Even if Prince Harry is preparing to resettle in the United Kingdom, reconciliation with his older brother William, the heir to the throne, still seems so distant, as they have been torn apart after having been united for a long time by the tragic death of their mother Diana.
William did not react officially to the news of Harry’s return, six years after his resounding departure for California with his wife Meghan and their two children. “I don’t think he will react, but we know what he thinks: he is very unhappy,” comments royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams to AFP.
The gap between the two brothers widened against a backdrop of jealousy, rivalry and shocking revelations. Harry’s memoir, “The Substitute,” released in January 2023, further deepened the divide.
The two princes have not been seen together since September 2022 and the death of Elizabeth II. Their father Charles III’s cancer, revealed in early 2024, did not bring them closer together.
According to the British press, William did not even want to inform his brother of his wife Kate’s cancer in 2024, which Harry learned about via the media.
Big unboxing
In 1997, however, the image of Princess Diana’s sons, walking solemnly behind her coffin after her death in a car accident, moved the whole world. The princess had made her sons promise to always remain united.
In the years that followed, the ups and downs of their relationship were the subject of thousands of articles, which depicted William and Harry as inseparable while constantly putting them in opposition.
A narrative that begins in their adolescence, when each is given a label: prince charming and responsible elder for William, turbulent younger brother with multiple escapades – from drug use to dressing up as a Nazi – for Harry.
When William met his future wife Kate Middleton at university, the brothers became closer and formed an accomplice trio with her. Harry describes her as “a sister rather than a sister-in-law.”
But when the younger brother introduced American actress Meghan Markle to William in 2016, he reacted more coolly and advised him not to go too quickly, Harry says in his autobiography.
After their marriage, Harry will also criticize William for not having done enough to integrate his wife into the royal family, while Meghan is the target of the tabloids.
The latter once again dramatize the brothers’ rivalry by comparing their wives – an impeccable and ultra-popular princess on William’s side, and a capricious American actress for Harry.
Suffering from this situation, the Duke of Sussex and his wife announce that they are renouncing their royal obligations at the beginning of 2020 and are moving to the United States.
They then launch into a big rant about the British monarchy, with accusations of racism and innuendoes about Kate, whom William would have married because she “fits the mold”.
Confessions on Netflix
The confessions continue with the documentary series on Harry and Meghan broadcast at the end of 2022 on Netflix, and the publication a few weeks later of “The Substitute”, the memoirs of the Duke of Sussex who describes William as a “sworn enemy”.
In this shocking book, the prince portrays his eldest as angry, and accuses him of having violently “thrown him to the ground” during an argument about Meghan in 2019.
He also recounts his pain at having been his “shadow, (his) understudy, (his) plan B” all his life: “My beloved brother, my sworn enemy, how did we get here?” he asks himself. William said nothing in the face of these attacks.
Richard Fitzwilliams does not believe in a warming of relations between the two brothers. “William would categorically oppose it. (…) He believes that Harry betrayed him,” he summarizes.
But expert Ed Owens looks ahead to the years to come, when William will become king and therefore supreme governor of the Church of England, a function which has “a moral dimension”. “It will then be up to William to forgive his brother,” he said.
William “will give the image of someone showing greatness of soul and magnanimity if he chooses to act in this way,” estimates Ed Owens.
