William soon became a shoulder to lean on for his mother. Princess Diana saw her oldest son as her “most trusted confidant” and “my little wise old man.”
The Duke of Cambridge had a rather rebellious stage when he was a child. There were instances where he would go around telling people how he would just change the rules when he becomes king, according to a new royal book.
In The Palace Papers, which was recently released, author Tina Brown wrote how Prince William was aware of his status as a future monarch from a young age. Prince William was a “holy terror” as a toddler, per Page Six. In fact, even Queen Elizabeth complained to Prince Philip that their grandson was “out of control,” shared Brown.
“She was not amused that he loved to say, ‘When I am king, I’m going to make a new rule that…,’” Brown wrote. Even Princess Diana admitted that when she and Charles returned from a royal tour of Canada in 1983, William, whom they had nicknamed “Wombat,” was turning into “a holy terror — dashing about bumping into tables and lamps, and just about breaking everything in sight."
"By the time he was four, he had the unattractive habit of yapping at his nanny, Barbara Banes, 'No one tells me what to do! When I am king I will have you punished.'"
Per Business Insider, Brown revealed she spoke with more than 120 people for the book, many of whom she described as being "intimately involved" with the senior royals. One of those people, who spoke anonymously to Brown—a former staff member of Princess Diana—recalled an alleged incident with William when he was eight years old.
During a plane journey back from William's first formal trip to Wales, he "reached over with his fork and speared a hard-boiled egg" from their plate. "It was as if the boy had said, 'I'm going to be king. You're not and I'm going to have what I like off your plate... What are you going to do about it?'" Brown wrote.
When Diana scolded him for his actions, he threw a temper tantrum.
It got so bad that even the Highgrove guards grew weary of a young Will because he was constantly squirting them with a water gun and at pre-school he was infamously known as “Basher Wills.”
But, as he grew older, William began to behave. But by then, Harry morphed into an “exuberant imp of misrule” who once smeared sheep dung over his father’s suit as he was about to board a helicopter for an official trip.
“Look at me!” Charles reportedly wailed. “I am absolutely covered in sheep shit!”
William soon became a shoulder to lean on for his mother, while she went through hell and back in her rocky marriage to Prince Charles. Diana saw her oldest son as her “most trusted confidant” and “my little wise old man.”
After a rather horrible argument between Diana and Charles, William is said to have pushed tissues under the door of her bathroom saying, “I hate to see you sad.”
“William understood Diana more (than Harry), but idealized her less,” Brown writes. “He was privy to her volatile love life. He knew the tabloids made her life hell, but he also knew she colluded with them.”
The two of them were great sons and are now even better fathers to their own kids. It is just sad that they no longer have their mom around to see what wonderful men they have grown into.
References:
https://pagesix.com/2022/04/25/young-prince-william-once-told-nanny-ill-have-you-punished/
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Daily Express | Hulton Archive
