Next month Prince William will celebrate his tenth wedding anniversary â the day he became a duke and embarked on the most formative decade
The Times
Prince Williamâs close friends on what makes him tick â and why heâs not trapped
March 20 2021, 6:00pm
As the world devours the Harry and Meghan interview, whatâs going on with the brother who was left behind? Heâs embracing his destiny, Williamâs close friends tell the Sunday Times royal correspondent, Roya Nikkhah
Next month Prince William will celebrate his tenth wedding anniversary â the day he became a duke and embarked on the most formative decade of his life. Back then, the tentative 28-year-old newlywed was not ready to devote himself entirely to royal duties. A decade on, he is in a very different position.
The job of being the heir to the heir to the throne, of finding a balance between life and duty, is difficult at the best of times. These are not the best of times. In their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey this month the Duke and Duchess of Sussex accused the royal family and the institution around it of racism and callous disregard for a suicidal newcomer, among many other damning charges. Harry the spare also declared that William was trapped within âthe system ⌠My brother canât leave that system, but I have.â
In the immediate aftermath of the interview William was âreelingâ, a source close to the duke says. âHis head is all over the place on it.â Four days after the Sussexes had their say, he hit back during an engagement with the Duchess of Cambridge at a school in east London. Asked about accusations of racism, William retorted with restrained fury: âWeâre very much not a racist family.â He also confirmed that he hadnât spoken to Harry yet, âbut will doâ. By the weekend it emerged they had âbeen in contactâ.
William is thought to have been less than thrilled a few days later when that conversation made global headlines after the American presenter Gayle King, a close friend of the Sussexes, revealed live on air that it had not been an easy chat: âI did actually call them to see how they were feeling,â she told viewers. âHarry has talked to his brother and he had talked to his father too. The word I was given was that those conversations were not productive.â The intervention prompted a senior royal source to say that ânone of the households will be giving a running commentary on private conversationsâ.
A close friend of both brothers says Harryâs âtrappedâ comment was âway off the markâ, insisting that William does not see it that way. âHe has a path set for him and heâs completely accepting of his role. He is very much his grandmotherâs grandson in that respect of duty and service.â
When the Queen turned 90 nearly five years ago William admitted âthe challengeâ that âoccupies a lot of thinking spaceâ is how to âmodernise and developâ the royal family, and make it ârelevant in the next 20 yearsâ timeâ. Twenty years now seems like a very long time. In the hours and days after the Oprah broadcast, William was at the heart of all discussions with the Queen and the Prince of Wales about how to respond to the Sussexes. He was keen that the issue of race should be acknowledged in the Queenâs statement as an area of particular concern that âwill be addressedâ.
William has always railed against being a âribbon-cutter royalâ and the issues he champions â mental health, battling racism in football, homelessness and his ramped-up eco-warrior role â are a window into where the future King William V will take the House of Windsor. A friend says: âHeâs a small-c conservative. He values tradition and the need to go around the country, but he realises he can make a difference beyond traditional royal duties.â
Today royal popularity is, to put it mildly, in a state of flux, but Williamâs strategy has been working. Post-Oprah, he ranks just below the Queen at the top of a YouGov poll of royals. Not so long ago such a position looked like a long shot, when the âworkshy Willsâ and âreluctant royalâ tags plagued him and he was clocking up fewer days of royal work than his nonagenarian grandparents. Pictures of him hitting the ski slopes and clubs of Swiss resort Verbier in March 2017, missing a Commonwealth service that even the Duke of York flew back for, didnât help.
