The Royals with Roya and Kate - Is King Charles under siege? – Spencer, Andrew and the Sussexes

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Four years into his reign, is King Charles setting the royal agenda — or being forced to react to the people and problems around him?Earl Spencer has renewed his attack on the King’s character and accused Buckingham Palace of responding “very aggressively” to his memoir. Harry and Meghan’s return to Britain continues to test the boundaries between family reconciliation and royal authority. And Andrew remains the most serious institutional threat, with the police investigation into him ongoing. He denies any wrongdoing.Roya Nikkhah and Kate Mansey examine how Charles has handled these pressures — and whether his palace’s increasingly interventionist approach is a sign of confidence or defensiveness. With the King’s public approval at a record high for his reign, is the monarchy proving more resilient than the headlines suggest?If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to press follow at the top of your podcast app.Is Charles a King under siege, or does the monarch remain resilient? Get in touch: [e-mail] us on YouTube.Read more:Further listening: Inside the search for King Charles's most powerful aideProducer: Robert WallaceVideo Producer: Eve ChadbournExecutive Producer: Priyanka DeladiaImage: Getty Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Royals. The podcast where we discussed what happens behind Palace Walls and why it matters. I'm Roya Nika. And I'm Kate Mansi. He waited seven decades for the Crown, but just four years into his reign, is Charles now a king under siege? Well, sometimes it feels like it. In the last few weeks, Earl Spencer launched a damaging attack on his character.

Harry and Megan's return has raised concerns of an alternative. of Royal Court operating in Britain, and there is, of course, that continuing problem of Andrew. And yet, behind Palace Gates, a different story is playing out, because the King remains personally popular. His team is responding to challenges and a high-stakes, autumn of international diplomacy lies ahead of him. So, is Charles genuinely on the back foot? Or are we seeing a tougher, more interventionist monarch? And what's the true state of? of the king's reign so far? Well, we've just passed the fourth anniversary

of the accession of the new Carolian era. I think the king might have hoped four years in it might have been slightly smooth a sailing. It slightly felt like it's come at him from all angles in the last few weeks, isn't it? I mean, right from the start, he's suffered a few fewer hurdles that he's had to overcome, hasn't he?

I mean, not least his own personal health because he had barely been on the throne a year and a bit, hadn't he, before he was diagnosed with cancer? He's had to come through all that. But then he's been pummeled with all sorts of things. He's had to really grapple with the Andrew issue head on. He's had to take away Andrew's title as Prince, Duke of York, over his friendship with

Geoffrey Epstein. Then we've had the ongoing Harry and Megan debacle, which we thought had been settled. But now they're back. Not quietly. Not quietly at all. And with very little advance warning, really, to the palace. then you've had, on top of it all, Earl Spencer, who has come out with these damaging allegations in his book about Princess Diana,

which has brought up that most painful period in living memory, really, for the royal family. So how has he come through all this? How has he tackled it? And what does it mean for the rain? I think all these sorts of questions that will be being asked behind palace walls and how they deal with it. It does feel like the bumpiness from the end of the late Queen's reign has sort of trickled on into Charles's reign, doesn't it? Because towards the end of her reign, the Queen had the issue of Harry and Megan, which really unsettled the whole apple cart, didn't it? And there was the Andrew issue brewing, which was never really dealt with, both of which have come into his reign.

But then he's had added, as you've just listed, sort of slings and arrows coming his way. Do you think this is a particularly difficult moment for him, or do you think it's just part and parcel of what goes with modern monarchy? It does feel like kind of seatbelt sign is turned on, doesn't it, because of the turbulence that we're undergoing at the moment. Like you say, lots of those things were kind of rumbling on before his reign. But they weren't actually dealt with properly, some of them, by the late queen. All respect to the late queen and her 70 years, incredible reign on the throne, very, very popular monarch. But there were things that she just didn't really grapple with. She did with Harry and Megan and the Sandringham agreement until,

Harry and Megan decide to change the rules on that and decide they're coming back. So perhaps that's something they couldn't have foreseen. But Andrew definitely was an issue where the Queen could and arguably should have been tougher on him. When those allegations first started coming out, she did her best to protect the monarchy. But there was that blind spot, wasn't there with the late Queen and Andrew, where he was her beloved son. and we saw her walking with him down the aisle at a memorial to Prince Philip, front and centre, back in the royal fold, even though he'd been forced at that point to step back from Royal Duty. So there was this sort of strange kind of blurred line. Now, that's all sorted out now.

