‘Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.’ That was the heartfelt plea to Princes William and Harry from their father Charles following Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021. Three years on and, despite the King’s shock cancer diagnosis and Harry’s subsequent mercy dash from California, there is still little hope of peace between the warring brothers.
Prince William made it clear he had ‘no plans’ to see Harry during his whistlestop 24-hour visit to London before he and Meghan visited Canada last week. Yet Harry has indicated that he’d like to see his brother – perhaps if he returns to London again in May.
Courtiers privately speculate that, at some point, William will have to swallow his pride and bury the hatchet for the sake of both his family and the nation. Certainly, his father would love to see his ‘darling boys’ make up. Is brotherly reconciliation, much less forgiveness, even possible? After all, William is famously stubborn and short-tempered. Harry is prickly and defensive. His memoir Spare was spiked with petty insults and self-pity as he sought to distance himself from his destiny as a ‘spare’ to his elder sibling, the heir, publicly branding the Prince of Wales his ‘arch nemesis’.
Can William ever trust his brother again? Kate used to act as peacemaker but, having been on the end of numerous Sussex salvos and currently recovering from major abdominal surgery, is understandably less inclined to broker a rapprochement. For William, it is the attacks on his wife – such as Harry’s claim that royal men ‘marry someone who would fit the mould’ as opposed to the
