He’s burning with anger, but silent William will play the long game

Friends accept the Prince of Wales has become a punching bag after Harry’s claims. But they insist he will suffer the blows for the sake of family and country.

Prince William’s friends say he will suffer the blows being inflicted by his brother for the sake of family and country. Picture: Getty

For what feels like for ever, Prince Harry has been trying his hardest to get a reaction from his big brother. First the Oprah Winfrey interview, then the Netflix documentary and now sibling Armageddon in the form of his book, Spare.

The sex, drugs and killing Taliban like “chess pieces” in Prince Harry’s memoir are jaw-dropping, but they pale in comparison to his character assassination of the Prince William. “Harold” and “Willy” were once brothers in arms. Now Harry has very different nicknames for Prince William: his “arch-nemesis” who saw “red mist” as he “attacked” his little brother over a dog bowl.

The heir has responded to the spare with deafening silence. Why? Because, as a close friend of both brothers explains, revenge is not how William rolls. “He won’t retaliate, he never would, because he’s dignified and unbelievably loyal. William is a sitting duck because Harry knows he isn’t going to retaliate. How many shots can you take at a sitting duck?

“It’s cruel, cowardly and so sad for William to keep taking the punches. He’s keeping quiet for the good of his family and the country.”

The heir has responded to the spare with deafening silence. Picture: Getty

As he quietly considers his brother’s hand grenades exploding over 416 leaked pages, though, discussing it only with his closest family and a small handful of friends, William is hurting. “He’s anxious and he’s sad,” says the friend. “He’s concentrating on his wife and his children, that’s what he has. He has to focus on them, and look out for the rest of the royal family. He’s handling it so well on the outside - inside he’s burning.”

Another friend says: “William will be going through a range of emotions - anger, concern and worry - not just for his family but how all this is going to affect the institution. He will be thinking strategically and grappling with the personal versus the institutional reaction. We know how closely he followed his grandmother’s example, and the institutional response may win the day over the personal. But he is staunchly protective of his own family, and he’s not just going to roll over.”

The Princess of Wales has not escaped, with Harry revealing spats between Meghan and Kate when the former said the latter had “baby brain” after giving birth to Prince Louis, and describing how Kate appeared “disgusted” after reluctantly lending Meghan her lip gloss.

Harry has a whole lot more to say, and will do so in four broadcast interviews over the coming days before his book’s official publication on Tuesday. William has made a different calculation, to let actions speak louder than words and let the job of being heir do the talking.

The Waleses will sail forth this week, resuming official duties after their Christmas break with a joint engagement.

“His focus is on getting on with the job and his commitment to duty and service is unwavering,” says an aide. “We’d rather concentrate on the work we’re doing than on books or anything else that is happening.”

A friend of the royal family says: “William is tough, the family can play the long game in the way Harry and Meghan can’t. They can channel their inner Queen Elizabeth: show, don’t tell, demonstrate this is the role you’ve taken on with courage and decency. That’s a very powerful counterpoint to all this.”

The King, portrayed in leaked extracts of Spare as a miserly, emotionally stunted father who didn’t hug his sons when he told them of Diana’s death, married Camilla despite their pleas not to fill the role of “wicked stepmother” and jealous of his sons’ and their wives’ popularity eclipsing his own, still fares better than William.

That has come as no relief, though, say the monarch’s friends: “The King is no less hurt because he personally hasn’t been the focus of the majority of the anger and frustration of the book. He feels it as keenly, it is no less painful for him because the focus is on his son rather than him. There is a lot family pain.”

Harry reveals that after the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral in 2021 Charles begged of his sons: “Please, boys, don’t make my final years a misery” - a plea that has fallen on deaf ears across the Atlantic. Another friend of the King, says: “Charles will be perplexed and heartbroken, but he is resilient.”

Harry’s disloyalty in spilling the beans has staggered lifelong friends of the brothers, who thought they would always have each other’s backs, no matter how distant they grew. While fisticuffs in the Nottingham Cottage kitchen in 2019 have long been known about in their tight-knit group, nobody thought Harry would go there. Why? Because of how much “shit” on Harry friends and family have kept under wraps for years, much of which has so far not emerged in the book’s leaked extracts.

“I don’t know how you can do that to your brother, even if you don’t like or get on with him any more,” says a friend of the royal family. “William was always there to pick up the pieces for Harry, he was his mum [after Diana]. There’s so much stuff over the years that Harry has rung friends up about and said, ‘throw away that photo, promise you won’t speak about this’. You could have a f***ing field day with shit on Harry. So could William, who (in comparison) is as clean as a whistle. I can’t believe he’d stoop so low. It’s outrageously disloyal.”

Another close friend of the brothers says: “It’s strategically not clever. Harry is good at getting his narrative out there but we know so much, we’ve cleaned up so many messes over the years, there is so much we could say.” Several friends of Harry, once loyal to him, say they are considering whether to go on the record to debunk some of his claims as “bollocks” and drop counter-bombshells of their own. “Loyalty works both ways,” warns one.

In the aftermath of the Sussexes’ Oprah interview, the Queen said “some recollections may vary”, and following their Netflix documentary former royal aides described some of their claims as “lies”. Harry promised the whole truth in his book, but some of his accounts have left those in the know scratching their heads.

