is as bad as it’s ever been.”
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The trigger? The king’s stunning decision to invite disgraced former Prince Andrew to Balmoral — reportedly because he “felt bad for him” — coupled with his ongoing rapprochement with Prince Harry, who sources now say is planning a move back to Britain.
King Charles wants to have his cake and eat it too
Sykes didn’t mince words about the king’s handling of Andrew, who remains mired in the fallout from his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein — with more tranches of Epstein files reportedly still to drop.
“If you want Andrew to be part of the family and you want to keep inviting him to church services and you want to invite him on holiday … then that’s fine,” Sykes said. “You make your bed, and you lie in it. But it seems to me that what Charles is trying to do is he’s trying to have his cake and eat it. So he’s trying to say, I’ve been incredibly tough, and I’ve thrown Andrew out of the family. But at the same time, I’m magnanimous enough to invite him on holiday.”
Britain’s King Charles III and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – SEPTEMBER 16: (EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION IN UK NEWSPAPERS UNTIL 24 HOURS AFTER CREATE DATE AND TIME) King Charles III and Prince William, Prince of Wales attend Katharine, Duchess of Kent’s Requiem Mass service at Westminster Cathedral on September 16, 2025 in London, England. Katharine, Duchess of Kent was married to Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. She died on September 4 at the age of 92 at Kensington Palace surrounded by her family. Having converted to Catholicism in 1994, her funeral takes place at Westminster Cathedral and is the first Catholic funeral to be held for a member of the royal family in modern British history. Her Royal Highness will be laid to rest at the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore, Windsor. (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
And the king’s own words are now being thrown back at him.
“Charles’ statement … made this very big point about ‘our first thoughts are always with the victims,'” Sykes noted. “Well, if your first thoughts are with the victims … it is not consistent with that to invite that person to join you on your vacation.”
Because at Balmoral, nothing is ever just a holiday. “An invitation to go on holiday with the king is not just an invitation to go on holiday with the king,” Sykes explained. “It’s an important part of the cement and the glue of the routines and traditions of the monarchy. … So it’s completely ridiculous to invite Andrew to join you, even if you want to put him in a cottage on a far-flung corner of the estate.”
The inverse of the queen
The contrast with the late Queen Elizabeth is stark. A source who worked closely with her told Sykes that stripping Andrew of his titles and military honors “was incredibly painful to her” — but that pain was never made public and for good reason.
“Whenever the family and the institution knocked up against each other, she always put the institution first,” the source said.
“She was prepared to sacrifice Andrew to preserve the monarchy,” Sykes added. Charles, by contrast, “is putting his family and his own feelings before the institution — the complete inverse of what his mother did.”
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Far from languishing in disgrace, Andrew has reportedly been spotted in the south of France “wearing a red baseball hat, walking around with a couple of women by his side” — and Sykes says he’s “been invited on shooting weekends” as grouse season kicks off.
“This characterization of Andrew stuck away at Marsh Farm with absolutely nothing to do, playing computer games — I think is inaccurate,” Sykes said.
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The bigger problem? “The astonishingly persistent feature of Prince Andrew is his refusal to accept that he has been given the boot,” Sykes observed. “He’s forever rearranging the furniture, trying to go around the side, trying to find a way back in.”
Shipping Andrew off to Marsh Farm, he added, “looks now a bit like a knee-jerk reaction and not like a very sustainable long-term solution.”
The Harry factor — and a move back home
While Sykes says the Andrew fight is largely over — “William won the argument; Andrew is not really going to be allowed anywhere near the monarchy for the foreseeable rest of his life” — the Harry situation is a different beast entirely.
“The king is making a lot of accommodations for Harry, and William thinks it’s unfair,” Sykes said, “and thinks that it’s not appropriate and doesn’t guarantee the long-term survival of the monarchy.”
Those accommodations now appear to include paving the way for Harry’s return, with reports that the Duke of Sussex is moving back to the U.K. — a “half in, half out” arrangement that flies directly in the face of the late queen’s wishes.
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – SEPTEMBER 23: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visit the Nyanga Township during their royal tour of South Africa on September 23, 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)
Britain’s Prince William and Britain’s Prince Harry walk beside each other after viewing the floral tributes for the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Windsor Castle, in Windsor, England on Sept. 10, 2022. Prince Harry flew more than 5,000 miles to see his father after King Charles III was diagnosed with cancer. But he did not see his estranged brother, William, during a visit that lasted scarcely 24 hours. William, meanwhile, returned to public duties for the first time since his wife, Kate, was admitted to a London hospital Jan. 16 for abdominal surgery. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)
For William, it’s history repeating.
“He’s making the same mistake all over again with Harry,” Sykes said, describing “a sort of rush to forgiveness, a rushed conciliation.”
“In the traditional run of matters, you don’t tend to forgive somebody until they have apologized,” Sykes pointed out. “Sometimes people upset us and offend us, and we have to let go of those resentments without getting an apology. But we don’t then just resume chummy relations with them.”
The result? “Understandably, this is a massive wedge between the king and his heir,” Sykes said. “There’s a long history of heirs and the monarch disagreeing and being at loggerheads … but it’s very unusual for it to be happening quite so openly.”
No explanation from the palace
Perhaps most damning of all: Nobody can explain what the king is thinking — because the palace won’t say.
“Nobody actually knows because we don’t have any explanation from the palace beyond ‘blood is blood,'” Sykes said. “Everybody’s left trying to supply explanations for this behavior, which most people can see is very foolish if… you rule, and your position exists at the pleasure of the British people who think you are doing the wrong thing.”
Some have even speculated the king’s health may be driving the reconciliation push — that “maybe his cancer is not going as well as people have suggested from the palace” — though Sykes cautioned that “these are just individuals speculating.”
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What’s clear is that William has checked out.
“He’s now at the stage where he’s just completely fed up of it but has also kind of stepped away from it and just won’t engage with it,” Sykes said of the Prince of Wales. “They won’t comment about it. They won’t talk about it. It’s pretty clear what his position is on both Andrew and Harry.”
And with Christmas at Sandringham looming — and the question of whether Andrew joins the family “either in front of the cameras or perhaps behind closed doors” — this royal civil war is only just beginning.
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