Charles has been adamant about it. And I think he's tried to head off some of those problems and not pass them on to the next generation, which I think is admirable, thinking ahead to King Williams reign. Andrew, of course, denies all wrongdoing and the police investigation into him is ongoing. But let's just look at the more recent issues that the Kings had to deal with in the last week. Of course, last week we had Andrew Moulton on, Diana's biographer, to sort of break down the allegations in that book. And, you know, the suggestion was there's quite a lot of reshaping of the narrative by Charles Spencer in his explosive new memoir about Diana, which caused huge problems and quite an extraordinary response from the palace in terms of a rebuttal of some of his claims. the media machine around Charles Spencer has moved from the UK over to America and he's been doing all the big US networks, I'm doing CBS and ABC.

We had him doing an event with Tina Brown. Which is interesting because he told Laura Kunzberg on the BBC, it was his final word on the matter. Apart from those promotional interviews. It was his swan song. I suspect we'll never have a Charles Spencer swan song. I suspect we'll keep hearing from him on this. But we had him talking last week. He mentioned it in here when he was here.

He felt the palace had gaslighted him with that statement that. came from Buckingham Palace saying His Majesty is mindful that, you know, words to the effect of grief can cloud judgment and affect his memory. Effectively what the palace was saying was he's remembered it differently. That's not what happened. Recollections may vary. They were undermining him. They were undermining his version of events. Now he's told Tina Brown, you know, he thinks they've behaved very aggressively towards him.

Do you think it serves Charles Spencer in terms of the publicity to sort of act as if he's in a war with Buckingham Palace? Does it play into his hands, do you think? It speaks to his brand, doesn't it? His also say truth teller that he's on the outside, you know, railing against the palace and the establishment. And he's very much pitched himself in that kind of bracket, if you like. So I suppose the palace statement has helped with publicity for the book, possibly. It's certainly given him more of a spotlight in the short term. But I feel ultimately that statement has quite cleverly undermined the allegations in that book.

And of course, he's already said that he will edit the second edition of the book because he's made some key errors about Pierce Morgan. The dates of that have already been questioned. That's a broadcaster who said, I wasn't at that newspaper at that time when you say I printed pictures of Diana in the gym. I was actually at the sun at that time. So I suppose a question is not how it's affected Spencer. I mean, you know, no publicity is bad publicity to some extent

if you're flogging a book for the Christmas market. but how the palace has handled it and whether it is turbulence that you can just ride it out or whether it will ultimately be damaging. It has fallen away here. It had its proper storm in the teacup for a solid week.

And, you know, there are arguments suggest that possibly the Buckingham Palace statement heated it up a little bit. But it has subsided. I mean, yeah. And in the UK, we woke up to that overnight chat that he had with Tina Brown in New York City last night.

and it's the same sort of stuff. You know, he's saying that the palace are aggressive, he's saying that that statement was essentially gaslighting. We've heard that all before. There's not really much more he can say. We know there's nothing more. The palace is going to say, they're going to say, our statement speaks for itself, end of.

But I suppose with Charles having been on the throne only four years, do you think that he's built up enough of a kind of a legacy as king for these not to be ultimately damaging and not to be the things that we're talking about years from now as having been pinpoints of his own? Yeah, I do think that's definitely the palace's hope. And when I did a piece a couple of weeks ago about when this all happened, the feeling from people close to Charles was that this will fade.

And most people have, regardless of Al Spence's book and the allegations in there about what the then-Prince Charles did or didn't say 30 years ago, the feeling is, and I think the polling reflects this, that Charles, his legacy is king, he's done much. much better than a lot of people thought he would. He has proven himself with the Queen, more popular. People have sort of warmed to him in a way that I think, particularly the palace and a lot of the public didn't expect to. He has a lot of public sympathy because of all these problems, not just his own illness.

But I think the public have looked to him for a few years and thought, gosh, you've got a lot on your plate for a, you know, septuagenarian. You've got personal illness. You've got cancer. You've got troublesome family. A brother, a son. Now you've got this. And I think the fact that he goes about his work and his business and is still, you know, carrying on with his work and not complaining. He is the kind of, isn't the epitome of? Never complain, never explain.

