Prince Harry’s all-tell memoir Spare caused quite a stir. People still can’t stop talking about the things he revealed in his long-awaited book. And as the members of the Firm haven’t commented on it publicly, it is obvious they are far from happy with the revelations as well as the accusations brought up by the Prince.
When William and Harry met Camilla fro the first time, William reportedly described the meeting as “awkward and tense.”
“I think the relationship between them all is warm now but if I’m honest, it wasn’t then. I think they found it hard,” a palace source told royal biographer Penny Junor, author of Prince William: Born to be King. “To be fair to Camilla, she never tried to be mummy but she was the ‘other woman’ and she was there and taking daddy’s time.”
Other experts claimed that initially, Harry wasn’t fond of Camilla either.
In her book The Palace Papers, royal author Tina Brown wrote that Harry “unnerved” Camilla.
“When the younger boy was eventually prevailed upon to be in the presence of Mrs Parker Bowles, he unnerved her with long silences and smouldering, resentful stares,” she quoted a courtier saying.
Harry revealed in his memoir that he and his brother had pleaded with their father not to marry Camilla.
“Despite Willy and me urging him not to, Pa was going ahead. We pumped his hand, wished him well. No hard feelings,” Harry wrote in Spare. “We recognized that he was finally going to be with the woman he loved, the woman he’d always loved.”
He even wrote that he had asked himself if Camilla would be “just as cruel to him as all the wicked stepmothers in storybooks,” adding that William “long harbored suspicions about the Other Woman.”
Previously, in the interviews he gave to the media, Harry accused his stepmother of leaking stories to the British media in an attempt to fix her own public image. Further, he said that the media portrayed her as a ‘villain’ because they believed she was to be blamed for Charles and Diana’s collapsed marriage.
“That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen Consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that,” Harry said.
If you are led to believe, as a member of the family, that being on the front page, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public, then that’s what you’re gonna do.”
In an interview with Good Morning America, Harry revealed that he hasn’t spoken with his father’s wife for a very long time.
“I love every member of my family, despite the differences, so when I see her, we’re perfectly pleasant with each other,” he said.
“She’s my stepmother. I don’t look at her as an evil stepmother. I see someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to improve her own reputation and her own image, for her own sake.”
According to royal expert Angela Levin, Camilla feels the same and she isn’t much interested in a relationship with Harry either.
“The Duchess always felt quite wary of Harry and used to see him out of the corner of her eye looking at her in a long and cold way. She found it rather unnerving. Otherwise, they got on quite well,” Levin writes in her new book Camilla: From Outcast to Queen Consort
Shortly after tying the knot, Harry and Meghan were given a new place to call home, Frogmore Cottage, which is on the Windsor Cottage grounds. The place has been a royal residence ever since 1792 and many members of the royalty called it home over the years, among them Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and the Duchess of Kent. Queen Victoria’s mother was laid to rest in a mausoleum on its grounds.
When Harry and Meghan became the new residents of Frogmore Cottage, it was reported that they spent around $3 million to renovate it, and once they stepped down from their royal duties, it still remained their place that they could use whenever visiting Britain.
But now, as Harry’s book made many angry, especially King Charles, who hasn’t publicly commented his son’s memoir, the couple have reportedly been evicted from Frogmore Cottage.
The news has been confirmed by Harry and Meghan’s spokesperson. “We can confirm the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been requested to vacate their residence at Frogmore Cottage,” the spokesperson told Vanity Fair.
Allegedly, the residence has been offered to Prince Andrew instead, who has been living in a 30-room Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park since 2003.
As per The Sun, Andrew is “resisting” the King’s wish for him to move into Frogmore Cottage. “This surely spells the end of Harry and Meghan’s time in the UK,” a royal source told the newspaper
This decision came just a day after Spare was released and Harry and Meghan are reportedly “stunned” by the eviction.
“Harry and Meghan have until early summer to vacate,” a source told Scobie, reporting for Yahoo. “Initially, they were given just weeks, but now they have at least until after the coronation.”
“It all feels very final and like a cruel punishment,” a friend of Harry and Meghan’s added. “It’s like [the family] wants to cut them out of the picture for good.”
Royal author and expert Tom Bower commented on King Charles’ decision and told Page Six, “Harry and Meghan provoked him [King Charles] with Harry’s disgraceful book and the interviews he gave,” adding: “I mean, what did he expect?” the author continued. “Harry wanted the royal family to come on bended knee begging for forgiveness, and he’s completely crossed the spectrum, he’s in the mad wilderness of deranged victimhood.”
