Prince William has ‘doubled down’ on his resolve to cut Prince Harry out of his life, in the wake of his brother’s Clarence House rapprochement with the King. It’s been exactly a year since the Sussexes launched ‘Operation Bring Harry Back In From The Cold’ – and while the Duke’s 12-month strategy has come to fruition with his father, he is no closer to contact with his brother.
Indeed, Harry’s success in the UK last week means the future King is burning with a renewed determination to rid the monarchy of the Sussexes for good.
‘William is back at the point where if you mention Prince Harry in his presence he would throw you out of the room,’ one well-placed insider admitted. ‘He’s doubling down.’
This comes as Tina Brown, the Royal biographer and former editor of Vanity Fair, revealed that King Charles is currently more ‘irritated’ with Prince William than with Prince Harry.
She claimed that tensions are brewing between the King and his heir over William’s workload, which pales in comparison with his cancer-stricken father and has been punctuated by a multitude of holidays in recent months.
Not that you would guess it by William and Catherine’s four-day blitz of engagements last week, coinciding with Harry’s visit.
The Princess of Wales agreed to attend a Women’s Institute meeting in Berkshire with her husband on Monday at the last minute, prompting some to suggest William hoped a glamorous appearance from his wife would blow Harry off the front pages.
Harry countered the move with a £1.1million pledge to Children in Need – crass to cite the amount, perhaps, but effective. A day later, Harry – who turns 41 tomorrow – met his father at Clarence House for the first time in 18 months.
‘Charles may well welcome having Harry nipping at his brother’s heels, for it could prompt the Prince and Princess of Wales to “up their game” by carrying out more of those small-scale events we saw last week,’ writes Griffiths
Harry’s breathless schedule during his week-long presence in the UK, followed by a trip to Kyiv, provided some healthy competition for William.
Charles may well welcome having Harry nipping at his brother’s heels, for it could prompt the Prince and Princess of Wales to ‘up their game’ by carrying out more of those small-scale events we saw last week – the type that they would prefer not to do but which are essential to the public’s perception of the monarchy. Without the future King and Queen doing the rounds, it falls to Charles to pick up most of the slack and it has been noted that, despite his battle with cancer, he carried out official engagements on 175 days during the past 12 months.
Over the same period, Prince William clocked up 68 fewer engagements.
Harry’s rapprochement strategy isn’t over yet. Next on the Duke’s wish-list is some kind of public acknowledgement from the King.
A source says: ‘Harry would one day like his father to encourage the nation to accept him back again. It’s what the late Queen did towards the end of her life when she asked the public to accept Camilla as Queen Consort.
‘If Charles could do something along those lines, Harry would have some hope of not being completely exiled for good when William becomes King.’ While it’s hard to guess from the spiteful interviews he’s given in recent years, Harry does want back in.
‘Harry reads his own polls, he knows he’s one of the least popular Royals and wants that to change,’ says the source. ‘He wants to get back to being one of the most popular. Meghan doesn’t care about the UK perception and that’s fine – but Harry does.’
But this time there’s a telling difference. The late Queen’s public endorsement of Camilla followed much lobbying by Charles behind stately doors. The same cannot be said for William, who is as far as he’s ever been from acknowledging his brother, let alone championing his return.
Tina Brown, the Royal biographer and former editor of Vanity Fair, revealed that King Charles is currently more ‘irritated’ with Prince William than with Prince Harry
‘William is more determined than ever to cut Harry off altogether,’ adds the source. ‘It infuriates William that Harry has pulled off a 12-month “master plan” to re-ingratiate himself.’
The pair have long had a tempestuous relationship, not least in the run-up to ‘Megxit’ when, in 2019, the brothers came to blows in Nottingham Cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace, and Harry ended up shoved to the floor, cracking a dog bowl.
Palace aides are said to be anxious that William’s ‘doubling down’ mentality marks a setback for him personally.
‘For some time now William’s anger had cooled to the point of indifference over his brother, which was healthy for his mental wellbeing,’ adds another source. ‘William had got to the stage where Harry was a “non-person”, he had fallen so far beneath his radar as to have disappeared from his mind altogether. It can’t be good that William has gone back to the point where he would throw someone out at the very mention of Harry’s name.’
The phrase ‘non-person’ was coined by the Queen Mother to refer to people whose name cannot be mentioned by friends or aides in her presence – like that of her brother-in-law Edward VIII whose abdication forced her and her husband (who became George VI) to become King and Queen.
With Harry a ‘non-person’, safely 5,000 miles away in California, people around William felt no need to bring up Harry’s name. All that was shattered by the appearance last week.
