LONDON — Walter Bagehot, in his 1867 book, “The English Constitution,” famously described the key to a lasting monarchy as mystery and obfuscation. “Above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it,” he wrote. “Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.”
These days, however, the task is rather different: controlling the daylight to preserve, or restore, the magic. And if that requires a devious spin doctor, so be it.
But not too much daylight, please.
In a controversial decision, the British Broadcasting Corporation has postponed the scheduled broadcast of a documentary about how the royal family hired a public-relations professional to restore the reputation of Prince Charles after the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and to help integrate into the royal household his then-lover, Camilla Parker Bowles, whom he later married, and who is now the Duchess of Cornwall.
The first part of a two-part documentary, “Reinventing the Royals,” was supposed to be broadcast on Jan. 4, but the BBC has postponed it for an indefinite period “while a number of issues, including the use of archive footage, are resolved,” the public broadcaster said in a statement.
But according to RadioTimes, which broke the story, the BBC acted after “an intervention from lawyers known to represent senior members of the royal family, including the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.”
The documentary focuses on Mark Bolland, a public-relations executive hired by Prince Charles in 1996 as an assistant private secretary. Mr. Bolland served as the prince’s deputy private secretary from 1997 to 2002, then served as his public-relations consultant in 2003.
The documentary is presented by Steve Hewlett and was made without the cooperation of the royal family. It shows how Mr. Bolland took every opportunity to show Prince Charles as a loving father and concerned single parent, while trying to win public acceptance for Mrs. Parker Bowles.
The filmmaker reports that the campaign to integrate Mrs. Parker Bowles into palace life was named “Operation Mrs. P.B.,” and that Charles understood his standing with the British public had been deeply damaged by the death of Diana in a car accident in Paris and revelations of his relationship with Mrs. Parker Bowles.
It also traces the deep suspicion of the news media by Prince William, his elder son with Diana, to an incident in which he felt he had been “used to further his father’s interests” after news of his first private meeting with his future stepmother was leaked to the British tabloid The Sun, just 10 months after his mother’s death, when he was 15.
William wanted to know how it happened, although it later turned out to have been accidentally leaked by a member of Mrs. Parker Bowles’s staff, according to Sandy Henney, who was press secretary to Charles when Diana died. In an interview for the documentary, she described the incident as a “defining moment” for the young Prince William.
As a consequence, according to Mr. Hewlett, William became deeply wary of the press. “For William, protecting his privacy and that of his family has perhaps understandably become a virtual obsession,” Mr. Hewlett wrote in an article for RadioTimes. But “in a new media age dominated by the Internet, with all the accompanying expectations of openness and transparency, there are real concerns, even within the royal household, over the sustainability of William’s approach.”
Tom Bradby, a onetime royal correspondent and now ITV’s political editor, said the princes never lost their disdain for the press. “William and Harry were very angry,” he told Mr. Hewlett. “They thought that the media had hounded their mother to death. I don’t mean they vaguely thought that; they actually thought that’s what had happened.”
Mr. Bolland created resentment among the palace staff, according to the documentary, while Prince William and his brother, Prince Harry, referred to him as “Blackadder,” after a television comedy starring Rowan Atkinson about a devious, scheming, cowardly opportunist close to the royals.
Ms. Henney is forthcoming in the documentary. Years before Diana’s death, Prince Charles “was getting some pretty virulent criticism: bad father, unloving husband,” Ms. Henney said. “I think he was pretty hurt. If you’ve got a middle-aged balding man and a beautiful princess, it’s a no-brainer as to who is going to get the media coverage.”
Relations between the royal family and the BBC, a public broadcast station dependent on licensing fees paid by nearly everyone in Britain with a television, have often been strained, especially during times of royal scandal. Their rift was on display in 2007 when the controller of BBC One resigned after the network showed a misleading trailer at a press launch in which it appeared that Queen Elizabeth II had walked out of a photo shoot after being asked to remove her crown.
A spokesman for Clarence House, where Prince Charles and the duchess live, have denied asking that the program be pulled or postponed, though there were reports of detailed talks between the BBC and the royals throughout the year or so it took to make the documentary. “Scheduling of television programs is a matter for the broadcaster,” the spokesman said.
Mr. Bolland, who now has his own public-relations firm, was unavailable for comment.
Charles e Camilla em 2019 na Nova Zelândia: apesar dos esforços, popularidade continua baixa

