They were supposed to be the 'steady' ones. The future king and queen who did their duty, smiled on cue and quietly got on with the job while the rest of the House of Windsor spun around them in various states of crisis. Yet, behind the carefully curated images of school runs and state banquets,Prince William and Catherineare, according to one insider, 'deeply unhappy' and feeling 'ground down' by the ongoing fallout from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. It is a telling choice of words: not furious, not vengeful, just exhausted.
The latest bruise comes, yet again, fromSpare, Harry's best-selling memoir that detonated royal family secrets across the globe. In the book, Harry accuses his brother of physically attacking him during a blazing 2019 row over Meghan at Nottingham Cottage. He describes being grabbed by the collar, knocked to the floor and landing on a dog bowl that shattered beneath his back.
To Harry's supporters, the episode was a moment of long-suppressed truth about a brotherly dynamic that had turned toxic. To those still loyal to the institution, it was something closer to betrayal. Now, royal author Russell Myers claims palace insiders see the whole thing very differently indeed.
InWilliam and Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story, Russell Myers quotes a royal source who insists the altercation Harry describes has been 'massively overblown' and characterises the memoir revelation as a 'cheap shot.' Yes, the insider concedes, tensions were 'running very high' at the time, with 'cross words exchanged' that everyone now considers 'regrettable.' But William, the source says, is 'adamant' there was no physical violence of the sort Harry dramatises on the page.
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That distinction matters inside the palace. An angry argument between brothers is embarrassing but survivable. An alleged physical attack by a future king, published and replayed endlessly, cuts far deeper. It feeds a narrative of William as a repressed bully and of the monarchy as emotionally stunted — exactly the image the Prince of Wales has been trying to shake.
Myers goes further, reporting that some royal staff were 'deeply unhappy' and felt 'ground down' by their dealings with the Sussexes during the brief period Harry and Meghan were working royals. Coming from courtiers who have weathered everything from Diana's turmoil to Andrew's disgrace, that is a remarkable admission. It suggests that, internally at least, the Harry and Meghan chapter is viewed not just as painful, but corrosive.
For William and Kate, the emotional toll is obvious even if it is never publicly acknowledged. Every new interview, every podcast, every Netflix confessional from California inevitably drags their names back into the storm. They cannot reply in kind. They can barely reply at all.
As if one family fissure were not enough, another potentially explosive storyline is quietly developing on the fringes of the Windsor clan. The latest tranche of Jeffrey Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice has renewed scrutiny of Prince Andrew's past — and, by extension, the position of his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Questions have been raised over how much the sisters knew, or could reasonably have known, about their parents' relationship with the disgraced financier.
Essex Police have confirmed they are 'assessing the information that has emerged in relation to private flights into and out of Stansted Airport' following publication of the US files, with reports stating that sex trafficking allegations connected to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor are under review. It is a careful, lawyerly formulation, but the implication is clear: the Andrew saga is not quite over.
Source: International Business Times UK