His claim that it was William and Kate who encouraged him to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party in 2005 when Harry was 20 and “howled” with laughter when he phoned them to ask what to wear is news to a former royal aide who helped to handle the fallout and spoke to Harry at length at the time. “I was there in the middle of all of that, at no point did Harry ever say that to me,” they said. “There was no mention to any advisers at the time that it was William and Kate’s idea or they thought it was hilariously funny. That recollection did not exist at the time, contemporaneously.” Another well-placed friend who attended the same party, says of Harry pointing the finger at the Waleses: “Bullshit. It was nothing to do with them.”

Harry has also written that his role as best man at William and Kate’s 2011 wedding was a “barefaced lie” that he was forced to go along with to spare two of William’s friends - Thomas van Straubenzee and James Meade, who gave a joint speech at the evening reception - the scrutiny. “Willy didn’t want me giving a best man’s speech,” writes Harry, who says he was demoted to being a mere compere and introducing them. It is another version of events that has exasperated the brothers’ closest friends. “Harry didn’t want to be best man, he kept saying for months it should be Thomas and James because they were William’s best mates,” says one.

All week, royal watchers have wondered what Harry’s end goal is, musing that he can never win true happiness with a battle plan of endless attacks on his family and the institution, ultimately harming only himself.

But a friend of Harry says that view misses the point: “Maybe he already thinks he’s won by getting all his cards on the table. This is someone who was absolutely living a life for 30 years he really did not want to live. Of course he damages other people in the process, but he felt wronged and damaged for years.

“You can’t underestimate how angry he’s felt about being controlled within the confines of the institution for so long. What he definitely doesn’t want to do any more is live thinking, ‘What does it look like from a public relations angle?’ He’s not thinking, ‘How will I come across?’ He’s thinking, ‘F*** this, I’ve lived a life for so long where I’ve been controlled for so long’.

“People need to take a step back and ask why he has done it. Many will be asking if he’s genuinely OK. We know he isn’t. He’s damaged and one way to deal with it is to write a book.”

The Sunday Times revealed last month that Harry and Meghan want a reconciliation “summit” with the royal family prior to the coronation in May, but also want an “apology” and “accountability” for their grievances. Harry has reiterated all of that in his interview with the ITV presenter Tom Bradby, which will be broadcast on Sunday night, adding: “I would like to get my father back, I would like to have my brother back” but “they’ve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile”. Harry says “the ball is in their court” and “I really hope they’re willing to sit down and talk about it”.

The Sunday Times revealed last month that Harry and Meghan want a reconciliation “summit” with the royal family prior to the coronation in May. Picture: Getty

How will William and the King play it? “William would [want to reconcile] but how can he right now?” says a close friend. “Maybe once Harry has written a book about all the great work the royal family does.”

The family also struggles with how any future meeting could remain private, given the Sussexes have put so much into the public domain. It is a fear acknowledged even by friends of Harry and Meghan: “They realise they’ve got to a place where private conversations and calls could be questioned if they’re going to be private.”

A friend of the King says: “It’s a curious way to go about a reconciliation.” One of Harry’s biggest supporters in royal circles is also bemused by his strategy: “I don’t know how you can say you want your father and brother back after writing all that. But the King has a massive role to play here. If you’ve got Harry saying all this, there is a case of swallowing it and taking the higher ground. If he does, it will be easier for William to follow. They need to find the higher ground that is right for the family and the institution, otherwise it will continue to be a headache up to the coronation and beyond. Not talking about it will never work. The strength of this institution comes from the strength of the family.”

A source who knows the King well says: “The royal family has to avoid being vindictive but that doesn’t mean the King is going to fly out to Montecito to calm Harry down. They’ve got no alternative but to let the hurricane blow through.”

Of the royal households’ silence so far, a palace aide says: “What would be the point of stepping out into moving traffic? There is not a sense that the Palace walls are crumbling around us, we’re just focusing on getting on with the job.” Like his eldest son, the King will also be back out on manoeuvres this week. A royal adviser says: “What does Harry want from the family? He wants 100 per cent validation of their story, he wants the Palace to say we’re sorry in a way that says everything we’ve been saying since Oprah is true. That won’t happen, because it’s not all true. The Palace will rise above it and let time do its job.”

Harry has cast his attendance at the coronation in doubt, but sources close to him believe he will return to the UK for the service at Westminster Abbey on May 6: “It is an important moment for Harry’s father and he would want to show his respect.” If Harry does make it, he might be relieved to learn that he will not be required to kneel and pledge allegiance to his father. In a major break with tradition, Charles has scrapped the act of the royal dukes kneeling to “pay homage” before touching the crown and kissing the monarch’s right cheek. William will be the only royal to perform the tradition. A well-placed source says: “As things stand, there is no role for Harry in the service.” Courtiers will breathe a sigh of relief. Royal photographers and body language experts will be devastated.

After his fight with William, Harry reveals in the book, he called his therapist. A friend of the royal family suggests a session with the Princess Royal, the ultimate uncomplaining “spare”, would be time better spent. “He really ought to talk to Princess Anne,” says the friend. “She often talked about how, as children, she was treated so differently to Charles. She was second to him and kicked further down the line of succession as a woman, but she forged her own path. In her twenties she was bolshy and upset about a lot of things, but she came through that. He should talk to her about her experiences. She is shrewd, she could tell him a lot about what she went through.”

Only stony silence emanates from Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace as the royal family braces for Spare’s global publication on Tuesday, but at Lambeth Palace, prayers for the royal family have been upped from once to three times a day.

“They need some reconciliation, this undermines the whole institution,” says a source. “Harry’s turned into a human hand grenade.”

The Sunday Times