In the long, echoing pause that followed, William felt the weight of two worlds pressing down on his shoulders: the son who had lost his mother, and the heir who was expected to protect the Crown at any cost. Charles’s confession did not offer the neat closure of a headline or the cold clarity of an official inquiry. Instead, it opened a chasm of moral questions—about complicity, silence, and the quiet bargains made behind palace walls. For the first time, William understood that the truth was not a single moment, but a lifetime of choices that could never be fully undone.
