Brothers at arms: how the Windsor boys went to war with each other
Royal editor Hannah Furness asks what led the once-united siblings, who went through so much together, to part ways
There was a time when Prince William and Prince Harry were the stuff of national fairy tale: two cheeky brothers at the feet of their beautiful princess mother, set to take on the world together.
As they grew older, a bond forged in unimaginable tragedy and, by their 20s, they had a sibling relationship so close it seemed unbreakable.
As the world now knows, that has been broken. Long coming, and played out via the press, Palace statements and Oprah, the Prince of Wales and Duke of Sussex are less brothers-inarms than rival royal courts.
The change in brotherly fortunes has never felt so stark as this week, as Harry spoke to Netflix viewers from the other side of the world. He did not drop any bombshells on his family; instead, there was a quiet drip of insights. Royal men except himself, he said, tended to marry women who “fit the mould” rather than for true love. Prince Seeiso, his Sentebale charity co-founder, was described as like a “brother”. The aftermath of his mother’s death left him “without much support or guidance”. And, tellingly, a chosen clip of Diana, Princess of Wales, herself, glowing as she watched her toddler sons and observing: “Harry is certainly a different character altogether.”
Her words could not have been more prescient. It is those different characters, insiders say, that set the brothers on their different current paths far earlier than the watching world knew. Before Megxit, before Meghan, plans were already in place to one day go their separate ways. All they needed was a catalyst.
In the story of Princes William and Harry, there is one image seared into the national psyche: the pair, aged 15 and 12, walking behind their mother’s coffin in an unthinkable show of public grief. Diana’s death, Prince William said simply in 2018, left them “uniquely bonded because of what we’ve been through”.
“They were closer than any siblings I’ve ever known,” says one who has been close to both brothers for years.
In the “party prince” era, the brothers were having fun. They supported one another through break-ups – Harry with a few mediumterm loves, while William was off-and-on with the future queen.
Those who know William say he fell into the role of a father figure. In 2008, it was William who could read Harry so well he blocked an interview at RAF Brize Norton, knowing it was too much for him. “It was the first time that I saw with my own eyes, the closeness of the relationship between the two brothers,” Miguel Head, who then worked for the Ministry of Defence and became their press secretary, has said. Head says that as Prince Harry, miserable to be brought home from his Afghanistan tour, got two questions into the interview, “Prince William suddenly stands up” and “does a cutting motion with his hand across his throat, saying, this is over”.
“It was simply a brother realising that at that point nothing was more important than his welfare.”
The support flowed in the other direction. At the 2011 Westminster Abbey wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, it was Prince Harry jollying the groom along.
The duo became a trio. Harry called Kate the “‘sister I never had”. As the
Cambridge children came along, Uncle Harry was a frequent playmate.
They worked together regularly. “William was more reserved about what you should say to the media,” says a source. Prince Harry wore his heart on his sleeve, telling interviewers of his hopes for settling down with a family of his own.
The idea that the Cambridges and Prince Harry could work together indefinitely, one insider said, gradually seemed “misguided”. “It puts too much pressure on their relationship,” they said. “It’s not healthy.”
Still, separation was in the distant future; they hoped to work together until the death of the late Queen. In the meantime, the Heads Together mental health project saw William, Kate and Harry take equal thirds of credit. No more the “third wheel”, Prince Harry led the way with publicity (launching it via his podcast interview with The Telegraph). Privately, he said he felt like a “gooseberry”. Yet he was making headway. The Invictus Games was a wild success, and the squaddie prince had never been more popular. Then, to his joy, he met Meghan.
William is said to have raised concerns about how quickly the relationship was moving. Friends say he was trying to reassure his brother there was no rush; Harry and Meghan’s Finding Freedom biographers say the Prince was offended at an instruction to “take as much time as you need to get to know this girl”. “Harry was tired of the dynamic that had become established between him and his older brother,” they say. If William was once a father figure, Harry now had someone else to listen to.
