TIME TO HEAL RIFT
Ex-PM Major urges William and Harry to unite in grieving
PRINCES William and Harry should use the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral to patch up their relationship, former PM Sir John Major said yesterday.
The Duke of Sussex is due to return to the UK from California, where he lives with wife Meghan and son Archie, ahead of Saturday’s funeral and is expected to stay at his Grade II-listed home, Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.
Meghan, 39, will not travel with him because she is pregnant.
It will be the first time Harry has been with the Royal Family since the Sussexes’ bombshell interview with US chat-show queen Oprah Winfrey last month.
Harry levelled a series of allegations against his family – including saying he felt “let down” by his father Prince Charles.
Sir John, 78, hopes the family will use the bereavement to heal the “rift” between the brothers.
He was asked about comments by Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols who said: “Many a family gather and get over tension and broken relationships at the time of a funeral, something very profound unites them all again – that would be true of this family, I’m sure.”
Asked if he agreed with the remarks, Sir John told the BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show: “I am sure he is right, I hope he is right, I believe he is right and I certainly hope so. “The friction that we are told has arisen is a friction better ended as speedily as possible, and a shared emotion, a shared grief, at the present time because of the death of their father, their grandfather, I think is an ideal opportunity.
“I hope very much it is possible to mend any rifts that may exist.”
Sir John developed a close relationship with the Queen during their weekly audiences, while he was Prime Minister and he formed a tight bond with the Royal Family.
He played a key role in the brothers’ teenage years when, just four months after he was booted
out of No10 in Labour’s election landslide, their mother Diana was killed in a Paris car crash in August 1997.
After a suggestion by the Prince of Wales, he was appointed their “special guardian”, responsible for the legal and administrative matters relating to William, now 38, and Harry, 36.
In November 1997, he applied in the High Court for extra powers to “protect their interests” over souvenirs and memorabilia related to their late mother – to stop people cashing in on the princess’s image.
This made sure the money went to her memorial fund instead. The former Conservative leader, who was PM from November 1990 to May 1997, was the only British politician at Harry and Meghan’s wedding in 2018 – demonstrating the affection in which he is held by the royals.
He also attended William and Kate’s nuptials in 2011.
The Queen, who is 95 in nine days, is expected to scale back some public engagements as she comes to terms with widowhood and it was reported yesterday that she may spend more time at Balmoral in Scotland. Sir John called for other members of the Royal Family to fill the void.
He wants to see a “smaller core taking a higher profile”, and said: “The Queen is both a stoic and a remarkable public servant.
“She will return to her work, but I do hope she’s given a little space and a little time and a little freedom to grieve in the way anybody else would wish to do so after having lost their spouse.
“Over the next few years for a raft a reasons, not least the Queen’s vulnerable age, you will see Prince Charles and Prince William and other members of the family taking a greater role – the burden will be spread a little wider, a little deeper than it has been in the past.
“I think those changes will come.” The former prime minister said that “it will be difficult” for the Queen, for whom Prince Philip was one of the few people who could “literally put their arms around you and say, ‘It’s not as bad as you think, this is what we have to do, this is how we can do it’”.
He added: “There are no doubt millions of people watching this programme who have lost a partner, a spouse, and it is a very lonely time.
“The Queen and Prince Philip had 73 years of marriage together – that is extraordinary.
“It will be an enormous hole in her life that suddenly Prince Philip isn’t there.”
He went on: “Prince Philip may physically have gone, but he will be in the Queen’s mind as clearly as if she was sitting opposite him.
“She will hear his voice metaphorically in her ear. She will know what he will say in certain circumstances. He will still be there in her memory. The echo will be there, it always will be.”
A shared emotion or grief is an opportunity to end the friction SIR JOHN MAJOR ON PRINCES’ ‘RIFT’