King Charles's Biographer on the Moment Charles Learned He Was King

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As Robert Hardman wrapped up the final pages of The Making of a King: King Charles and the Modern Monarchy, he knew that he would inevitably leave things out.

"This is live biography," Hardman tells Town & Country over Zoom just two weeks before publication. "It's a story that just doesn't stand still." He continued, "When I pressed the [send] button only a few weeks ago, and off it went, I thought, I wonder what's gonna pop up between now and publication day and now." (In fact, much has popped up—including King Charles's upcoming surgery, the Princess of Wales's hospitalization, Prince Andrew being named in court papers relating to Jeffrey Epstein, among other news.)

Hardman chatted with T&C about writing an "authoritative" biography of the King's first year, what he was most interested to learn about, and why sisters (Princess Anne and Annabel Elliot) were key to the narrative.

In the acknowledgments of The Making of a King, you write how your biography is not authorized, but it's authoritative. Can you talk to me about this distinction?

None of the books I've written have been authorized. From time to time, there is an authorized biography of a member of the royal family. Obviously those biographers will have amazing access to all the papers, but the quid pro quo for that it is, in a sense, seen in advance. That's not the case with this.

I haven't had any censorship, I write it as I see it. When I say it's authoritative, I have been allowed to talk to all sorts of people— who, let's just say, wouldn't normally be willing to talk if I just rang up from a newspaper and said, 'can I have a chat?' I've been allowed into the royal archives to look at some of the files. I have been allowed to look at the details on [Queen Elizabeth's] coronation, which has been very useful in comparing it to the coronation we've just seen this year. I've spoken to the current Prime Minister, the previous Prime Minister. I spoke to various members the King's family, Queen Camilla's family, staff—past and present.

Two of the people I was most interested to see quoted in the book were Princess Anne and Queen Camilla's sister Annabel Elliot. How valuable were their perspectives for you?

This whole project has been very dependent on sisters. Big up to sisters! Both of them, obviously, come at it from completely different perspectives, but it underlines a sense of how important family is to both King Charles and Queen Camilla.

The Princess Royal really has been been more central to the royal story than I think people perhaps realized in the past. We got an early indication of that, more or less within 48 hours of Queen Elizabeth's death. Who was there, who was actually in Balmoral Castle, when the Queen died? It was Princess Anne. She accompanied her body through on this extraordinary journey out of Balmoral, through the back lanes of Aberdeenshire, across the Highlands and down through Scotland to Edinburgh. There was the Princess Royal who traveled behind the coffin on the last journey from London down to Windsor. She has been a central part of the story. She's the only other person apart from Prince Charles who was who was in Sandringham house on the night George VI died and Elizabeth II became Queen. If you look at the the official coronation photo, it's very telling who's standing at Charles's right hand side: His sister.

What was most surprising for you to learn over the course of writing and research?

One of the things I was particularly keen to find out was that moment when he became king. We all know that Elizabeth was famously in the branches of a giant fig tree in Aberdare National Park in Kenya when the moment came. The famous story that will go down in history: The princess who went up the tree as the princess and came down a queen—that is part of royal folklore. I wanted to find out, where was Charles, what was going on? The fact was he was at the wheel of a car, he was in the driver's seat when he became king, he literally was driving.

As Hardman writes:

The way [September 8, 2022] unfolded, that's new in this book. The King decided when to start Operation London Bridge. One of the most touching bits in it is that moment where— he knows there's a things have to be done in a certain order. And the first thing he's got to do is he's got to tell the rest of the family. That follows a sort of pecking order.

So he's got to ring up Prince William to say, 'I'm now the king' and he picks up the phone, and I think I describe it in the book, and he picks up the phone and, and he says to the operator, 'Hello...' Then he pauses, and he thinks, I can't say the King, 'cause I haven't told my son yet, and imagine if he doesn't get through... then he doesn't hear it from me. So he just goes, 'it's me' and luckily the operator recognizes the voice, as the Palace switchboard would. It's those sort of things.

Abdication has been in the news in recent weeks, thanks to Queen Margrethe of Denmark. You write that Charles has no intent of ever abdicating, do you think that's still true?

