Royal | News - Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
Prince Harry has described the “painfully tepid” response he once received from his father, King Charles, and brother, Prince William, when he requested a “secret meeting” to discuss their ongoing feud.
This meeting took place one month after Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, participated in a revealing interview with Oprah Winfrey, where they discussed their struggles within the Royal Family and the reasons behind their decision to step back from their senior roles.
Prince Harry had travelled to the UK to attend the funeral of his grandfather, the late Prince Philip. It was during this time that he saw an opportunity to address “the state of things” with his family members.
In Harry’s memoir, Spare, released in January 2023, Harry admitted he felt anxious while waiting for William and Charles to arrive at their meeting – and at some point, he thought they had changed their mind about meeting.
When Prince William and King Charles finally approached Prince Harry for the meeting, he described them as having a “grim, almost menacing” look.
The Duke describes that when he gave them “a weak smile”, they did not smile back. He writes it made him feel “a hugely intense vulnerability” and made him think of his late mum, Princess Diana, with the hope she could give him strength during the meeting.
Harry revealed that when he said hello to his brother “Willy” and his father, whom he affectionately called “Pa”, they replied with a single and “painfully tepid” word: “Harold.”
Harry wrote: “At last, I saw them. Shoulder to shoulder, striding towards me, they looked grim, almost menacing. More, they looked tightly aligned. My stomach dropped. Normally they’d be squabbling about one thing or another, but now they appeared to be in lockstep – in league. The thought occurred: Hang on, are we meeting for a walk…or a duel?”
Harry continues: “I rose from the wooden bench, made a tentative step towards them, gave a weak smile. They didn’t smile back. Now my heart really started thrashing in my chest.
“Deep breaths, I told myself. Apart from fear, I was feeling a kind of hyper-awareness, and a hugely intense vulnerability, which I’d experienced at other key moments of my life. Walking behind my mother’s coffin. Going into battle for the first time. Giving a speech in the middle of a panic attack.”
This interaction left Harry pondering the nature of the meeting, questioning if it was a friendly or something more confrontational.
In the book, Harry also revealed that he got the nickname “Spare” by his father, Charles. Harry revealed that after Princess Diana gave birth to him, his dad said: “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an heir and a spare – my work is done.”
His grandfather’s funeral in April 2021 was Harry’s first return trip to England since he and Meghan Markle stepped down as senior royals and moved to the US, where they now reside with their two children, Prince Archie, five and Princess Lilibet, three.