Something which has been glossed over in the past week’s royal coverage is that Queen Camilla was not around for any of the royal maneuvers. Camilla has been hiding out in Balmoral (or Birkhall, more specifically) for the past month. She’s barely been seen after she went on a luxury vacation on a yacht with her family. Camilla did not join her husband in London last week for his day-trip, and she was not around when King Charles met Prince Harry at Clarence House. I think Charles set it up that way on purpose. Despite Camilla’s cozy relationship with the tabloids and the tabloids’ insistence that Charles would do anything to “protect” Camilla from Harry, Charles doesn’t consult with Camilla about every single thing and they spend a great deal of time apart. Which brings me to Roya Nikkhah’s exclusive in the Sunday Times. The piece is called: “Why Prince William can’t forgive Harry.” Roya was told the same thing that every other royal reporter was told, that William is absolutely furious about Harry (but too lazy to do much about anything). Check out the curious mention of Camilla in this piece though.
What will William make of his brother’s return? A royal source said William “has been very jolly all week” but publicly he has made no comment, preferring to focus on his own engagements. He will have kept a close eye on Harry’s coverage and the public’s reaction, though. While his younger brother bounced through balloon fights with children at the WellChild awards and splashy announcements of a £1.1m donation to Children in Need and more than £360,000 for the injured children of Gaza and Ukraine, William dutifully trudged from Berkshire to Lambeth to Cardiff for engagements which also championed young people and mental health awareness.
As much as Harry insists he remains committed to “a life of public service”, the reality is he walked away from the daily grind five years ago, with profound consequences for William and his family. Those wounds run deep.
For all Harry’s assaults on the royal family during Queen Elizabeth’s final years, the missiles fired in his memoir, Spare, the bombshells of the Sussexes’ Netflix documentary and all the interviews in between, friends say it is the fact there is no longer a wingman, a brother to share the present and future heavy load, that has always stung William most. He may never forgive him for the impact that has on Catherine, who is in remission from cancer, and Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, ten, and Prince Louis, seven, whose future responsibilities may have differed slightly if the Sussexes had stuck around.
As a close friend told me after Harry and Meghan left these shores, William “definitely feels the pressure now it’s all on him. His future looks different because of his brother’s choices. It’s not easy.”
Now the King has taken the first tentative step on the path towards reconciliation, the spotlight will turn to William, along with questions of whether he will, or should, do the same. There will be public commentary, expectation and hope that if a father considers forgiveness, why not a brother? But as another of William’s closest friends once told me, when it comes to relationships with the future king, “it is all about trust and loyalty”. William feels he has lost both with Harry and that may prove too difficult a roadblock to pass.
The King is now back at Balmoral for a few days before returning to London for the Duchess of Kent’s funeral on Tuesday, then hosting the Trumps at Windsor Castle from Wednesday on their state visit.
Charles will have briefed the Queen on his meeting with Harry, who has described her as “dangerous” and “a villain” who “left bodies in the street” in her quest to improve her public image. Camilla could be forgiven for not being jubilant about her husband’s reunion with Harry. As a royal source said: “He has been extremely unkind to her in print and in word and she doesn’t forgive easily.” And as a close friend of the King said: “The royal family make elephants look like they have short memories.” Some members of the family may, in time, forgive Harry for the damage and hurt they feel he has caused, but none of them will forget.
It’s interesting to consider that Charles might have blown off Camilla and William’s “concerns” by meeting Harry. It’s also striking that this is yet another instance where Camilla and William are on the same side, the side of racism, jealousy, pettiness, hatred and press-briefings. As for the main thrust of this piece, William and his inability to forgive Harry, I actually love how the stories keep changing. There’s never been any consistency with William’s side – he’s been absolutely furious with Harry for years. Years before Netflix, years before the Oprah interview, years before Harry & Meghan dipped. It’s almost like William’s original grievance, the real breaking point between brothers, was the fact that Harry fell in love with Meghan, an accomplished, beautiful, multilingual, kind, gracious American woman. William has not been able to keep his sh-t together for a f–king decade because his brother married a bad bitch. Incidentally, Camilla also couldn’t stand it – it was like Diana all over again.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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