Prince Harry's account of Queen Camilla's role in the Royal Family is being directly contradicted by King Charles III's former butler, who said he never witnessed tensions between her and the princes during his years of service.
Grant Harrold, who worked for Charles for seven years, is publishing a memoir next month titled The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life of Royal Service. In excerpts released by The Telegraph, Harrold described Charles as "a very gentle" man and Camilla as warmly integrated into family life long before their 2005 marriage.
"There was no police protection or anything. I remember one time turning up at [her house] at night - he asked me to take something to her," Harrold recalled. "She opened the window upstairs and looked down and went, 'Who's there?!' I went, 'It's Grant!' She said, 'Grant, what the hell are you doing here at this time?'" He added that Camilla insisted on offering him tea despite the late hour.
Harrold wrote that Charles appeared "the happiest" he had ever seen him on the day of his wedding to Camilla in April 2005. After the ceremony, Harrold and other staff watched Princes William and Harry decorate their father's car with a "Just Married" sign before chasing it through the arches at Windsor.
That depiction sharply contrasts with the Duke of Sussex's version in Spare. In his 2023 memoir, Harry wrote that he and William had "complex feelings" about their father remarrying. "'We support you,' we said. 'We endorse Camilla,' we said. 'Just please don't marry her. Just be together, Pa.' He didn't answer. But she answered. Straight away," Harry recounted, claiming she pursued "a campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the Crown."
Harrold insists he saw no evidence of such scheming or family discord. Harry, William, Charles and Camilla "got on so well," he wrote, adding that this made the duke's portrayal confusing to him.
On Charles himself, Harrold offered a portrait at odds with perceptions of aloofness. "He works hard and he doesn't suffer fools. He gets on with everyone," he wrote. "He does get perceived as out of touch and he's not." Harrold also emphasized that Charles "didn't once raise his voice" while he worked for him.
The memoir, which chronicles Harrold's career inside royal households, is scheduled for release next month and is expected to add fuel to debates over Harry's depiction of his family and Camilla's place within it.
