From
bestselling author and historical consultant to the award-winning Netflix
series The Crown, an unparalleled insider account of tumult, secrecy and schism
in the Royal family.
The
world has watched Prince William and Prince Harry since they were born. Raised
by Princess Diana to be the closest of brothers, how have the boy princes grown
into very different, now distanced men?
From
royal insider, biographer and historian Robert Lacey, this book reveals the
untold details of William and Harry’s closeness and estrangement, asking what
happens when two sons are raised for vastly different futures – one burdened
with the responsibility of one day becoming king, the other with the knowledge
that he will always remain spare. How have William and Harry both agreed and
diverged in their views of what a modern royal owes to their country? Were the
seeds of damage sowed by Prince Charles and Princess Diana as their marriage
unraveled for all the world to see? In the previous generation, how have Prince
Charles and Prince Andrew’s own relations strained under the Crown? What role
has Queen Elizabeth II played in marshalling her feuding heirs? What parts have
Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle played in helping their husbands to choose
their differing paths? And what is the real, unvarnished story behind Harry and
Meghan’s dramatic departure?
In the
most intimate vision yet of life behind closed doors, with its highs, lows and
discretions all laid out, this is a journey into royal life as never offered
before.
9 Royal Tabloid Controversies Explained in Robert
Lacey’s Battle of Brothers
In the new book about the rift between Prince Harry
and Prince William, the British press might just be the third most important
character.
BY ERIN
VANDERHOOF
OCTOBER 21,
2020
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/10/royal-tabloid-controversies-robert-lacey-battle-of-brothers
In his new
book, Battle of the Brothers: William and Harry—The Inside Story of a Family in
Tumult, Robert Lacey, royal expert and historical consultant to the The Crown,
tells the story of the recent schism separating Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
from the rest of the royal family from the very beginning: when Prince Charles
and Princess Diana first met. According to Lacey, the roots of Harry’s eventual
disillusionment are seen pretty clearly in the cold and difficult relationship
between his parents and the ways his mother pushed back against royal
strictures.
The story
of Charles and Diana has been told before, and so has the story of Meghan and
Harry. But in his version, Lacey takes a closer look at the way the press
itself shaped the lives of the people they were writing about as everything
unfolded. He examines how the family participated with the press, reporting
that Camilla Parker-Bowles, now the Duchess of Cornwall, had a weekly telephone
appointment with a journalist from the Sun throughout the 80s, where she would
share tidbits she gleaned from her phone conversations with Charles. He also
discusses the way explosive press battles between Charles and Diana had an
impact on William and Harry’s upbringing. In one poignant moment, Lacey writes
that William’s boarding school had subscriptions to national newspapers, but on
a day his parents’ arguments led the news, they were not distributed to the
students to avoid causing him distress.
Treating
the press as a significant force—and some of the leading royal correspondents
as characters—means that Lacey brings a new eye to some of the biggest tabloid
controversies and mysteries of the last quarter century. Here are some of the
most fascinating ones.
William
welcomed Camilla into the family—but she was surprised by his temper. Camilla
remained friendly with Charles throughout his marriage to Diana, and though
there is some debate about when their affair began, Lacey reports that William
and Harry never met their future stepmother until after Diana’s death. They did
know about her, and William finally met her in 1998 when he made a surprise
visit to Charles and Camilla at home. Though he was friendly, the meeting
stressed Camilla out. “I need a gin and tonic,” she told a friend she said
afterward, before pouring herself a double. After his parents split, William
was angry at Charles and the tension seemingly lingered for decades. Camilla
later told friends that she was alarmed by William’s screaming and fiery temper
when he got into it with Charles.
William and
Harry were both wild partiers in high school. In the early 2000s, Harry had a
reputation for being an out-of-control partier, a period Lacey returns to when
trying to figure out when William and Harry first began to fight. William was
responsible for turning the basement at Highgrove House into what Lacey calls a
“disco rumpus room” called Club H, pouring Harry his first shots, and
introducing him to marijuana at Eton, though Harry did continue to party after
William graduated. Insiders who spoke to Lacey said that Harry resented that
William never got the type of negative headlines he did, and was even convinced
that Charles’s press officer was feeding the stories to newspapers to make him
look bad.