Absolutely. I mean, I never say never—who knows what could happen. I interviewed Queen Margrethe of Denmark a few years ago, and I went back through my notes this week. I said to her at the time,, 'Have you ever thought about retirement?' She said, 'Absolutely not. It's not the British way, it's not the Danish way either. You are in it for life.' Those were her words: 'You're in it for life.' 13 years later and she's changed her mind. So, I mean, who knows?

I can tell you, absolutely cast-iron, there is no head scratching going on at Balmoral, the King is not thinking, oh, you know what? Maybe that's an idea. It's not in the British tradition, for a very good reason: If you start to accept the premise that you go at a certain time because it suits you, or it suits events, then automatically you undermine the institution. Then, the next time there's some sort of crisis, the cry goes up. 'It's obviously time for Charles to step aside, time him to hand over to William.' Then at what point does William have some crisis?

Monarchs have crises all the time, particularly when you're monarch of 14 other countries as well. There's gonna be crises and if you're gonna have people saying, 'well, I think now is the time,' then it's destabilizing. None of it is perfect. None of it's logical, or rational. It's just the way it operates.

The issue of Prince Andrew, too, has resurfaced in a big way at the start of this year. You cited a source that said he'd be more damaging outside the loop. Can you just tell me a bit more why that is the prevailing view?

There's a sense that if he was totally adrift, it wouldn't be long before somebody would come along and start offering him: 'Oh, you've been much misunderstood, here's an awful lot of money for your side of the story.'

There is a sense that he's caused the most appalling kind of scandal—that is resonating and has been resonating for years now. Set aside whatever's in the court papers, there's colossal errors of judgment, and much graver allegations. Nothing's been proven in a court of law, so we ought to be careful what we say, but what everyone can agree on is massive blunders. But at the same time, he has remained loyal to the institution, to the family. He hasn't started attacking the monarchy or the Crown. He's a liability, and an embarrassment, but he hasn't betrayed the monarchy.

I never thought too deeply about the King's fashion choices, but he clearly thinks about his tie choices, as you write. I wonder what you make of the Greek flag tie just days after the British Prime Minister canceled a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister, supposedly over comments made around the Parthenon marbles.

That's the perils of my biography! That happened after the book [was finished]. His ties are very interesting.

I touched on those a few times in the book, his fashion choices. I subsequently asked people very close to him, what's with the Greek tie? The reply was, don't read too much into it. Don't forget, he was wearing this Greek tie to the COP 28 summit in the United Arab Emirates. A bit odd to turn up at a major global summit on climate change, making a parochial point about Anglo-Hellenic relations. They just said, look, he quite likes blue ties at the moment. He's going through a blue phase and that was the one he chose that day.

Certainly, we've seen quite a few ties that we didn't see when he was Prince. The one he clearly likes most is his C-Rex T-Rex tie. We see quite a lot of that. None of them are political statement ties. It was a bit like, not long after Brexit, when the Queen wore a hat with yellow stars on it and everyone said, oh, this is a coded message from the Queen that actually she's still sympathetic to the European Union. Her dresser later wrote a book said actually everyone was very amused by that, but it was just coincidence.

A lot of what happens in royal land is just by chance, by coincidence, not by design. But it might look like that at the time.

There are so many asides and tidbits in the book and, like Charles being a serial tree planter, loving cold houses. But one that I was had never heard before and that I need to know more about: Does Camilla really call him the Boss?

That she does! I mean, in an affectionate way: 'Well, you better run that by the Boss.' At the same time, everybody knows that, in many regards, she's the boss. It's often said in the Palace, if you've got an idea of something you want to get past the King, you get the Queen on the side.

She's always been the person least concerned about titles. The big issue was, 'Oh, what's she gonna be called? Is she gonna be Queen? Is she gonna be Princess Consort?' When I was writing this, or we were following them around the rehearsals for the coronation, there are these moments where everybody's trying to get it absolutely right. I mentioned it in there, when the Archbishop of Canterbury is shouting across at the King and saying, 'Sir, you have to nod at me. If you don't nod at me, I can't crown Her Majesty!' And Queen Camilla just goes, 'Oh, don't worry, don't bother. I'm perfectly happy.' As much as the Queen can be, she's quite a down to earth sort of figure. But yeah, she calls him the Boss.

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