After the lasting PR gold dust of the Cambridgesâ 2011 wedding and the births of Prince George and Princess Charlotte, it was the first public nosedive for William, who was still working as an air ambulance pilot. âThat pissed him off,â a friend says. âHe was leaving home at 5.30am, getting home after dark and saving lives in between, but people were still being critical of his commitment to his [other] job.â William was based at Cambridge airport with East Anglian Air Ambulance for two years, where he was on call for âsome very sad, dark momentsâ, often working âon very traumatic jobs involving childrenâ. He later acknowledged that âafter I had my own children ⌠the relation between the job and the personal life was what really took me over the edge, and I started feeling things that I have never felt beforeâ. But it was a job he loved, because of âworking in a team ⌠thatâs something that my other job doesnât necessarily do. You are more out there on your own.â
A former royal aide says: âImmediately after their wedding he had a very clear idea of the pace at which he wanted to take things.â William was adamant he wouldnât curtail his day jobs, first as an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot in Anglesey and then with the air ambulance. âIf youâre not careful, duty can weigh you down an awful lot at an early age,â he said, insisting he didnât âlie awake waiting or hopingâ to be king. He delayed full-time royal duties until the autumn of 2017, when, acknowledging the Cambridgesâ future required more time at âmonarchy HQâ, they moved from Norfolk to London and George started school.
Heâd had to fight his corner for the air ambulance role. A source close to William reveals âthere were lots of raised eyebrows in the Palace when he wanted to do that. While the Queen and his father backed him, some senior courtiers questioned whether it was becoming of a future king to be doing a middle-class role, hanging out with ordinary people. They thought he wouldnât stick it out, heâd find it boring, or was doing it out of stubbornness to put off royal duties. He was pretty bloody-minded about it, and determined that other peopleâs expectations in the media or the system shouldnât get in the way of his own values.â In the wake of Harry and Meghanâs interview much has been speculated about the extent to which royal life is dictated by Palace officials, but it is clear that William has managed to forge his own path. Who knows how high those senior courtiersâ eyebrows rose in 2019, when William spent three weeks shadowing the spooks of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to learn how they combat terrorism. He insisted on being called âWillâ and lunching in the canteen every day.
Those closest to the duke say his resistance to the idea of full-time royal duties stemmed not only from a desire to achieve something for himself but also from a fear of the impact on his family life. Miguel Head worked alongside the prince for ten years until 2018, as William, Kate and Harryâs communications secretary and later as Williamâs private secretary. âIn his role everyoneâs going to tell you youâre marvellous,â Head says. âThe RAF and air ambulance jobs were about knowing what his abilities were, what he was good at in his own right. Without that heâd still be hankering for something that was his own.â After children came along he says William developed a âvisceral determination to give them a life of consistency and privacy that were missing for large parts of his own childhoodâ.
Another close aide says the plan enabling the Cambridges to have a few years of ânormalâ married life, away from the full-time glare of the royal spotlight, paid dividends: âFor years, the battles around privacy and paparazzi intrusion were all-consuming. He wanted to know, could we build them a credible plan allowing them a family life while slowly increasing the profile of official life? It took years to get there, but the success of that plan allowed him to be confident and content in his role. Heâs not worried about his kidsâ privacy any more and he has been able to be the kind of dad he wants to be.â
âMarriage maketh the man,â a friend says. âCatherineâs groundedness has been the critical anchor. And where his relationship with the media was once all fury and frustration, he now understands using the power of modern media, so the public feel theyâre getting enough access.â
The childrenâs birthdays are marked with photographs â often taken by the Duchess of Cambridge â and there has been a noticeable increase in their public appearances of late. While not âofficiallyâ staged, William was happy to let George and Charlotte be photographed at their first Aston Villa match with Mum and Dad in 2019. Pandemic set pieces have shown the family clapping for the NHS on the steps of Anmer Hall, their Norfolk home, and, before Christmas, their first red-carpet appearance together for an evening at the panto with key workers and their children.
As they celebrate their anniversary on April 29, friends who joined the Cambridges on their wedding day tell me the partnershipâs equal footing is key to its success. âTheyâve got a solid relationship and she gives him confidence,â one says. âThere is no jealousy, no friction, they are happy for each otherâs successes.â In private William talks as passionately about Kateâs work as his own campaigns, and takes pride in her growing confidence on the public stage.
