Prince Harry was not told his sister-in-law had personally decided against travelling to Balmoral when the late Queen was dying, a fascinating new biography reveals.
While the royal had raged at his father on the September day in 2022 when Charles asked him to come alone to Scotland, leaving wife Meghan behind, he was apparently pacified by the news that Kate was not going too.
But what he didn’t know, royal biographer Robert Hardman now reveals, is that the king hadn’t actually asked Kate to stay away.
She had decided herself to remain at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor with her three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
They were starting their new school, Lambrook, on September 8 and the Duchess of Cambridge she felt they needed one parent with them.
Prince Harry was not told his sister-in-law had personally decided against travelling to Balmoral when the late Queen was dying, a fascinating new biography reveals. Above: Catherine, the then Duchess of Cambridge, leaves Windsor Castle on September 9, 2022, the day after the Queen’s death
Her husband, Prince William, was understandably racing up to Scotland to see his grandmother with the then Earl and Countess of Wessex and Duke of York.
‘It was by luck rather than judgement, but it made it a lot easier to tell Harry that he was coming alone,’ a royal aide says.
The book also notes that, ‘like the late Duke of Edinburgh, she [Queen Elizabeth] did not like a queue of family well-wishers flocking to her bedside when ill’.
The revelation comes in a compelling new biography of the King, ‘Charles III: New King, New Court. The Inside Story,’ by the Daily Mail’s esteemed royal expert, Robert Hardman.
The book is being serialised in the Mail over the next four days, starting on Saturday.
It details the dramatic story of the King’s accession to the throne and boasts unrivalled access to the Royal Family, their close friends, staff past and present, top politicians and previously unseen papers in the Royal Archives which are kept under lock and key.
While Harry plays a notably small part in the wider story, the book does details how, as the later Queen’s life slowly ebbed away, drama was brewing in the background.
As the Queen’s life slowly ebbed away, a Harry-related drama was brewing in the background. Although he had apparently turned down an opportunity to visit his grandmother at Balmoral, the prince was in the UK with his wife Meghan when his father personally called him to break the news her health on was failing on September 8. Above: Harry on his way to Balmoral on the day of the Queen’s death
The prince was in the UK with his wife Meghan when his father personally called him to break the news her health on was failing on September 8.
In his memoir, Spare, he claims he then texted his elder brother to ask about travel arrangements but William didn’t reply.
‘Clearly, Prince William did not regard this as the appropriate moment for the intensely difficult conversation he needed to have with his brother,’ Daily Mail royal expert Robert Hardman writes dryly.
There was wariness, he says, about Harry’s forthcoming biography and many in the family were still sore over the Sussexes’ ‘reckless betrayal’ as regards their Oprah Winfrey interview.
‘Some of the family were probably ready to give him a piece of their mind,’ Hardman quotes a source saying.
Prince Harry and Meghan stand behind King Charles and Queen Camilla on the day of the Queen’s funeral
King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, is seen with his mother the Queen and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the Buckingham Palace balcony during Trooping the Colour in 2018
In normal circumstances senior royals wouldn’t even discuss such logistics themselves. That would be left to their staff.
Kensington Palace say Harry’s team – ‘the Sussex camp’ – ‘had all the numbers’ but no such call came.
Charles called Harry again. It is in this call, the prince later claimed, he was told to come without Meghan.
‘We can easily image the dread with which the [then] Prince of Wales approached that call. The Sussexes’ capacity for taking offence was well known and as everyone was conscious that any conversation could end up in the public domain – as, indeed, this one did three months later,’ Hardman says dryly.
Harry raged at his father over Meghan, he later admitted, describing him in Spare as ‘nonsensical and disrespectful’.
‘I wasn’t having it. Don’t ever speak about my wife that way,’ he wrote.
But Charles explained that he didn’t want lots of people in the house and, besides, Harry’s sister-in-law, the Duchess of Cambridge wasn’t coming either.
‘Then that’s all you needed to say,’ the prince wrote, apparently mollified by this.
But what he didn’t know, Hardman reveals, is that the king hadn’t asked Kate to stay away at all.
‘She had certainly not been asked to stay away,’ he writes.
‘Rather, it was the start of a new term at a new school for George, Charlotte and Louis, and she had decided that one parent should be with them on such an important day.’
The Queen on September 6, 2022, when she welcomed new Prime Minister Liz Truss to Balmoral. She passed away two days later
The revelations form part of a fascinating new biography of the King, ‘Charles III: New King, New Court. The Inside Story’ by the Mail’s esteemed royal writer Robert Hardman
He stresses at that stage no-one quite knew how bad the situation had become.
Harry also claimed in Spare that no-one that told him his grandmother had died and that he had to learn the news from a BBC breaking news alert on his phone as he touched down in Scotland that evening on a commercial flight.
‘Not exactly,’ write Hardman. ‘A member of Palace staff says that the King had been urgently trying to make contact with his younger son. ‘There were repeated attempts to get through to him but no calls were going through because Harry was airborne,’ says the official.
Adapted from Charles III by Robert Hardman, to be published by Macmillan on 18 January at £22. © Robert Hardman 2024. To order a copy for £17.60 (offer valid to 29/02/2024; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
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