Losing his religion: Is Prince William’s quiet Christianity enough to be King?
The Daily T
The Telegraph
4.1 • 705 Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Prince William’s personal faith has been thrust into the spotlight, after a former royal chaplain accused the Prince of taking a “strategic and political” approach to religion.
Camilla and Tim are joined by former Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II, Gavin Ashenden, to debate whether the future King’s “quiet faith” is a sign of honesty, or a worrying shift away from the deeply Christian leadership embodied by the late Queen.
They discuss claims that the Prince of Wales may not be “particularly religious,” how aides insist his beliefs “run deep” despite being private, and whether his focus on the Church’s social action - from food banks to homelessness - is enough for a future Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph |
| 0:07.0 | Is Prince William our future king religious enough to rule? |
| 0:14.0 | I mean, he's a really sweet man with sort of vacant ideas about God. |
| 0:18.0 | And the difficulty with this is it feels strategic, it feels political, it feels, |
| 0:22.8 | and the trouble is I understand why they're doing that. Of course I do. But if you're a passionate |
| 0:26.9 | Christian, frankly, it's insulting. A former chaplain to the late Queen Elizabeth II, |
| 0:31.6 | Gavin Ashton has criticised the prince's lack of public religious expression. Is William being |
| 0:37.1 | disarmingly honest about his spiritual journey, |
| 0:39.5 | or is the palace signaling a slide towards secularisation |
| 0:42.7 | at the very heart of the monarchy? |
| 0:45.0 | Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini, |
| 0:47.6 | and me Tim Stanley. |
| 1:07.0 | Thank you. Tim, today we're going to discuss a topic that involves two of our specialist subject. The church for you and the royals for me. And it is Easter. That's why we're doing |
| 1:13.6 | this daily tea. Happy Good Friday. It is a happy day, believe it or not. It is indeed. It's |
| 1:18.6 | so Christian to call a good day the day when you kill the Messiah, but he will come, he will rise again. |
| 1:23.6 | He's rising again. And today, even my inner lapsed Catholic knows that I should |
| 1:29.2 | be eating fish later. Or not at all. Preferably. Not at all. Just fasting. It's water and bread. |
| 1:35.8 | Got it. Thank you for clarifying. And we're here to discuss Prince William, the future king, |
| 1:41.9 | and his quotes, quiet faith. |
| 1:45.0 | So back when I was a royal reporter, there were always rumblings of concern that the then-Prince |
| 1:52.5 | William, now heir to the throne, didn't do God as much as his grandmother and indeed his father. |
| 1:59.2 | And we've got some interesting quotes from AIDS close to William in the Sunday times |
... |
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