There’s a
chance Kate only decided to go to St. Andrews after she heard William was
going. A long-forgotten tabloid controversy centers on the exact timeline of
Kate’s application to the university where she eventually met William. In
August 2000, William’s decision to attend St. Andrew’s to study the history of
art was made public. At first, Kate had applied and had committed to Edinburgh
University, where some of her friends were planning to go. Sometime in late
August or September, according to Lacey, Kate changed her mind and decided to
defer for a year and apply to St. Andrew’s, and her high school made her write
a formal letter to Edinburgh to apologize. Lacey isn’t sure exactly what her
motivations were, but he points out that applications for female students
jumped 44% after William announced his choice. Even if Kate did apply because
she harbored a slight crush on the prince who was already a global star, she
certainly wasn’t alone. Who among us, Lacey concludes, wouldn’t do the same?
The tiara
fight before Meghan’s wedding to Harry really happened—but it was way more
complicated than previously reported. In November 2018, rumors that Meghan was
denied her choice in tiara first erupted, adding to the narrative that the
palace referred to her as “Duchess Difficult.” Subsequent versions of the story
have cast doubt on the fact that Meghan was even there at all, and the authors
of Finding Freedom, another bombshell biography, claim the fight was between
Harry and the Queen Elizabeth’s dresser Angela Kelly about using the tiara for
a hair trial. According to Lacey, the queen did say no to a first suggestion
made by Meghan because it might have been acquired sketchily after the Russian
Revolution and is thus rarely put on display. If Harry questioned his
grandmother after that, Lacey thinks it might have only been because he didn’t
understand the significance of the tiara.
The
Buckingham Palace staff, specifically the queen’s private secretary and his
allies, were not fans of Meghan’s. According to Lacey, Meghan joined the family
right as a staff shakeup at Buckingham Palace had become contentious. The
queen’s longtime right-hand man, Christopher Geidt, had been pushed out of his
role, and his replacement, Edward Young, was not as beloved or competent a
manager. As a result, unflattering leaks from palace insiders went up
considerably starting in late 2017, meaning that some of the venom aimed at
Meghan might have been a coincidence. Lacey also believes that Young
particularly disliked Meghan and thus saddled her with a light, boring schedule
that didn’t allow her to get involved. Her two signature projects from her
years at the palace, the cookbook she worked on with Grenfell Tower fire
survivors and the issue of British Vogue she guest-edited, were both developed
without the help of the palace office, and made some insiders angry.
The Mail on
Sunday sent a reporter out to Meghan’s dad once they read about Meghan’s letter
to her father in the pages of People. Currently, Meghan is in the middle of a
lawsuit with Associated Newspapers, the parent company of the Mail, over their
February 2019 decision to publish excerpts of a private letter she wrote to her
father. In defense documents, the company has claimed that the fact that an
anonymous friend of Meghan mentioned the letter in a People interview means
that they had the right to publish it. According to Lacey, they did send a
reporter to Thomas Markle’s house in Mexico, trying to track the letter down
after reading about it in People. It does give some credence to the argument
made by Meghan’s legal team that reporters interfered in her family life in a
troubling way.
Harry and
Meghan gave the palace no warning before filing their lawsuits against the
press—and this was a breaking point for the rest of the family. When Meghan and
Harry announced the Associated Newspaper suit and Harry’s decision to sue two
organizations over phone hacking, they did it on a website that didn’t belong
to the palace. Lacey reports that the palace had no advanced warning about the
decision, despite the fact that tradition dictates that a royal family member
should ask the queen permission before moving forward on a legal matter. Lacey
adds that William, who was already angry at his brother for disregarding
tradition when it came to Archie’s birth announcement and Meghan’s British
Vogue issue, and the rest of the family saw this as a line in the sand.
Harry did
give the palace 10 minutes notice before announcing their royal exit, leading
to acrimony and meltdown in the palace. According to Lacey, emotions ran high
inside the summit where Harry would negotiate his future with William, Charles,
the queen, and a few aides. William was so angry that he refused to join for
lunch beforehand, and told friends that he didn’t want to be around to hash out
the details. However, a palace insider told Lacey that the decision to strip
Harry of all his palace-bestowed honors, like honorary military appointments,
was not inevitable and may have been the result of vindictiveness on behalf of
Young, the queen’s palace secretary. It also wasn’t inevitable that they be
stripped of their ability to use their HRH titles or royal status in order to
seek financial independence, but Lacey believes that their impulsive behavior
over the last year had made the queen less forgiving than she might have been
when she made her decision.
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