The prospect of William, the Prince of Wales, meeting his younger brother Harry for a cup of tea while he was in the UK last week was always something of a long shot.
The extraordinary fall out from the Duke of Sussex’s dramatic departure from the royal family in 2020, and his subsequent injudicious public musings on the faultlines within his own family, have given William the space and justification to fully retreat from his leaky sibling.
Who could blame the Prince of Wales for distancing himself from a series of personalised attacks? First, there was the Oprah interview when the Sussexes alluded to a racist royal family. Then there was the publication of Harry’s memoir Spare, in which he singled out the future king for his “alarming baldness”, “fading” good looks and hot temper.
Subsequently, cancer diagnoses for both the King and Kate, the Princess of Wales, have further entrenched the distance between the two brothers. The mood music is clear – the inhabitants of Kensington Palace have more than enough on their plate without worrying about a disloyal duke.
Meanwhile, over in California Harry has had time to rethink the impact of his dramatic departure. The Prince has quietly dropped his demand for an apology from the family he left behind in Britain, and in an interview last year he ruefully mused that there were some who would never forgive him. Be in no doubt: Harry was talking about his brother.
William is not a man for turning and clearly doesn’t think he has to. Without the Sussexes stealing his thunder, the Prince of Wales would be forgiven for believing he is untouchable. Palace sources confirm that the beleaguered King depends heavily on his eldest son. The transition monarch and his fragile reign is an inflection point that further emboldens ideas of William’s unassailable position, all of which is dangerous for a man not known for his flexibility or moderation.
Note that despite the public outcry, the Prince of Wales did not attend the 2023 Women’s World Cup final in Australia, in which England played Spain; ditto his refusal to obey the royal convention that insists the future king does not fly with his children in a helicopter. In other words, William does exactly what he wants to do. He does not want to make up with his younger brother, and so he won’t. Which is a great pity for the future of Britain’s monarchy.
At its best the royal family is the nation’s symbolic repository in an increasingly divided world. The late Queen Elizabeth II has always been the obvious model for William’s future reign: a unifying figure, a point of stability across the generations, and crucially a monarch who comes to the throne without the baggage of his father.
Yet any hopes of that will be dashed if he cannot bring himself to offer Harry a rapprochement. Forgiveness, after all, is an essential prerequisite for a future defender of the faith.
It is not as if William is afraid of wading into difficult territory elsewhere. According to Sir David Manning, his former foreign affairs adviser, the Prince was keen after visiting the Middle East in 2018 to “stay engaged with both the Jewish community in Britain and the Palestinians”. To be clear, the man who can’t reach out to his own brother wants to “help philanthropically on both sides of the line” in the world’s most intractable conflict.
If the sibling rupture continues the implications for monarchy are not good, and the polling is only heading in one direction. In 1983 the British Social Attitudes survey first took the nation’s royal temperature and the results were conclusive: 86 per cent of the population endorsed monarchy. But 40 years later in 2023 only 54 per cent of the population expressed any commitment to royalty, and they were almost all from older cohorts.
Some of the younger generation have simply drifted away, but increasing numbers are actively hostile towards the idea of a hereditary monarchy. Among their ranks are those who hail Harry, the millennial prince, for his brave departure and single-minded pursuit of the press.
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To have any chance of halting the royal family’s decline, “Willy” needs to set aside his differences and offer “Harold” an olive branch. Siblings can be hugely triggering, and the peace offering would no doubt cause William great pain. But the gains would be enormous.
To welcome the Duke of Sussex back into the fold would set William apart as the redemptive Prince, a man well equipped to broaden monarchy’s appeal for the next generation. What a pity the prospect is just a pipe dream.
Tessa Dunlop is the author of Elizabeth and Philip: the Story of Young Love, Marriage and Monarchy
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