Because, okay, these statements come out occasionally. But it's not like he's stamping his foot. He's still going and doing all his engagements. And I think he has built up enough goodwill with the public to write this out. And I don't think Spencer will shape Charles's legacy. The thing that is more likely to shape his legacy long time is potentially what happens with the Andrew problem and or unresolved conflict with Harry and Men. Yeah, like you say, there's other things that are more worrying, I think, that will be concerning the minds of the palace at this time.

Well, an almost daily basis at the moment, almost more so than Charles Spencer is the ongoing. I don't want to say drama because that sort of belittles the issues, I think, is the ongoing situation with Harry and Megan. You know, they returned to the UK last month. They've been back here a matter of weeks. The children have started at school. We know they had to pull the children out of school. they say after two days because there was too much traffic on the road, they had security concerns.

We still don't know what's going on with the security issue there. Harry and Megan still, as far as we are aware, do not have paid police protection. That's still being reviewed by Ravec and the Home Office. Then literally overnight, again, more developments. We've had this development that they identified between the police and the Sussex security team. They've identified two men walking around the perimeter of the children's school. Understood to be international paparazzi, they said, with back. packs on presumably with long lenses in the back.

Scoping out the school. And, you know, for any parent, that's going to be a serious concern. Not just them, actually, but concerns for the other parents in that school. Concerns for the other parents. And, you know, there is almost not a day that goes by at the moment where we're not hearing from the Sussex team about something that is going a bit wrong in terms of this return, whether that's security or whatever. And so they seem to be talking a lot about their own security while they're also campaigning to have police security. Yeah, and a statured, so a cynic might say, I mean, that this is all part of their plan to increase pressure on the home office. I mean, what do you think of that?

Well, I think, yes, I suppose there probably is something to be said there. I think it's probably unwise to keep talking about security because I suspect it probably annoys the decision makers that it's constantly in the public. As far as we're aware as well, Harry and Megan haven't seen the king again since they've been back. We know that they had that brief reconciliation at High Grove back in July when they're, they came back when they didn't mention they were moving back, by the way, Dad were moving back. We didn't tell you that. But as far as I were, we haven't, there hasn't been another reconciliation. So I think all eyes are going to be on that to see whether Harry's motivation for coming back. And I'm sure quite a lot of it was to try and spend more time with his father and his children spend more time with their grandfather, how that actually plays out.

But at the moment, for the last few weeks since their return, it has not felt smooth sailing. And ultimately, I think people look at Harry and Megan and the issues and the problem. that we hear about, and it reminds them that there is still unresolved issues with the rest of the royal family. Well, yeah, I was going to say, how do you think the King has managed that? Because ultimately, while they're talking about security, that makes it very hard for Charles to say, come for tea up at Balmoral. While Harry and Megan are having these very bitter rouse with the Home Office, yet again,

doesn't that put a barrier on how likely it is that there is going to be a reconciliation between Charles and Harry. Yes, I agree with you. It's not making it easier. And then, of course, on top of all of that, there's the confusion around their return and their status. And, you know, we talked about the letter that the king asked the Lord Chamberl to send out. It was a proper slapdown to Harry and Meg.

And it did not land well with them because there was a ferrory from their team over, well, we weren't shown this in advance enough. We didn't get enough notice. And we'd like to be known as public figures. that is all still kind of unresolved. Well, it speaks a bit to the Spencer statement, doesn't it? Is this another kind of intervention from the palace that was necessary? Is this Charles trying to sort his home situation out and say,

when I need to, I'm going to show toughness, I'm going to show strength? This is the kind of monarch I'm going to be. I can't let things like this slide. We can't have Harry and Megan coming back and people being confused as to whether they're representing the royal family officially or not. We need to just make it clear. I think the fact that Harry and Megan spokesman said that they were surprised by this letter or any of its context seemed unusual, given that it was just a reaffirmation, if you like,

of what the Queen had agreed with them back during the Sandringham Summit at Mexico. So it wasn't anything new, but the intervention was in and of itself, that letter at the direction of the King from the Lord Chamberlain, the head of the royal household eases the sign of Charles grappling things head on in a way that perhaps his mother didn't have the stomach fall.