William has said his grandmotherâs approach to being head of state is to take âmore of a passive role. Sheâs above politics and is very much away from it.â He doesnât plan to meddle in party politics, but he was not happy about the unenviable position the government put the Queen in with the 2019 proroguing of parliament, which was later ruled to be unlawful and forced an apology from Boris Johnson to the monarch. Constitutionally the Queen had no alternative other than to act on the advice of her government, but in Williamâs reign there will be âmore private, robust challenging of adviceâ. His last three private secretaries â Christian Jones, Simon Case, now the cabinet secretary, and Head â had all worked in government departments, helping William to keep his finger on the political pulse. The new incumbent, the Whitehall heavyweight Jean-Christophe Gray, who served as David Cameronâs spokesman, continues in that vein.
The former Conservative leader Lord Hague of Richmond was last year appointed as chairman of the Royal Foundation to develop Williamâs work on mental health, the environment and a raft of new support programmes for key workers. âPeople internationally and nationally respect his credibility and knowledge on these issues,â Hague says. âHeâs very persuasive. You only see that behind the scenes. He knows what he wants and he goes out to get it.â
Charlie Mayhew, chief executive of the conservation charity Tusk, has known William since he was 20. In 2005 Tusk and Centrepoint, the homelessness charity championed by Princess Diana, were the first patronages William took on. âIn those early years I kept having to pinch myself to remember how young he was,â Mayhew says. âHe was much more mature than his age and very aware of his destiny coming down the track. He had a sincerity, but never without wicked humour. His teasing is merciless.â
William knows some people see his passion for conservation as a posh manâs part-time hobby, but Mayhew says the dukeâs âgenuine and huge knowledgeâ undermines that view. âHeâll call and WhatsApp to flag up something that I havenât even seen in the conservation space. He can be impatient to get things done.â Last year William launched the Earthshot prize, a ÂŁ50 million Nobel-style environmental award to galvanise solutions to global problems over the next decade. He believes âconservation and the environment ⌠shouldnât be a luxury, itâs a necessityâ, Mayhew says. âThatâs the drum he wants to beat. Heâs got a megaphone and wants to use it in the most constructive way. He speaks for that next generation and I think they can relate to it.â
A turning point for William was his 2015 official visit to China, one of the worldâs largest consumers of ivory, where he met President Xi and condemned the illegal wildlife trade as a âvicious form of criminalityâ. Unlike his father, who has refused to visit the Peopleâs Republic over its human rights record and treatment of Tibet, Williamâs view was that despite the UKâs fractious relationship with China, âweâve got to engageâ.
âIt was very political, raising the illegal wildlife trade in China. Iâm sure the diplomats were having all sort of nightmares in advance,â says Mayhew, who joined the duke in China. âBut he was gathering greater confidence that he had the ability to be a mouthpiece for the issue.â Mayhew reveals that while William was visiting Japan before China, he still hadnât secured a meeting with Xi. âBut when the Chinese saw all the high-level meetings he was having in Japan, they changed their minds and Xi made time for him.â Later that year, as Xi began a UK state visit, William appeared on Chinese television condemning the ivory trade. Two years later China banned the trade.
In 2018 he spent months prepping for his most high-stakes overseas visit yet, to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories that summer. Navigating the diplomatic tightrope walk between Jerusalem and the West Bank, he visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Ramallah. As he travelled back to Jerusalem, he changed his speech for a reception with young Israelis and Palestinians to strengthen his solidarity with the latter: âMy message tonight is that you have not been forgotten ⌠The United Kingdom stands with you.â It was a bold move, but both sides hailed his visit a success and the officials breathed a sigh of relief. To the delight of the travelling press pack, Williamâs engagements on the final day were brought forward, allowing the diplomat duke and president of the Football Association to land back in the UK in time to watch Englandâs World Cup tie.
