A friend of Queen Camilla has claimed that Prince William is the main obstacle preventing a reconciliation between Prince Harry and his father, King Charles III. Petronella Wyatt, a society journalist who has known Camilla since she was 18, wrote a column in the Daily Telegraph urging the royal family to "bring Harry home" and suggesting that William is "equally liable" for the breakdown in royal relations.
Wyatt, the daughter of the late Baron Woodrow Wyatt, a friend of Queen Elizabeth II who attended her coronation, cited a "former palace official" who used to work for both Harry and William "before the good times stopped rolling." The official stated, "There is a public misconception about William and Harry. It is William who was often the difficult one, and it is William who is preventing his father from having a proper reconciliation with Harry. This isn't helpful at a point in time when the country would be buoyed up by seeing them together again, as would the King."
The claim comes amid ongoing tensions between the royal brothers, which were further exacerbated by Prince Harry's recent visit to the U.K. to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games. Despite being in London, Harry and King Charles failed to reunite, with a spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex confirming that a meeting would not be possible due to the King's full schedule.
A friend of William and Kate Middleton's acknowledged "a grain of truth" in Wyatt's column, telling The Daily Beast, "William wouldn't dream of telling his father what he can or can't do in relation to his other son. But what is true is that Charles' absolute priority is the unity of the monarchy, and given the extent of William's animosity to Harry, Charles can hardly roll out the red carpet and invite Harry and the kids to stay at Balmoral for the summer holidays-however much he would like to."
Friends of Charles and Camilla have also revealed that the King was deeply hurt by Harry's aggressive attacks on Camilla in his memoir, "Spare," which has created another barrier to reconciliation between father and son.
The last time Harry saw Charles was in February, when he made a frantic dash across the Atlantic after learning of his father's cancer diagnosis. The brief meeting, which lasted less than an hour, did not include an invitation for Harry to stay the night at Sandringham, the King's country home.
Wyatt criticized William and Charles' treatment of Harry as "beginning to look inhuman" and argued that the royal family should bring Harry back into the fold because "the royal family is a microcosm for every family in Britain, and that a divided family, like a divided political party, has an intrinsic weakness."
The allegations of William's role in the ongoing rift come on the heels of another perceived snub towards Harry, as King Charles appointed William as the Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps, a role that many believed would have gone to Harry had he remained a working member of the royal family. Royal biographer Katie Nicholl suggested that the timing of the appointment, which coincided with Harry's visit to the U.K., could be seen as "a bit of a snub" and "a little bit of a poke in the ribs to Prince Harry."
As the royal rift continues to deepen, with William and Harry not having been photographed in the same room since Charles' coronation, the prospects for a genuine reconciliation appear increasingly bleak. The public airing of grievances and the apparent unwillingness of both sides to compromise have left the royal family divided, with the future of the monarchy hanging in the balance.