Os sempre criticados  e - principalmente - , estão tendo tempos difíceis novamente quando à popularidade e tudo porque a quarta temporada da série da Netflix ''The Crown'', que trata especificamente da vida da falecida  junto à família real britânica, fez com que aumentassem os comentários negativos sobre o casal, por muitos acusado de ser o responsável pela trágica vida - e morte - de Diana. "Charles jamais será rei. Ele não merece", escreveu um dos internautas. 

Os comentários foram tantos e tão negativos que a Casa Real teve que bloquear as contas oficiais de Charles e Camilla (Clarence House) nas redes sociais dias atrás para a postagem de comentários dos seguidores. 

Dias antes, o ministro da Cultura do país, Oliver Dowden, que já estava preocupado com a reação do público, disse que enviaria um comunicado à Netflix pedindo a exibição, nos episódios, de um aviso sobre a história ser apenas uma ficção. 

'''O ''affair'' de Charles e Camilla'''

O Príncipe Charles de Gales, então já o herdeiro do trono, conheceu Camilla, oriunda de uma família da aristocracia, casualmente durante eventos da nobreza inglesa. Eles tiveram um romance, mas segundo rumores nunca oficializados, ela não foi considerada adequada para o herdeiro da coroa na época. 

Para afastar o casal, a Casa Real enviou Charles para missões militares estrangeiras e quando ele voltou para o Reino Unido, cansada de esperar, Camilla já tinha se casado, em 1973, com Andrew Parker Bowles, pai de seus dois filhos.

Em 1981 Charles se casou com Diana, igualmente uma aristocrata, da família dos . O casamento, no entanto, durou pouco e alguns anos após o nascimento do segundo filho do casal, , a tristeza da princesa começou a ficar visível em público. Rumores sobre uma separação não tardaram e foram confirmados em dezembro de 1992 (o divórcio ocorreu apenas em 1996). Foi nesta época em que numa entrevista Diana fez uma de suas revelações mais notórias: "sempre houve uma terceira pessoa no nosso casamento", numa referência à Camilla, que havia se separado do marido apenas em 1995. 

'''Problemas de popularidade'''

Camilla desde sempre foi impopular devido a história de Diana, chamada carinhosamente de a Princesa do Povo por causa de seus diversos trabalhos caritativos, incluindo os com portadores e doentes de AIDS na África. Mesmo após o casamento com o herdeiro, em 2005, e seus esforços de aparecer sempre sorridente em público, sem jamais ter se envolvido em qualquer polêmica desde então, a Duquesa da Cornualha - título que ela é obrigada a usar oficialmente devido o título de Princesa de Gales, das esposas dos Príncipes de Gales, ter ficado famoso e aliado à imagem de Diana - não conseguiu fazer com que fosse aceita por boa parte da população britânica.

O site especializado em pesquisas You Gov, por exemplo, aponta que ela empata em "opiniões positivas" e "opiniões negativas" em 34%, o que pode ser preocupante para a futura Rainha Consorte do Reino Unido. Já Charles recebe 20% de opiniões negativas contra 47% de positivas - números muito ruins se comparados aos do  e Kate, respectivamente com apenas 9% e 6% de opiniões negativas. 

Numa outra pesquisa do You Gov, apenas 16% dos britânicos acham que Camilla deveria receber o título de Rainha e 27% opinam que ela não deveria ter título algum. Segundo o mesmo site, Camilla é apenas a 11ª mais popular do Top 15 da Família Real britânica. 

Desde sempre de olho na rejeição da futura Rainha Consorte, no início dos anos 2010, época em que William e Kate se casaram e que a Rainha Elizabeth festejou 60 anos de reinado, já preparando o caminho para sua ascensão ao trono, Charles, segundo rumores, ajudou a coordenar pessoalmente uma nova campanha de Relações Públicas para melhorar a imagem e aceitação de Camilla - o que, pelo visto, não deu certo.