Her wit and quick wit are still missing from the royal family today: Queen Mum, the mother of the late Queen Elizabeth, liked to make her loved ones laugh. But of all things, great-grandson Prince William did not find a funny concern from the elderly woman quite so amusing.
When Prince William, 41, packed his bags at Balmoral Castle for his studies at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland in 2001, a curious wish from Queen Mum, †101, caused the 19-year-old to frown. As the Royal later revealed in an interview, the old lady made a whimsical request when she said goodbye to her great-grandson: “If there are good parties, invite me”, she took King Charles’ son, 74, with her A concern that the heir to the throne “definitely did not want to comply with” at the time – for a perfectly understandable reason.
Prince William: That’s why he denied Queen Mum her wish
“I said yes, but there was no way. I knew for sure that if I invited her, she would dance me under the table,” explained William, amused, remembering the amusing scene. The touching anecdote was recently recalled by historian Gareth Russell when he was a guest on the “To Di For Daily” podcast. In his book “Do Let’s Have Another Drink”, published in 2022, the author deals with the unusual life of the queen mother. In the interview, he reported that William was concerned that his great-grandmother would be “funnier” than him. “He was like, ‘No way! She’s definitely going to put me to shame.'”
Prince William was confronted with an extraordinary request from his great-grandmother when he left for university.
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On the day of the farewell, she also proved that Queen Mum was able to keep the teenager busy and thus in distress. Thanks to her help, the prospective student arrived late at his university on his first day. “She gave me a wonderful lunch, better and longer than usual, and we talked about going to university and what I’m going to study. She has always been very interested in all her great-grandchildren,” said the prince. But was that really the case?
Prince William was at the top of the Queen Mother’s favor
The queen mother apparently had a special interest in the eldest child of the then heir to the throne. Harry, on the other hand, was only able to attract her attention to a small extent, as royal observers have repeatedly noticed. An unfair distribution of attention, which could have been due to the distribution of roles between the two brothers: William was the future heir to the throne, while his younger brother was only considered a substitute.
“The late Queen Mother used to take Prince William to tea and discuss his future with him, but not with Prince Harry,” royal biographer Angela Levin explained in the Channel 5 documentary Prince Harry: The Troubled Prince. Richard Kay, royal commentator and old friend of the late Princess Diana, † 36, added: “The Queen Mother always made sure that Prince William sat next to her in a prominent place and Harry never.”
Gareth Russell explored Queen Mum’s affectionate attitude towards William in research for his book: “One of the things I found out was that while she respected her father-in-law, King George V, she felt that he had left his sons completely unprepared – in terms of confidence – for the kingship, because he was not very amenable to his children.” Her summary of what she experienced: “She was determined that something like this shouldn’t happen again. So I think that with her grandson, King Charles III. and her great-grandson, Prince William, she tried to counteract this by having a lot of trust built them up, nurtured them and gave them advice.”
But there was also headwind for her tendentious great-grandmother love. Diana is said to have confronted Elizabeth with the clearly noticeable unequal treatment of her children. “I think the Queen Mother has taken note of that,” Russell said. “She certainly has arrangements for them [Harry und William] met. And she had a very good relationship with the two princes when they were teenagers. So I think that’s probably not what the Queen Mother intended, but I think it was only fitting for Diana to make the point.”
Queen Mum caused laughter
But after the death of his great-grandmother in March 2002, Harry also found touching words for the deceased and, together with his brother William, remembered an anecdote that even made Queen Elizabeth laugh heartily.
The scene took place on a Christmas day with the family. The boys had shown Queen Mum how Sacha Baron Cohen, 51, performed his famous finger-snapping and vociferous “respect” in his role as Ali G. The younger of the two recalled, “It was at the end of the meal and she stood up and said, ‘Honey, the meal was wonderful – respect’ and snapped her fingers.” William explained that the whole family laughed, including the Queen. Feedback that delighted the Queen Mother, the Prince of Wales recalled: “She loved to be laughed at, even when the joke was about her. Anything that was supposed to be formal and went wrong, she enjoyed. She She was good at giggling. She had such a young sense of humor. Anything that went wrong or was funny for any reason she laughed her head off – it kept us all sane.”
Sources used: todifordaily.com, channel5.com, express.co.uk