Ask him if heâs a peacemaker and William will laugh, saying Kate is the mediator. But according to a source close to William and Harry, his bridge-building skills were deployed in the lead-up to Harry and Meghanâs wedding in 2018, when tensions in the Kensington Palace household, then still shared by the brothers, were running high: âEvery time there was a drama, or a member of staff on the verge of quitting, William would personally try and sort it out.â
As the brothers clashed more over the substance and style of their work, and the family hierarchy that William is a stickler for but Harry is less keen on, a split was inevitable. When they finally divided their households in March 2019, it had been a long time coming. But he never thought that a year later his brother would up sticks for America.
The pair went for a long walk to clear the air after the âSandringham summitâ when the Megxit deal was hammered out, but did not part shores as friends. What upset William the most was Harry and Meghanâs surprise launch of their âSussex Royalâ website before the summit, which featured their blueprint wish list of a part-time, commercial royal future. Later, when the Queen decreed they could no longer use âroyalâ in their future ventures, their website hit back with this bold statement: âWhile there is not any jurisdiction by The Monarchy ⌠over the use of the word âRoyalâ overseas, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not intend to use âSussex Royalâ ⌠or ⌠âRoyalâ âŚâ Both âthe content and that itâs still online is staggeringâ, a senior royal source says. âThat was it for William, he felt theyâd blindsided the Queen in such an insulting and disrespectful way,â says a source close to him, who reveals it was still at the forefront of Williamâs mind at the Commonwealth Day service one year ago. It was the Sussexesâ final engagement as working royals, and the froideur between them and the rest of the family was unmistakable.
It is a year since the Sussexes left for California and William misses Harry. âOnce he got over the anger of how things happened, he was left with the absence of his brother,â an aide says. âThey shared everything about their lives, an office, a foundation, meetings together most days and there was a lot of fun along the way. Heâll miss it for ever.â A close friend says William âdefinitely feels the pressure now itâs all on him â his future looks different because of his brotherâs choices, itâs not easy.â Another friend says: âItâs still raw. Heâs very upset by whatâs happened, though absolutely intent that he and Harryâs relationship will heal in time.â
After lobbing bombs in his Oprah interview, Harry said: âI love William to bits ⌠Weâve been through hell together ⌠we have a shared experience ⌠The relationship is space at the moment, and time heals all things, hopefully.â Harry would be wise not to set his stopwatch.
The first test will come this summer, when the brothers could be reunited for a series of family engagements including the Duke of Edinburghâs 100th birthday and the Queenâs birthday parade in June. In July they are scheduled to unveil a statue of their mother at Kensington Palace, marking what would have been Dianaâs 60th birthday, an emotionally charged occasion with the world watching.
While a chasm has opened up between the brothers, William has grown closer to the Queen and Prince Charles. He has helped them to navigate their way through Megxit, Prince Andrewâs removal from public life following the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and, now, the Oprah controversy. âThat has changed the way the Queen sees him and values his input,â a courtier says. William also feels his relationship with his grandmother has âmassively improvedâ in recent years and their views are âmore aligned than everâ.
Friends say there has also been a ârenaissanceâ in William and Charlesâs relationship. âAs the years passed there were strains imposed by the system â money, work, competition, Diana,â one says. âPart of Williamâs evolution is that as he has become closer to his father, he sees their similarities. At Williamâs wedding there was a gag in one of the speeches that he was more like his father than heâd ever admit, which made a lot of us laugh. As their respective destinies get closer, it weighs more heavily on them and strengthens the bond. The rift with Harry has also brought them closer.â
William is said to hate âflummeryâ, though the role of future king comes with plenty of bowing and scraping. But in 2017, for the first time publicly, he didnât get his way. As a new parent worried about rising teenage suicide rates, he had spent a year convening a Cyberbullying Taskforce with big cheeses from tech and social media giants including Facebook, Snapchat, Apple, Google and Twitter. He wanted them to adopt industry-wide guidelines creating safer online spaces for children. According to William the meetings at Kensington Palace got âfruityâ and the tech giants didnât come close to the change he wanted. He was furious.
