Omid Scobie’s new book Endgame is branded ‘vicious’ and ‘poisonous’ as he claims Charles, Camilla and William conspired to undermine Harry and Meghan and depicts royals as pantomime-style villains

A new book on the royals was branded ‘vicious’ and ‘plain nasty’ last night.

While Buckingham Palace kept a contemptuous silence, well-placed sources described wild claims that Charles, Camilla and William conspired to undermine Harry and Meghan as ‘depressingly poisonous’. 

Omid Scobie’s book also takes aim at the Princess of Wales, branding her ‘cold’ and lambasting her for backing mental health causes while ‘ignoring Meghan’s cries for help’.

It tries to stoke a row over the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh’s jokey bid to deflect questions about the Sussexes’ bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview by saying: ‘Oprah who?’

He says this made Edward and Sophie seem ‘casually bigoted’. Endgame, which was published in Australia yesterday and hits shelves here today, paints an almost comically negative view of the monarchy, with royals depicted as pantomime-style villains.

Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace have declined to comment, believing they have nothing to gain from engaging with the claims. Charles and William were both instead out on public engagements close to their hearts – the King hosting a global investment summit and his son attending the Tusk Conservation Awards.

Royal sources described wild claims that Charles, Camilla and William conspired to undermine Harry and Meghan as ‘depressingly poisonous’

Omid Scobie’s new book Endgame about the Royal Family is set to be released on Tuesday

Those in royal circles describe the book as ‘plain nasty’, ‘vicious’ and a ‘skewed’ retelling of family events ‘in the Sussex style’. Endgame claims:

• Charles’s ‘ineptitude’ in handling Harry and Meghan – and refusal to give them the apology they demanded – has turned them into ‘disruptors’;
• Harry tried to ‘reach out’ to his father after the publication of his vitriolic memoir, Spare, earlier this year by calling his father, but felt the King’s response was ‘cold and brief’;
• Senior royals turned a blind eye to aides leaking details about the Sussexes as part of their power games and subjected them to ‘institutional cruelty’;
• William and his father are at loggerheads about the future of the monarchy and the handling of family issues;
• Their ‘distrust and simmering animosity’ resulted in Charles deriving ‘schadenfreude’ from his son’s supposedly disastrous tour of Caribbean last year;
• William is ‘colder’ – but also inexplicably more ‘hot-headed’ – than his father and ‘has no problem taking prisoners on the way’;
• Camilla colluded in stories being leaked about other royals and has ‘no relationship’ with Harry. The book says she has ‘great sympathy’ for what Meghan went through but ‘no respect’ for the way the Sussexes handled themselves;
• The King was so indecisive about how to treat his beleaguered brother Andrew that William had to step in to insist he lose his privileges;
• Charles ‘stumbled’ through his first 100 days as King and Queen Elizabeth had so little faith in him she made a former spymaster her ‘CEO’.

Despite Scobie’s claims to be independent from the Sussexes, they are the only ones spared his sharp words, rumours and tittle-tattle. He claims senior royals were jealous of Harry and Meghan’s success and undermined them.

Meghan suffered because she was too dynamic, he says, ‘insufficiently reverential’ as a woman of colour working in an ‘entitled, exceedingly white space’ and reminded the royals of Princess Diana.

As a result he says palace aides refused to defend her against the negative stories that had begun to emerge about her, while being happy to take action against a publication that suggested Kate had undergone ‘baby Botox’.

By contrast Queen Elizabeth liked the fact that ‘Katie Keen’ – a moniker said to have originated on social media – was ‘coachable’ as a future royal.

Yet Scobie claims her lack of patronages, engagements and insistence on spending time with her three young children in the school holidays makes her technically a ‘part-time working royal’.

Scobie says the statement following Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview that ‘recollections may vary’ was deliberately drafted to ‘plants seeds of doubt in people’s minds’ about their claims.

William, Harry, Meghan and Charles speak together at Westminster Abbey in March 2019

Wiliam, meanwhile, displays ‘indifference’, ‘harshness’ and continues to ‘stonewall’ Harry when all his brother wants is ‘honest conversations and accountability’. William’s attempts to promote racial harmony are branded ‘opportunistic’ giving his refusal to talk to Harry about ‘unconscious bias’ in his own family.

The book says Charles and Meghan discussed the issue in an exchange of letters – in which she named two people she claims expressed concerned about her son Archie’s skin colour – but William has failed to respond to the King’s requests for him to talk about it with Harry too.

While aides had expected the book to be a ‘hatchet job’ based on Scobie’s previously flattering tome about the Sussexes, Finding Freedom, it has still upset many.

One source said that while much of it is a ‘rehash’ of well-known events from a ‘decidedly Sussex skew’, the almost pantomime nature of the protagonists calls much of what Scobie claims into question.

Another said there was a ‘fairytale’ air to the book. ‘It just shows how little he actually knows. It’s quite embarrassing really,’ they remarked.

The book does however contain some insights over the letters exchanged by Charles and Meghan and on the Sussexes’ daily family routine.

Latest on Omid Scobie’s Endgame release

Omie Scobie takes aim at ‘cold’ Kate in first bombshells

Omie Scobie claims he knows identity of royals who ‘commented on Archie’s skin colour’

Omid Scobie accuses Prince Edward and Sophie of ‘a royal screw up’

Camilla has ‘no relationship with Prince Harry’

King Charles was ‘cold and brief’ in ‘awkward’ phone call with Prince Harry 

New York Times gives withering verdict on Omid Scobie’s ‘Endgame’ in one of first reviews

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