A look inside palace power struggles and hidden truths
King Charles and Queen Camilla find themselves at the heart of fresh revelations as royal correspondent Valentine Low publishes his latest book, Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy. Serialised in The Times, the book peels back the curtain on how politics and the Crown have quietly overlapped in recent years, offering accounts that are both surprising and deeply personal.
One of the most powerful stories centres on Queen Camilla’s youth. As a teenager, she fought off an attempted sexual assault, striking her attacker with her shoe and reporting the incident to police. Years later, she shared the experience with then-Mayor Boris Johnson. Low suggests that this early trauma shaped her long-standing commitment to supporting survivors of sexual violence.
The late Queen Elizabeth II also emerges in a new light. While known publicly for her strict impartiality, Low claims she privately voiced support for Britain staying in the European Union, reportedly remarking, “We shouldn’t leave the EU,” even as she dismissed Brussels bureaucracy as “ridiculous.”
Low also turns to the day-to-day workings of Charles’s household, describing a tense environment marked by shifting priorities and internal rivalries. Far from mere gossip, the book presents a serious examination of the monarchy’s hidden world and the pressures faced by those at its centre.
