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The Queen’s relationship with her heir Charles is believed to be rather difficult – and it has been further exacerbated due to the Prince of Wales’ place as her successor. Royal watchers noticed during her heartfelt public address back in April regarding the pandemic, the monarch did not mention that Charles had tested positive for coronavirus and was in isolation at the time. Charles even confirmed his distant relationship with his mother when talking to his authorised biographer Jonathon Dimbleby in 1994.

The royal explained that he felt “emotionally estranged” from his parents, and was always looking for the affection which he thought they were “unable or unwilling to offer”.

Writing for Vanity Fair back in 2017, royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith explained how Charles was regularly left throughout his childhood, even when he fell victim to another potentially fatal virus.

She explained: “Charles had a fragile constitution.

“He suffered from chronic sinus infections and was hospitalised for a tonsillectomy in May 1957.

“Later that year, when he was bed-ridden at school with Asian Flu, his parents didn’t visit him.”

Asian Flu was the pandemic which took hold in 1957 for a year and killed an estimated two million people across the world.

The piece explained that both the Queen and Prince Philip had been inoculated against the illness, so it was not their fear of contagion which kept them apart from their son.

Ms Bedell Smith continued: “Instead, before leaving for a royal tour of Canada, in October, the Queen sent him a farewell letter.”

It appears that the problems first arose between the Queen and Charles when he was just a toddler – called away to attend her royal duties as the new monarch, the Queen had little time to dote on her eldest.

Margaret Rhodes, the Queen’s cousin, explained how there was always a difficulty between the royal parents and Charles in conversation with writer Gyles Brandreth for The Telegraph.

In 2004, she said: “Things have gone slightly awry with Prince Charles.

“I’ve been at Birkhall when he’s been there.

“He’s very conscientious, very committed.

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“He’ll have dinner and go back to work. He works so hard but then he’s so extravagant.

“The Queen finds Prince Charles very difficult.

“He is extravagant and she doesn’t like that.”

Mrs Rhodes claimed their family is “fractured” partly because Philip, too, “can’t bring himself to be close with Charles”.

Apparently Charles also has a more expensive taste than his frugal mother, following in the footsteps of the Queen Mother instead.

The Queen has reportedly said to her friends: “The amount of kit and staff he takes about – it’s obscene.”

However, some royal fans believe the relationship may have improved between Charles and his mother in more recent years.

In April 2018, for instance, the monarch announced that it was her “sincere wish” for Charles to take on the role as future Head of the Commonwealth.

Royal expert Robert Jobson also claimed the Queen did not mention Charles in her recent address about the pandemic because it would have embarrassed the Prince of Wales.

Speaking to BBC News last month, he said: “I think that the Prince of Wales would find that excruciating if the Queen referred to his illness when so many people have been suffering and dying.

“The bottom line here is the Queen is here as the head of the nation and state.

“She wanted to calm us all and give us that sense of reassurance.”

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