The source added: ‘Now Harry is back – back in the UK, back at Clarence House, back in touch with his father and back into the subject line of emails.’
Another source said: ‘William originally went through all the stages of grief over his brother. When they first fell out he went to Balmoral and went off his food. Just before the Oprah chat screened, he wept. Then he turned to anger and when that stage was over, he simply compartmentalised it all and moved on. He never expected to be regularly in the same postcode as his brother again, like he was last week.’
It may cause further worry, then, that Harry has more plans to come to the UK and may even educate his children here.
Archie, six, will soon be of prep school age.
William and Harry began boarding at Ludgrove School in Wokingham at age eight, as is traditional for upper-crust children.
So perhaps it is telling Harry has another two years to go in the ‘rapprochement strategy’, which I revealed in this newspaper a year ago. The early signs came when his UK friends began receiving texts from the prince ahead of his 40th birthday last September.
Zoom calls with former Royal aides followed. As I reported at the time, Harry was swapping his advisers in Hollywood – who had seemingly done little to rescue his tattered reputation – for a more traditional Royal team, with Palace experience and a military background.
‘Harry is turning away from all sorts of Hollywood publicists and is seeking counsel from his old friends and associates,’ said a source at the time.
‘He is clearly reaching out thinking, “I need to do something different because what I’m doing is not working”. In short, he is rethinking the way he operates.’
As the year has gone by, it has all come to pass. Harry professionally separated from Meghan in January and later hired public relations expert Liam Maguire – just the type of gruff, ex-Sandhurst military man who the stubborn flame-haired prince would listen to.
Meanwhile, Meghan hired her own expert, Netflix reputation manager Meredith Maines. Later, the couple organised a ‘Royal household structure’ for their respective staff, with Meredith at the helm as ‘Head of Household’.
It gave Harry the tightly hierarchical operation he grew up with at Kensington Palace.
Tellingly, Liam – who served in Afghanistan and has worked for years on Invictus, Harry’s charity for wounded servicemen and women – only reports to the Duke.
By May, Harry was attempting to reconnect with old friends, even those who have sided with William. He was seen roaming the streets of Fulham, seemingly looking for the front door of aristocrat pals John and Georgina Vaughan. But the Vaughans had moved to the countryside.
A seismic change came in July when Harry dispatched Meredith and Liam to London to meet Tobyn Andreae, the King’s senior communications adviser.
As a peace offering, the latter arrived carrying a gift from Berry Brothers, a wine merchant with a Royal warrant from Charles.
It was perhaps intentional that the trio met at the Royal Over-Seas League, a St James’s clubhouse committed to fostering ‘international friendship’.
When Meghan’s Netflix series With Love, Meghan came out a month later, Harry did not feature in the programme nor participate in any of its promotion.
Instead, he and his team filled a hefty ring binder of updates and notes relating to his UK charities. He vowed to read up on every one of his patronages. Even the smaller ones he hardly meets were given an audience when he landed on September 8, such as Scotty’s Little Soldiers, which supports the children of service personnel who have died in action.
In the spirit of openness and cooperation, the Duke shared his timetable of events with Mr Andreae. In return, Harry’s team were informed Wednesday last week would be a wise day to keep his schedule London-based, as that is when Charles would come to the capital for his cancer treatment.
The Duke duly stuck close to the capital and kept his phone on. His team were asked to brief out the message they were in the dark over what private arrangements father and son were making.
Harry’s UK team did know, of course, but did not dare risk a leak by admitting as much. Intriguingly, even Meghan and her team in the US were none the wiser.
By Wednesday evening, Harry pulled off something many feared would never happen – a 54 minute-long reconciliation with his father at Clarence House.
It was proof that ‘Operation Bring Harry Back In From The Cold’ had gone to plan, a year almost to the day since this newspaper revealed its existence.
The next milestone is 2027 when the Invictus Games will be in Birmingham. Harry would dearly love to have the whole Royal Family by his side for the opening ceremony before the world’s media.
His concerns over the lack of government-issued security – having lost his Appeal Court case in May against the Home Office’s decision to roll back his police protection – is likely to keep Meghan and the children Archie and Lilibet, four, at home.
Yet if the chances of his wife attending are small then the likelihood of his brother accepting an invite is non-existent.
But as a source says: ‘Harry has learned this week that playing the long game works. So far, he’s been focused on reconnecting with Charles, his charities, the public and a smattering of old friends.
‘Harry hasn’t attempted to try his luck with William yet. But you never know, he’s feeling ambitious after this week – and two years is a long time in Royal politics.’