Tessy Ojo, chief executive of the Diana Award youth charity, sat on the taskforce. âHe was deeply disappointed,â she says. âHe didnât come into it as âthe dukeâ, he gave emotional pleas as a father.â William has since publicly condemned social media giants for their âfalse choice of profits over valuesâ and privately offered support to the family of Molly Russell, who took her life at 14 after viewing images of self-harm online. Ojo believes it is Williamâs âlived experience of the fragility of life that guides the work he doesâ.
It also shapes the way he and Kate are raising their family. William has said he is determined that the grandchildren Diana never knew should âknow who she was and that she existedâ. He âconstantlyâ talks to his children âabout Granny Dianaâ at bedtime, so that they know âthere are two grandmothers in their livesâ. Earlier this month on Motherâs Day, Kensington Palaceâs social media feeds published George, Charlotte and Louisâs cards paying tribute to âGranny Dianaâ, revealing it is an annual ritual for the Cambridge children. After a difficult few weeks for William, a line in Charlotteâs card provided poignant insight into how he is feeling: âPapa is missing you.â
He is on course to be a more modern monarch than any before him, but William is still a creature of habit at heart. He has the same tight circle of friends from his schooldays, one of whom says that, with William, âitâs all about trust and loyaltyâ. He plays five-a-side football in his Villa socks when he can, goes to the Chelsea Harbour Club gym he went to as a child with his mother and has a âsmart casualâ public uniform of chinos, jacket, blue shirt and no tie.
âWilliamâs not trying to be down with the kids,â a friend says. âHe never wants to be painted as irrelevant or dull, though heâs allergic to being compared to celebrities. The public doesnât always get to see his funny side, but otherwise heâs the same in private as in public. He once said, âIâll be in the public eye all my life. I canât hide who I am because Iâll be found out.â â
In 2019, during a visit to a youth homelessness charity supporting LGBT people, William was asked how he would feel if one of his children was gay. âAbsolutely fine,â he replied. âI fully support whatever decision they make, but it does worry me from a parentâs point of view how many barriers, hateful words, persecution and discrimination might come.â Such a personal exchange was a radical departure from royal engagement small talk. But William, the first in his family to be photographed for the cover of a gay magazine, had personally put the issue on the agenda.
As president of Bafta he gave the academy a diplomatic dressing down in his speech at last yearâs ceremony, expressing his âfrustrationâ over the lack of diversity: âIn 2020, and not for the first time in the last few years, we find ourselves talking again about the need to do more to ensure diversity in the sector and in the awards process â that simply cannot be right in this day and age.â The 2021 nominees announced this month suggest his words hit home.
William âthinks the public look to him to keep royal work looking modernâ, a confidante says. âThe Queen and Prince of Wales are providing continuity and stability. Heâs carving out his own relationship with diverse communities. He sees it all as a way of doing things now that will help a smooth transition when the time comes.â
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as a former frontline worker himself, William has led the royal charge supporting key workers. âNow, more than ever, he knows what his role in public life is, and he sees the value in it,â a close aide says. Chatting to NHS workers in January, William said: âSomething that I noticed from my brief spell flying the air ambulance ⌠is that when you see so much death and so much bereavement, it does impact how you see the world ⌠as a ⌠darker, blacker place.â Soon after the first lockdown was announced, the Cambridgesâ Royal Foundation launched Our Frontline, a round-the-clock mental health and bereavement service for key workers.
Miguel Head says the future King William will continue to campaign on his big issues: âI canât see him backing away from causes heâs passionate about. And while heâs not someone who loves ceremony, he knows the importance of it. When he gets the top job he wonât do away with it all. Heâs mindful the monarchy represents something timeless thatâs above all of us, and many people like the magic and theatre of it.â
Roya Nikkhah
Roya is royal correspondent at The Sunday Times. Over more than a decade she has covered royal events for the BBC, interviewed the Prince of Wales and Prince Harry and presented the films Prince William, Monarch in the Making and Meghan and Harry: The Baby Years.