Coming up, we don't know what's going to happen in that investigation and nor does the king, but if he was to be charged, can you imagine the repercussions for the palace? I think that would put all the problems we've just talked about. It would make them seem pretty small.

Well, one of the things that his mother has come in for a lot of criticism for since her death in 2022 is how she handled or didn't handle the Andrew problem. Everything we've just been talking about

Charles Spencer's book, The Harry and Megan ongoing sort of issues has all really overtaken the Andrew issue. Andrew's like, oh, thank goodness they're not talking about me anymore.

It's all gone quite quiet there, hasn't it? He's sort of living a quiet life up in Sandringham, out of sight, out of most people's minds. But he is still under police investigation. We know he denies all Ron.

doing, but that investigation into misconduct and public office, which we know the police have widened, is ongoing. Rumbles on. He is effectively waiting, and as are the palace and the king, to see whether or not he will be charged with any offence. It's a big cloud of worry to be living under, not just for Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor, but for the king. Because we don't know what's going to happen in that investigation, and nor does the king. But if he was to be charged, can you imagine the repercussions for the palace? I think that would put all the problems we've just talked about, it would make them seem pretty small. I think in that, when we're talking about interventionist points in the King's reign over the last four years, when we talk about the Lord Chamberlain statement, and we talk about the statement about our Spencer, I think we'll look back to that Andrew moment, you know, as we talked for years,

the siege over Royal Lodge. He was trying to get him out for ages before that happened. And I think that's credit to him as a leader of the family, as a leader in his position as head of state and as protector, if you like, of the monarchy as an interdictor. that he saw this coming down the line. He wasn't prepared to take it lying down. He knew that trouble was brewing. He saw the way his mother didn't quite grapple with the issue.

And if, indeed, Andrew is charged, we know that he's denied all wrongdoing. We'll look back on that moment in the King's reign and say that was a really smart move that he pushed him out, but he's kept him sort of in exile in Sandringham. He still gets financial support from the King's private funds. It doesn't get any public money anymore, doesn't have any public role. We'll never see him on the balcony at the palace ever again. We won't see the things that we saw in the late Queen's reign of him taking centre stage down the aisle. At family moments.

Even when he turned up at the Duchess of Kent's funeral a year ago, him standing, kind of chuckling on the steps of the cathedral, was astonishing. And I think even those moments now, we're not going to see that again. Whatever happens with that police investigation, Charles will say, well, now it's up to the police. I've done my bit. Yes, he will. But if that investigation was to progress, that will come right back onto the palace's doorstep. I think the danger, the red flags with that will be, what did the palace know? When did they know it? That could be a huge red flag for the palace and that's something they should be looking at. It will be. Well, we should repeat,

Andrew denies all wrongdoing. Now, the way in which the king has dealt with Andrew, which he just talked about, and the way in which he dealt with L. Spencer's allegations recently and the way in which he continues to try and deal with Harry and Megan, there's a suggestion that his approach is working because there was a U-Gov poll recently which found that his approval rating was 68% in July, which is an all-time high for his reign. A tiny party popper going off at the palace in response to that. 60% favourability approval ratings is quite high if you think about, you know, some politicians who are minus minus. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. It's good for anybody in the public eye.

Like you said, people can see him working really hard despite having cancer. He tries. And we've talked about all the kind of negative points of his reign in the last four years, haven't we? And how he's dealt with it. But hey, let's look at the things that really stood out, which have been widely acknowledged to be huge successes. So the US state visit, for example, which we discussed, you know, we podcasted from Washington, didn't we?

When we went over there, those speeches to US Congress and at the White House dinner, will be huge kind of golden moments of his reign. And I think those will be the kind of lights that people will look to as well as looking at the controversy that's, you know, surrounded him. Often, you know, not his doing, but things he's been forced to grapple with that have come up to him. Things like convening AI leaders at Dunfrey's house, you know, really been on it and looking to the future. As he approached his 78th birthday in November, you know, arguably he could be settling down, not grappling with those big issues.

but that's really what he wants to do. Going to the Vatican, meeting the new Pope, I think all of these things where he stood up and represented Britain, represented the Commonwealth. I don't think those will get lost in the quagmire of the Spencers and Harry and Megan Tittle-Tattle. Or the Harry and Megan nonsense as the head of the Ugandan. Before doing his U-turn.

