Prince Harry ‘Didn’t Believe’ Prince William’s ‘Soul-Crushing’ 3-Word Vow About Princess Diana After Philip’s Funeral
TL;DR:
- Prince Harry and Prince William were among those at Prince Philip’s funeral on April 17, 2021.
- In Spare, Prince Harry claimed Prince William said their “secret code” when he swore on the life of their late mother, Princess Diana, after Prince Philip’s funeral.
- In an interview for his memoir, Prince Harry shared he and Prince William aren’t on speaking terms.
Prince Harry revisited the day of Prince Philip’s funeral in his Spare memoir and the words, reserved for “times of extreme crisis,” Prince William supposedly uttered. Ahead, what three words the Duke of Sussex claimed his older brother said to him about Princess Diana following their grandfather’s funeral.
Prince Harry ‘wanted to go home’ after Prince Philip’s funeral
In an excerpt from his best-selling book, Harry detailed a conversation he had with his father, King Charles III, and brother, the Prince of Wales, following the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. It was April 17, 2021. After a group of 30 bid a final farewell to Queen Elizabeth II’s longtime husband at Windsor Castle.
Harry, as he wrote in Spare, wanted to go back to Montecito, California, where he and Meghan Markle have lived since 2020. He met with his father and brother for a “secret meeting” at the Frogmore gardens to “talk about the state of things.” Now a father of two, Harry shared a description of William.
“I looked at Willy, really looked at him,” he wrote. “Perhaps for the first time since we were little, taking in every detail.” Harry went on to note William’s “familiar scowl,” his “alarming” baldness, and how his resemblance to Diana had “faded.”
“My dear brother, my archenemy, how did we come to this?” Harry wrote. “I felt overwhelming tiredness. I wanted to go home.”
The “secret meeting” happened approximately six weeks after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex discussed their exit from royal life in a primetime TV special with Oprah, including a series of claims about the royal family.
Prince Harry claimed Prince William swore on Princess Diana’s life during a conversation after Prince Philip’s funeral
Not only did King Charles supposedly plead with his sons not to make his “final years a misery,” but the conversation also included a “soul-crushing vow” about Diana.
William “grabbed me again, twisting me to maintain eye contact,” Harry wrote (via Newsweek). “Harold, you must listen to me! I just want you to be happy, Harold.” Then came the words that “stopped” Harry, William, and the king. “I swear,” William said. “I swear on Mummy’s life.”
“He stopped. I stopped. Pa stopped,” Harry continued. “He’d gone there. He’d used the secret code, the universal password. Ever since we were boys those three words were to be used only in times of extreme crisis. On Mummy’s life.”
The now-38-year-old explained they’d only used the “soul-crushing vow for times when one of us needed to be heard, to be believed, quickly. For times when nothing else would do.”
“It stopped me cold, as it was meant to,” he wrote of his reaction. “Not because he’d used it, but because it didn’t work. I simply didn’t believe him, didn’t fully trust him. And vice versa.”
Prince Harry hasn’t spoken to Prince William in ‘a while’
Ahead of Spare’s Jan. 10 release, Harry shed some light on where he stands with William.
“Do you speak to William now? Do you text?” Anderson Cooper asked Harry in a Jan. 8 episode of 60 Minutes (via CBS News). “Uh, currently, no. But I look forward to … I look forward to us being able to find peace,” he replied.
In the same interview, Harry also shared he hasn’t spoken to King Charles in “quite a while.”
