This crisis is as dangerous as the Abdication
That’s the devastating verdict on Harry and William’s rift by one of Britain’s most distinguished royal biographers, whose new book lays bare the full inside story. And you can read it only in the Mail
ON HISTORIAN and royal biographer Robert Lacey’s desk is a large envelope, still sealed. It contains draft chapters from his latest book, which — as is his custom — he sent to Buckingham Palace pre-publication.
It’s quite unusual for a royal writer to do this, but Lacey has always worked this way. In 1977, when he was more famous for being an investigative journalist, he wrote what is still regarded as the definitive biography of the Queen. Palace officials co- operated, and he was invited to have tea with senior courtiers.
He has never allowed his subjects to veto his work, but he says allowing them to see ‘parts, not all of a book’ in advance is courteous and allows those involved to challenge key points, if necessary.
‘It allows debate,’ he says. ‘If they don’t agree with something, we can argue it out.’
So he packed up the key chapters from his latest book and sent them off, fully aware that the Palace may not like some aspects of his forensic account of what is happening in the House of Windsor. He was a little surprised, though, when the package was returned to him, unopened, with a terse covering letter. In short, the Palace did not want to know.
The problem? The book is called Battle Of Brothers, and it picks apart — in uncompromising detail — the feud between Prince William and Prince Harry. The Palace’s response, to a previously trusted and respected author — one whose aristocratic wife was a maid of honour at the Queen’s Coronation — speaks volumes, he thinks.
‘ They took fright over the title, probably,’ says Robert, acknowledging that, had it been opened, the book might have had the effect of a grenade.
But and started the important. to title look is into correct, When this I supposed feud between the two princes, I didn’t believe it. I thought it was newspapers stirring up something that wasn’t there. I didn’t want to believe it, in truth. None of us does. Yet it most definitely exists. Actually, it’s worse than anyone thinks.
‘Some say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. It will blow over.” But that’s not what historians will be saying in ten years’ time. If this breach between the brothers is not healed in some way it will come to stand with the Abdication crisis and the death of Diana as one of the traumas that changed the monarchy. There is time to change things in a positive direction, but at the moment the Palace is not working in that direction.’
Robert’s book — serialised in the Mail tomorrow and next week — paints a devastating picture of the fall-out from this breakdown in the once- close relationship between the two brothers. It traces the lives of both of them — and their very different spouses — from the moments they were born.
As we know, it is not the only new book to touch on the lives of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Its approach is very different, however, to that of Finding Freedom, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, which tells the Harry and Meghan story from their point of view.
Too much so, he believes. ‘It is very much written in the oldfashioned adulatory style of royal eulogy,’ he says. Does he believe the couple were directly involved in briefing the authors? ‘Well, put it this way, there are some descriptions that could only have come from the lips of Harry or Meghan.’
For his own book, Robert spent months talking to royal insiders about when the cracks in the brothers’ relationship started to appear (spoiler alert: it happened earlier than you think), and, pointedly, how the system of monarchy conspired to fan the flames of resentment rather than broker a compromise between the two.
Thanks to Robert’s reputation, countless individuals with direct knowledge of what happened agreed to help. Because of the sensitivities, the main sources declined to be named, ‘but there was no shortage of people who did want to talk, because this is an issue there is huge concern about’.
Robert, who is also a consultant on the Netflix series The Crown, once moved his family (he has three children with his first wife Sandi) to Jeddah to write a book
on the Saudi royal family. He is impeccably connected. In 2012 he married widow Lady Jane Rayne, daughter of the 8th Marquess of Londonderry — but he points out that his professional reputation pre-dates all this.
Above relationship princes all, is critical he between insists to the the the Family. question ‘It of future matters,’ values, of even he the says. about Royal ‘It’s the a national modern royalty morale. was The built idea on of our the idea of these two brothers.
‘What you’ve got to realise is that the whole strategy of the monarchy was based on them sticking together. Meghan changed all that. She is difficult. She has an incredible and dangerous level of self-belief.
‘But the Palace got this very wrong, as it always does with the second-born. They always treat the second-born badly, not to say cruelly. It happened with Princess Margaret. It happened with Prince Andrew. It’s the classic heir and the spare thing. They just don’t know what to do with the spare. And they certainly didn’t know what to do with the spare’s wife.’
The battle referred to in the title is, he agrees, about ‘not just two brothers, two charming, talented but ultimately damaged young men’, but about wider battles. Love versus duty. Tradition versus reinvention.
Today, in conversation, Robert is both passionate about his subject and despairing. Not a single soul comes out of the book looking particularly good.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as depicted in the book, are selfpitying, and assume an astonishing level of entitlement. Prince William is praised for having the duty gene
but temper. criticism. and Meghan hurt, described Even an but Harry escape. a the young as is, Queen having by man turns, comes who a terrible hapless finds in for in
today. ‘He finds ‘He realised new destiny,’ there was Robert something says rotten at the heart of royalness that is not for him.’
Then there is Diana, the late Princess of Wales, whom he describes as an ‘antiroyal’ — he points out the parallels with Meghan, going as far as to say ‘in her own way Meghan walks through minefields like Diana did. Metaphorical minefields’.
The Prince of Wales? It’s noticeable that he’s largely absent from our conversation today. Doesn’t he hold the key to bringing the feuding brothers back together?
It has been a long time since William has sought counsel from his father, Robert suggests. ‘William looks to his grandmother for his values, not to his father. He thinks his father has . . . lost his way. But perhaps there is still time for Charles to act. I hope so.’
THE book gives the impression believe situation’ in Markle. ‘There the Royal the is If everyone way. apportion appallingly. only they Palace Family one Robert had handled self-made has and sat blame is rather that down careful ‘the millionaire is but lost with Meghan Meghan not does their her to at the might the things have start you been and are said, different. interested “Let’s talk in”, things about
Queen ‘They just opening sent the her off Mersey to watch Bridge. the There is nothing wrong with that, but they made the mistake of dealing with the spare’s wife thinking she was just a routine royal. She was never going to be a routine royal.’
Nor should she have been, he argues. ‘I don’t want to go too deeply into the race thing, because that is another minefield altogether, but with Meghan the Royal Family had a mixed-race recruit, and for a monarchy that represents a mixed-race nation and a mixed-race commonwealth this was important. Is it any wonder Barbados and Jamaica are now saying, “We are signing off. We can do without the Queen, thank you very much.”
‘To have failed to hold on to their mixed-race recruit was a mistake.’
Didn’t the whole sorry mess come about because, as he puts it in the book, the ‘Windsors don’t do woke’?
‘They don’t do woke, but if they are to survive, the Windsors have to find their own way to do woke.’
Today, he thinks the baton is mostly in William’s hand, and warns that the history of tomorrow is being written today.
‘Does Prince William want to go down in history as the king who couldn’t hold his family together? This thing has to be resolved, one way or the other.’