The age difference between Prince Charles, Princess Anne and other siblings is around ten years, and here is the reason why did Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II wait for a decade to have another child after Princess Anne was born.
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Prince Charles was born in 1948, a year later after Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip got married. In 1950, Princess Anne arrived. Ten years later, in 1960 Prince Andrew was born, and four years later, Prince Edward. Sally Bedell Smith, a royal biographer, shared in 2012 book “Elizabeth the Queen” that Prince Andrew and Prince Edward came later because of a long and sad family fight.
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After the death of King George VI, Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952. At the time, the Duke of Edinburgh had a desire for his children to carry on his family name – Mountbatten. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Queen Mary, and the Queen Mother all were opposed to the idea and wanted for the family to remain Windsor. Queen Elizabeth II took their side, and on April 9, 1952, she released a public declaration and confirmed that “her children will be styled and known as the house and family of Windsor”.
Prince Philip was heartbroken. He shared with his friends how he felt “like a bloody amoeba” because he was the “only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.” Bedell Smith revealed in the 2012 book that Prince Philip’s uncle, Earl Mountbatten thought that the reason why they waited for 10 years to have another baby is that they can finally carry on his family surname.
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Queen Elizabeth II had a meeting with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1960 because she thought that she needed to “revisit” the problem with their family name, as it “had been irritating her husband since 1952″. According to the Prime Minister’s journal at the time, “The Queen only wishes (properly enough) to do something to please her husband – with whom she is desperately in love. What upsets me is the prince’s almost brutal attitude to the Queen over all this. I shall never forget what she said to me at Sandringham.’’
Just 11 days before Prince Andrew arrived, it was announced in the Privy Council that the Queen’s descendants will have the surname Mountbatten-Windsor.
Source: express.co.uk
