{"id":472346,"date":"2026-02-16T17:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/472346\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:46:09","slug":"princess-of-wales-and-prince-william-divided-on-prince-harrys-decision-to-leave-royal-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/472346\/","title":{"rendered":"Princess of Wales and Prince William &#8216;divided on Prince Harry&#8217;s decision to leave Royal Family&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A forthcoming book offers fresh insight into how the Prince and Princess of Wales responded in starkly different ways when Prince Harry announced his departure from senior royal duties in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The book, titled &#8220;William and Catherine: The Monarchy&#8217;s New Era: The Inside Story,&#8221; by Russell Myers, is set for release on March 10.<\/p>\n<p>Myers chronicles the couple&#8217;s divergent reactions to the moment when Harry and Meghan Markle declared their intention to step back from their royal roles and divide their time between Britain and North America.<\/p>\n<p>Excerpts published by The Mirror reveal Catherine took a notably different view from her husband regarding the family rupture.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"f9887\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"a6a05e7d54e32a51371a4ddf3863a04a\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201200%20800'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/prince-and-princess-of-wales.jpg\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" alt=\"Prince and Princess of Wales\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A forthcoming book offers fresh insight into how the Prince and Princess of Wales responded in starkly different ways when Prince Harry announced his departure from senior royal duties in 2020.<\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p>GETTY<\/p>\n<p>According to Myers, the Princess of Wales demonstrated considerably less enthusiasm than William for convincing Harry to maintain his royal position.<\/p>\n<p>Catherine&#8217;s reasoning centred on what she perceived as an unavoidable outcome stemming from the brothers&#8217; fundamentally different positions within the monarchy.<\/p>\n<p>Myers wrote that &#8220;she believed William and Harry&#8217;s fundamental differences as the &#8216;heir and the spare&#8217; had created the inevitability of Harry wanting more from his role than being a bit-part player.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This perspective suggests Catherine recognised that Harry&#8217;s secondary status would ultimately prove unsustainable, making his desire for greater independence a predictable consequence of the royal hierarchy.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"86529\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"0c6a85a5d457c88f49664027834c1339\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%202000%203000'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/princess-of-wales.jpg\" width=\"2000\" height=\"3000\" alt=\"Princess of Wales\"\/><\/p>\n<p>According to Myers, the Princess of Wales demonstrated considerably less enthusiasm than William for convincing Harry to maintain his royal position.<\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p>GETTY<\/p>\n<p>William&#8217;s emotional response stood in sharp contrast to his wife&#8217;s pragmatic acceptance of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>Myers noted that &#8220;William was intensely saddened at his brother&#8217;s decision to quit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The author described how the brothers had been growing apart for years, yet William understood this moment represented a point of no return.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fond memories of their childhood, from helping each other through the tragedy of their mother&#8217;s death, to growing up in the public eye, were now tarnished by the division at the heart of the family,&#8221; Myers wrote.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"e6025\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"c386e790cf213bd560266565a82d32d3\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%202000%201334'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/prince-william.jpg\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" alt=\"Prince William\"\/><\/p>\n<p>William&#8217;s emotional response stood in sharp contrast to his wife&#8217;s pragmatic acceptance of the situation.<\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p>GETTY<\/p>\n<p>The shared experiences that once bound the siblings together had become overshadowed by their fractured relationship.<\/p>\n<p>Following their departure, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex established their new life in California, Meghan&#8217;s home state, where they now reside with their children, Prince Archie, aged six, and Princess Lilibet, four.<\/p>\n<p>Their initial hopes of maintaining partial royal involvement whilst achieving financial independence were swiftly dismissed at the so-called Sandringham summit, where Queen Elizabeth II made clear that a hybrid arrangement was not possible.<\/p>\n<p>The brothers&#8217; relationship has remained fractured in the intervening years, with tensions escalating following the Sussexes&#8217; appearance on Oprah Winfrey&#8217;s show, their Netflix documentary series, and Harry&#8217;s memoir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A forthcoming book offers fresh insight into how the Prince and Princess of Wales responded in starkly different&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,9844,5434,194478,34078],"class_list":{"0":"post-472346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-prince-harry","11":"tag-prince-william","12":"tag-princess-of-wales","13":"tag-royal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}