Following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s frank Netflix docuseries, it has been a trying time for the royal family.
King Charles and his family have kept a respectful silence in keeping with the Queen’s stoic public relations strategy of “never complain, never explain.”
However, a member of the family has now come to the King’s and other senior royals’ defense, including the Prince and Princess of Wales, who earlier this week missed a festive luncheon in Windsor – and for a very good reason.
In a recent interview with The Spectator, actress Sophie Winkleman—who is married to Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince Michael of Kent, the Queen’s cousin—discussed the recent struggles that Charles and his family have faced.
The Strictly co-host Claudia Winkleman’s half-sister revealed that she would be spending Christmas in London with her husband and their two daughters, Isabella, 6, and Maud, 9.
She stated to the media: “This Christmas will be spent in London. I love a London Christmas. The streets are quiet, the parks are empty – it’s a bit like lockdown London but without the masks. We’ll see my parents on Christmas Day and some of my husband Freddie’s relations in various locations.
The senior members of the royal family are so diligent, unyielding, and brave in the face of relentless and brutal media attention, criticism, lies, undermining, and fictional TV programs — and always so good to me that I’m honored to know them — then Sophie continued, “I cherish my growing closeness to them.”
Sophie has previously discussed her relationship with the royal family. In a December 2020 interview with The Times, the 42-year-old, who married Frederick at Hampton Court Palace in 2009, talked openly about the family.
At the time, she stated: “They all have extended a very warm welcome to me. I haven’t encountered a single bad situation.
She praised the Queen, Prince Charles, and Prince William, saying that they had all been wonderful. “The Queen’s been wonderful, Prince Charles has been wonderful, Prince William’s been heaven,” she said. “They’d never tell me off at all if I wanted to play some [racy] role. Everyone’s looked after me.”
Returning to the The Times interview, Sophie also discussed her terrifying car accident from November 2017 in which she sustained serious injuries. She described how the royals came together to support her family.
Sophie Wessex paid Sophie a visit in the hospital, and Prince William instructed a member of his crew from the East Anglia Air Ambulance to “take good care of her.”
Prince Charles also gave his Clarence House chef the kind order to bring her young family two hearty meals each day “for months.”
Having this enormous thing twice daily that I didn’t have to worry about, according to Sophie, was life-saving.