Prince Harry “felt he was having to play the little brother role again” over Prince William’s competitive attitude to relations with the British military, a new royal book claims.
William and Catherine, by Russel Myers, suggests the rift between the brothers dates back far longer than Meghan Markle’s arrival on the scene in 2016, echoing some of the narrative of Harry’s book Spare.
Myers’ book, though, cites palace insiders rather than the Sussex camp for its account of tensions between the brothers over which areas they would try to specialize in.
Both princes wanted to work with the military, but William felt he should take priority as a future king, and therefore future commander-in-chief, while Harry had served on the front line in Afghanistan and “basically wanted to tell his brother to get lost,” a source told Myers.
Why It Matters
William and Harry’s rift has been one of the defining stories of the monarchy for the past decade, alongside Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor being cast into the wilderness.
Meghan clearly played a major part, according to both the Sussex narrative and the pro-royal counter argument, but Harry has also been at pains to stress there were issues before she came along.
William and Harry’s Battle Over the Military
The book describes how early in their careers as working royals, William wanted to pursue projects that would have a clear impact, rather than simply showing up for good causes.
This gave rise to a divide and concur philosophy in which he believed they should each pick areas that were important to them and focus on those issues.
However, the two brothers both wanted to work on conservation in Africa and also with the military, sparking conflict on both issues.
In relation to the military, the tension came from the fact that William felt he had a claim as a future commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces, once he became king, while Harry wanted to build on the bond he developed with the military community through his tour of Afghanistan.
Myers quotes a palace source who said that “Harry was put out,” and added: “He felt he was having to play the little brother role again, and basically wanted to tell his brother to get lost, to put it mildly, but that’s not the sort of thing you can do when your brother is the future king.
“But it did hurt him, having fought for his country, especially in such a place as Afghanistan. He felt he had the right to be p***** off that he was essentially being told he couldn’t step on William’s toes when it came to the military.”
The Battle for Africa
Myers also touched on the brothers’ competitiveness over Africa, a subject Harry discussed in his book Spare.
“It was an area that William felt a deep passion for,” Myers wrote, “it connected his love of the countryside to the wider environment, and was somewhere he could use his profile to push for change. Again, Harry regarded this as confrontational.”
“You don’t just get Africa,” the book quotes Harry as telling William during a meeting at St. James’s Palace.
“Ed Perkins, who served as press secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry from 2012 to 2014, felt that something was emerging in the brothers’ relationship that went beyond sibling rivalry,” Myers wrote.
Perkins said: “We had to sit them down and say, ‘Listen, you have to help each other, be on the same team.'”
What Prince Harry Said About Rivalry in Spare
Harry also described tension with William over his desire to pursue good causes operating in Africa in passages of his own memoir, Spare.
He said there was “one small problem: Willy. Africa was his thing, he said. And he had the right to say this, or felt he did, because he was the heir. It was ever in his power to veto my thing, and he had every intention of exercising, even flexing, that veto power. We’d had some real rows about it.”
Harry said that “One day, we almost came to blows in front of our childhood mates,” after a friend asked why they could not simply both work in Africa.
“Willy had a fit,” Harry wrote, “flew at this son for daring to make such a suggestion. ‘Because rhinos, elephants, that’s mine!’ It was all so obvious. He cared less about finding his purpose or passion than about winning his lifelong competition with me.”
Spare suggested William had also resented Harry going on a trek to the North Pole with veterans charity Walking With the Wounded, in April 2011.
“Over several more heated discussions, it emerged that Willy, when I’d gone to the North Pole, had sadly been resentful,” Harry wrote. “He’d felt slighted that he hadn’t been the one invited. At the same time he also said that he’d stepped aside, gallantly, that he’d permitted me to go, indeed that he’d permitted all my work with wounded soldiers. I let you have veterans, why can’t you let me have African elephants and rhinos?”
While Harry’s book does indicate some tension over veterans, Myers lays down clearly that William felt he should be the one pursuing close ties to the military as a future commander-in-chief.
William and Catherine: The Monarchy’s New Era by Russell Myers is due to be published in the U.S. by Pegasus Books, on March 10, 2026.
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