Army referred to it. Before he did it, yeah, a U-turn said he was going to do Invictors. Now he's going to need, I mean, you mentioned the state visit there, to the US, which was, as we all agreed and observed and we wrote about and we broadcast, we considered, and a lot of people in America, considered, and actually around the world, a diplomatic masterclass by the King. And he is going to need a lot of that diplomatic deafness of touch, isn't he, when they embark

on the Commonwealth tour and we go along with them. Because he and the Queen will be at Commonwealth has a government in Antiguan Barbuda in November, and then before that, the King is going solo to Guyana in the Bahamas. Now, we know there is an enormous amount of rummling across a lot of Commonwealth countries, particularly in the Caribbean, around the issue of reparations for slavery historic. And we have seen on previous royal tours, you know, I'm thinking back to what the King said at Chogham in Rwanda a few years ago when he was there officially representing the late Queen, not apologising for slavery, but saying how apporant and appalling it was, we saw during that ill-fated tour by the Prince and Mrs Wales, Wales, who was. 22, yeah, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as they were. Similar sentiments echoed by William, not apologies, but obviously speech is very carefully managed between the palaces and the government, acknowledging what happened and saying how apparent it was. Now, the noise is growing louder and louder around this issue.

We've had, you know, Jamaica have written to the Privy Council, haven't they? They have. A legal framework. It's going to come up throughout that tool. It comes up, doesn't it? Every two years and we have the Commonwealth Heads of Government. meeting. And this is interesting because Charles is essentially hampered by whatever the British government's view is at the time, which is British government is not paying for slavery reparations.

British government does not have money or the will to do that. And Charles is there to relay that message in as diplomatic way as he can while maintaining, you know, the great family of the Commonwealth which he loves, which his mother was very passionate about keeping that third. of the world's population together, essentially uniting them. These are the kind of the big moments, aren't they, where he has to go and tow the government line. But also try and be sensitive and sympathetic to those countries who are banging the drum. What I think is interesting, and I've always found interesting on the issue of the Commonwealth

nations, is that there has been so much talk from various Caribbean countries over the last five to ten years about derailming. And so many of them during the last reign made it clear. even on, you know, tours in front of William and Kate, Caribbean leaders saying in front of them, we will continue our transition to be a Republican Republic and remove the monarch's head of state. So is this an opportunity, I suppose, for Charles to make a positive gain to kind of set a new line forward, like he did in America with re-aligning that relationship with Donald Trump and the US? Well, we will be looking at that, weren't we, much more closely in a few weeks' time.

Very closely. As we prepare to board the Royal Tour. plane. So four years on, given everything that we've had happened over the last few weeks, what's your take on whether the rain so far has been a success? Oh, that's a good question. I would say on the whole, he's doing a good job with sometimes quite bad circumstances that he's battling through. Who would have thought that he would have so much to deal with? It's been a very, very full entry, hasn't it? Of problem after problem. It feels often like this sort of tennis game, He's just sort of batting the balls back across the next.

Wackmore more likely. Yeah. I think it's an interesting time for Charles because, you know, his team is changing as well. We know that Sir Clive Alderton, his principal secretary, will be leaving at some point next year. A hugely important figure at the palace who has steered that rain into, you know, four years. I think that'll be a big loss. Here's a query. Johnny Thompson is leaving. There'll be a bit of a shake-up at the palace in terms of who will be the new senior aides around him.

I don't think that'll have any kind of huge impact on the way that the King Charles ship is going. I think he will just hope that the next few years are a little bit steadier than the last. I suspect that may be an ambitious hope. I don't think things are going to get much easier for him going forward. I don't see any of these problems apart from like the Spencer thing, which will come and go, really fading that quickly. I think the Spencer thing will come and go unless he does decide to reveal all these other family secrets, which he's already said that he has in his tank. but I think it'll be more of the same.

I think the big points forward, the big danger points are, yeah, international relations, Harry and Megan and Andrew. And Andrew. Well, that's all from us this week, but we'd love to hear what you think. Is Charles a king under siege? Or is the monarchy proving more resilient than the headlines might suggest? So get in touch by emailing the royals at the times.co.uk. And we may feature your question in a future episode.

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