After months of tension, Prince William and Prince Harry will reunite in the U.K. on July 1 for the unveiling of a statue to honor their late mother, Princess Diana. The event will take place at Kensington Palace, where they grew up with Diana, and will have just 15 guests due to COVID-19 protocols, including Diana’s sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, and her brother, Charles, Earl Spencer. While the event that likely be “sad and a little strained,” a royal source told Page Six that the brothers will be “dignified” and that “the boys will be fine” for their mother’s sake.
Diana’s former chief of staff, Patrick Jephson, told Page Six that the event honoring Diana’s 60th birthday would surely “inspire feelings of love” for their mother, who died in 1997. “The princes were still young when they lost their mother, and the depth of emotion they feel in remembering her can only be imagined,” Jephson explained. “To their credit, they have said that they hope the statue will remind us of her positive impact on the world. That’s certainly worth celebrating so, alongside sadness, we can be sure the unveiling will inspire happier feelings of love for an irreplaceable parent, and pride in her enduring legacy.”
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While there was hope that the brothers were making strides towards reconciliation, royal historian Robert Lacey explained that any signs of togetherness at Prince Philip’s funeral was a mask over a still very fractured relationship. Lacey told The Daily Mail that although it appeared as though Harry and William were “inching towards reconciliation” as they spoke just outside the chapel, “those hopes were dashed within minutes of the siblings getting inside the castle and beyond camera vision.”
“They started quarreling again,” Lacy, who is the author of Battle of Brothers and consultant to Netflix’s The Crown, wrote. “There they were, at each other’s throats as fiercely as ever. The rage and anger between those two has grown so incredibly deep. Too many harsh and wounding things have been said.” Lacey went on to contradict reports that the brothers had a family talk with their father, Prince Charles. According to Lacey, “there was no reconciliation, and no brotherly sit-down or ‘mini summit’ following” the funeral. He later added that “the conflict between Diana’s two bitterly divided sons does not seem likely to end any time soon,” though he said that “there is a peace plan in action.”
