How Prince William Caused Prince Charles To Become ‘Annoyed’ With Princess Diana’s Bodyguard

At an early age, Prince Charles and Princess Diana began preparing Prince William for his future role as king. However, the Prince of Wales reportedly became “annoyed” after learning his wife’s bodyguard tried to give their son advice.

During his childhood, Prince William spent a lot of time around his mother and members of her staff. Following a conversation the child had with Diana’s bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, Prince Charles confronted the employee about the interaction.

Wharfe told the Daily Mail that he noticed Prince William incorrectly pronounced “out” as “ite” and “house” as “hise.”

“William came into me once and said, ‘Ken, Mummy wants to go ‘ite’ at 9:30 and we want to leave the ‘hise.’ I said, ‘OK William, but what’s this ‘ite’ business and ‘hise?’ We don’t go ‘ite’ we go ‘out’ and come back to the ‘house’ not the ‘hise.’ He said, ‘It’s what Papa says.’ I told him I wasn’t bothered what Papa said.”

The aide’s decision to correct the prince didn’t sit well with Charles, who approached Wharfe about the conversation. “Two weeks later, I was in the kitchen, and the prince came in. We all stood up, and he said to me, ‘Oh, I gather you’ve been giving William some elocution lessons?’” Wharfe recalled.

“I said, ‘I think you’re referring, Sir, to when he said to me he wanted to go ‘ite’ of the ‘hise’ and I was just suggesting the pronunciation was ‘out’ and ‘house.’ It wasn’t a lesson, merely an observation.’”

Although the Prince of Wales wasn’t furious about Wharfe’s conversation with his son, the former employee claimed Charles didn’t appreciate the employee’s correction.

“He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt underneath his lemon cashmere sweater that I remember so well, grimaced at me and delivered this classic phrase, ‘Oh really?’”

“Thereafter, it was obvious to me that was a phrase he would use, and depending on the inflection it meant a thousand things. He was slightly annoyed that I was correcting his son, but at the same time he was able to turn a humorous eye to it,” he added.

Princess Diana previously told a friend that she and Prince Charles tried to treat their sons the same, despite their future roles in the royal family. “Charles and I worked so hard to ensure both boys receive equal amounts of our time and love; others in the family seem to concentrate on William,” she said.

Although Diana died in 1997, Prince William and Prince Harry often speak fondly of their mother and credit her for giving them a normal childhood.