Prince Harry shed light on a tense encounter with his father, King Charles , and his brother, Prince William , during a ‘secret meeting’ aimed at resolving their ongoing rift. The meeting took place in 2021 when Harry returned to London for the funeral of his grandfather, Prince Philip. This was Harry’s first trip back to the UK since he and his wife, Meghan Markle , stepped down as senior royals.
In his memoir, Spare , Harry wrote about his anxiety while waiting for his brother and father . He shared, “At last, I saw them. Shoulder to shoulder, striding towards me, they looked grim, almost menacing…they looked tightly aligned. My stomach dropped. Normally they’d be squabbling about one thing or another, but now they appeared to be in lockstep— in league. The thought occurred— Hang on, are we meeting for a walk…or a duel?”
As per Mirror , Harry added, “I rose from the wooden bench, made a tentative step towards them, and gave a weak smile. They didn’t smile back. Now my heart started thrashing in my chest. Deep breaths, I told myself. Apart from fear, I was feeling a kind of hyper-awareness, and a hugely intense vulnerability, which I’d experienced at other key moments of my life. Walking behind my mother’s coffin. Going into battle for the first time. Giving a speech in the middle of a panic attack. There was that same sense of embarking on a quest, and not knowing if I was up to it, while also fully knowing that there was no turning back. That fate was in the saddle. OK, Mummy, I thought, picking up the pace, here goes. Wish me luck. We met in the middle of the path.” He revealed that he greeted them affectionately with, ‘Willy’ and ‘Pa’, to which they responded with a single ‘painfully tepid’ word- ‘Harold’.
The Duke is nicknamed Harold by his family, even though his full name is Henry. Reflecting further on the cold welcome, he recounted having “vowed not to let the encounter devolve into another argument.” He explained, “But I quickly discovered that it wasn’t up to me…Pa and Willy had their parts to play, and they’d come ready for a fight. Every time I ventured a new explanation…started a new line of thought, one or both of them would cut me off.”
After #Spare Prince Harry said that 450 pages were left out to protect those who didn’t/wouldn’t protect him as a child or as a man with a family. Spare is not only his story but a Meghan and Harry, the Sussexes’ story. Should he write a sequel? It’s their choice, a H&M choice pic.twitter.com/8vyhBRhjFZ
— Carmella (@Sussex5525) May 14, 2024
Following the release of Spare , Harry revealed that he had removed several important details about his family . As per Marie Claire , he admitted, “It could have been two books, put it that way. And the hard bit was taking things out. There are some things…that have happened, especially between me and my brother, and to some extent between me and my father, that I just don’t want the world to know. Because I don’t think they would ever forgive me.”