Throughout his royal career, King Charles—like his mother, Queen Elizabeth—has always put duty first, even when it meant sacrificing time with his family. At 76, The King, who has been battling cancer since February 24, still maintains a full schedule of royal engagements and refuses to slow down, much to Queen Camilla's dismay. While Prince William has often been criticized for having a more "work-shy" approach, a new documentary reveals that it was The King who has encouraged his son to put an emphasis on his young kids while there's still time.
As reported by the Scottish Daily Express, Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, shared more about what The King allegedly told Prince William in the Channel 5 documentary William and Catherine: Putting Family First.
"Charles said to William, 'Please don't make the mistake that I made' and 'I want you to enjoy your family life,'" Seward claimed. She added that "Charles was very insistent about this because he said: 'I was so dedicated to duty, I couldn't make way for family life in the way that I should've done' and that's what William did."
The Prince and Princess of Wales recently demonstrated this family-first approach when they skipped both the annual BAFTA awards and Royal Family's Easter celebration in favor of taking holidays with their children. With Princess Kate now in remission from cancer, focusing on their children has become an even greater priority—and the Waleses seem unwilling to bend when it comes to taking too much time away from Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
Although King Charles has reportedly been frank about his missteps as a father, their childhoods seem to have given both Prince William and Prince Harry a greater perspective on the type of dads they want to be.
"He'd been an older dad, and I'd always felt that this created problems, placed barriers between us," Harry wrote of The King in his memoir, Spare. "He wasn't the kind of father who played endless rounds of tag or tossed a ball until long after dark."
However, The King's former butler, Grant Harrold, pointed out that the monarch has reached "a turning point" the former palace employee "never" saw coming.
"I think for the first time ever you've got a King, who I think deep down if his boys need him, he would probably put them before the crown," Harrold said, per the Scottish Daily Express. "That's what I believe, and that's the first time that would have ever have happened in the history of the monarchy."