“A lot of this predates Meghan, but it’s fair to say her arrival changed things,” says a source. The stress of the royal wedding raised tensions behind the scenes. A row over a tiara, tears over bridesmaids dresses and – a secret at the time, coming to light in 2020 – an official complaint about bullying from the Duchess of Sussex, are said to scratch the surface of what went on.
Allies of Prince William say he continuously checked in on household staff. Harry, say others, was “annoyed” to learn that his brother was apologising, seeing it as siding with staff who “weren’t delivering” on his priority of protecting his wife.
The Cambridges, relatively content with an imperfect system that balanced their family’s public and private roles, watched as Harry and Meghan tried to reset their own rules around royal births and christenings to increasing public ill-feeling.
The crunch point, say those familiar with negotiations, was professional. The Sussexes wanted to tread their own path with commercial work, while the Cambridges could not. “One wanted to flex, the other couldn’t flex,” says a source. If the brothers had always known they had different destinies – William on the throne, Harry as the self-described “spare” – it had never been so obvious.
The rock-star reception that greeted Meghan did not match up with the reality of the Sussexes’ future as second fiddle in the “royal hierarchy” that seems to have confused Harry. If William and Kate were allergic to celebrity, the sight of Meghan embracing the spotlight was alien.
In the 18 months after the wedding, things deteriorated to the point of no return. “We thought there was a way of solving it,” says a former palace aide. “The principals hoped there was an answer. Their father [King Charles] definitely hoped there was an answer. But it became clear the only way forward was to separate the households.”
Thus, the Cambridges stayed at Kensington Palace while the Sussexes moved to their own office under the umbrella of Buckingham Palace. “There was a divorce going on but the terms hadn’t been worked through,” says a source, wryly. “A lot of the talk behind the scenes was, ‘We need to bring these brothers back together, they’re always better together.’ They were still talking, but it was tense.”
It did not take long before trust broke down. To understand the differences, one need look no further than Meghan’s own words to Netflix. She is “boiling over with ideas”, she said, a barefoot hugger in comparison with the Cambridge formality. “Everything”, she said of British royal life, “is just…smaller.”
The problem of how to make it work pushed the other households closer together, Prince William, his father and the late Queen eventually tasked with solving it.
In October 2019, the Sussexes blew up their own South Africa tour with a condemnation of the media. Prince Harry told broadcaster Tom Bradby he and his brother are on “different paths”. Meghan said that “not many people ask if I’m OK”. By November 2019, confirmation that Harry, Meghan and Archie would be taking a six-week break heralded the end of an era. They fled to Canada, then to California.
“It was rushed,” says a source. “The Palace was concerned with how to make it work in the long term. The question was, ‘What does success look like here?’ – not just for Harry but for the next generation.”
The Sussexes, frustrated by what they saw as obstructive men in grey suits, “wanted answers now, now, now”. By then, the relationship between the princes appeared irretrievable. At the Sandringham Summit, in which details of how the Sussexes’ new life could work were hammered out, they tried to recreate their old understanding by going for a walk. “There were still moments,” said a friend. “But it wasn’t the same.” At a Commonwealth Day Service, the Sussexes’ final royal engagement, the couples could barely swap a friendly word. By the time the Oprah comments were aired, from an anonymous royal racist to “she made me cry”, any pretence of reunion had shattered.
Even the death of the late Queen could not heal the rift. The couples undertook a walkabout in a show of unity, but did not reconcile in private.
Prince William is said not to be watching the Netflix documentary. Despite “anger and sadness” about it all, friends claim he still won’t tolerate a negative word about his brother.
Those who knew the pair of old hope that six hours to share his version of the story, and a memoir to come, will leave Harry feeling heard. “He’s always had a deep, deep desire to be understood,” said one.
No-one really thinks a reconciliation is close. “Everyone thought they needed to get back together,” says a long-standing ally. “Now, I don’t think there’s anyone who really believes that’s possible. Working together will never happen. But can they be brothers again? You’ve got to hope.”
“Life is long,” says another, optimistically. “Miracles happen.”
‘Working together will never happen. But can they be brothers again? You’ve got to hope’