Royal | News - Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
Prince Harry may have a better chance at reconciling with his father, King Charles, if one of the monarch’s key aides retires, a royal biographer has claimed.
The King’s right-hand man, his Private Secretary Sir Clive Alderton, is seen as a key figure in the royal household and is allegedly eyeing up retirement.
His responsibilities include bridging communication between the King and the governments in other Commonwealth countries, finalising the monarch’s schedule and managing his correspondence.
But in his memoir Spare, the Duke of Sussex branded Sir Clive “weedy” and “arrogant”.
Harry wrote: “The Wasp [Sir Clive] was lanky, charming, arrogant, a ball of jazzy energy. He was great at pretending to be polite, even servile.
“Because he seemed so weedy, so self-effacing, you might be tempted to push back, insist on your point, and that was when he’d put you on his list.
“A short time later, without warning, he’d give you such a stab with his outsized stinger that you’d cry out in confusion. Where the f*** did that come from?”
Now Princess Diana’s biographer Tina Brown suggested that Sir Clive’s retirement could potentially make way for a new path for Prince Harry’s return to the royal fold.
She wrote on her Fresh Hell Substack blog: “If Alderton goes, it could create a new, friendlier path for negotiations with Harry to be given the security protection he seeks and to resume some curtailed version of his royal duties.
“It could also represent a great face-saver for Meghan who must realise by now that the dull demands of second-division royalty are less onerous than grinding out serial rebranding flops.
“Enough with the feuds. Families, including this one, need to stick together. William, whatever his abiding resentments toward Harry for his intemperate broadsides in Spare, should now suck it up and let his father give Harry something to do.”
The Duke of Sussex has been estranged from the Royal Family since his sensational departure alongside Meghan Markle in 2020.
Since then, the couple have settled in Montecito, California, where they live with their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.