The book has been accidentally in Spanish bookstores for a while, but from today the whole world can read it Reserve, the memoirs of Prince Harry. During the reading it becomes clear that Harry leaves no details about his family. His bond with his brother William seems very destroyed.
“Shoulder to shoulder they approached me and seemed relentless, almost threatening. In fact, they seemed to form a front.” Harry opens his book with a look back to April 2021. His grandfather Philip has just died and the prince returns to London for the funeral. He secretly agreed with his brother William and father Charles, the current king.
Their relationship has already deteriorated considerably and Harry thinks it would be a good idea to talk. Harry tells what worries him, but according to the prince, the others refute everything he says. When William says he has no idea why his younger brother moved to the United States, Harry decides to put his story on paper. More than a year and a half later Reserve in the shelves.
For example, he describes the moment he and his wife Meghan announced they were moving because the attention in the British press was too much for them. “Willy (William, ed) claimed that he and I were now ‘different entities’,” writes Harry. “I’ve hugged my brother all my life and I can’t do it anymore,” William is said to have said. When Harry tells his brother that many of the stories in the media are likely from a building employee, William doesn’t seem to want to listen.
Meghan and Kate argue over the bridesmaid dress
One of those stories is the argument between Harry’s (then) girlfriend Meghan Markle and William’s wife Catherine (Kate) that erupts four days before Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Kate isn’t happy with her daughter Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress. According to the duchess, the dress is “too baggy”. Meghan replies that the tailor can alter the dress, but Kate would have asked for all dresses to be remade. Meghan then breaks down in tears, writes Harry.
The story leaks to the media. But according to Harry they are wrong: the press writes that Meghan made Kate cry. Harry and Meghan meet with William and Kate to talk about it. Finally, William admits that he told Charles and Camilla about the fight over dinner. An employee of the building may have heard it. He alienates the brothers even further.
According to Harry, the press writing negative stories is “tolerable and maybe even forgivable”. But mostly he struggles with his side of the family. According to the prince, his relatives tell reporters about him in exchange for positive articles about themselves. Also, the family never intervenes when Harry and Meghan are bullied by the media.
“Even in the hypothetical case that I accepted that Dad, Willy and their associates had never done anything openly against my wife and me – their silence was an undeniable fact. And that silence was devastating. And heartbreaking. And so on.” . According to Harry, his brother and father keep insisting that he is “delusional”.
1:09William uses Diana’s secret code
In their heated conversation, William is reported to have said, “I just want you to be happy, Harold. I swear it on Mama’s life.” Harry explains that this last phrase is known as a “secret code” in their family. “For nearly 25 years, we’ve reserved that crushing oath for the moments when one of us needed to be heard, believed, and fast. When nothing else worked. But it didn’t. I just didn’t believe it. And vice versa.”
In addition to his troubled relationship with his brother, father and the press, Harry also devotes many chapters to his mother Diana, who died when Harry was twelve. He talks about the last telephone conversation with her. “He had called early in the evening, the night of the accident, but I was joking with Willy and my nephews and wanted to keep playing. So I was brief. If only I’d apologized for that. If only I’d searched for words that might describe how much I loved her”.
Harry concludes his book with an epilogue, describing the moment he learns his grandmother is dying. He is flying to Balmoral Castle, where Elizabeth eventually dies. The prince learns from the BBC that his grandmother has died. He doesn’t exchange a word with his brother William.
The prince writes with great love about his grandmother, whom he spares in his book as one of the few royals. “A special relationship, so they said about us, and now I couldn’t stop thinking that that special relationship had come to an end. In fact, in every photo of us that we exchanged a glance, it was clear: we had secrets.”
