Was Queen Elizabeth The Second behind the royal rift between her grandsons, Prince William
and Prince Harry?
Some say yes.
By definition and design, the relationship between Queen Elizabeth and Prince William
was never one that was purely between a grandparent and her grandchild.
As heir to the throne, Queen Elizabeth often seemed acutely aware of the weight required
to teach William what to expect for his own future as monarch.
"There were other moments when I think she wanted to smack us over the head and tell
the naughty, noisy children to go next door."
As E! News royal correspondent Melanie Bromley told News Corp Australia, Queen Elizabeth
and William's relationship was inherently close.
She said,
"William is going to become king, so there has been a very close relationship between
William and the Queen."
Bromley went on to explain that Queen Elizabeth spent time teaching William the same royal
lessons that she taught her son, King Charles III.
The relationship between the queen and William was also a lot more strict than the one she
shared with William's brother, Prince Harry.
As Bromley shared, once William and his wife Kate Middleton began having children, the
pressure was off the queen to impart royal lessons to Harry, who is unlikely to become
king at all.
In August 2019, the Express reported that Queen Elizabeth had begun to more seriously
share royal duties with her grandson Prince William.
"But no I think there's, um, I think there's an element of a little bit of pressure because
you don't want to let anyone down, you don't want to let yourself down but equally you
really don't want to let her down."
The outlet interviewed royal author Juliet Rieden about what those lessons might be like.
Rieden explained that in part, the queen was motivated by her advancing years.
At the time, Rieden said,
"The queen is 93 and she's offloading a lot of her work both to her son and to her grandson.
William has really had to up the ante and take on a lot of this heavy lifting."
"She likes the idea that we have our own style, it's a new generation, and there's no point
in everyone doing it the same way."
These lessons seemed to have changed the dynamic between grandmother and grandson, as they
also found themselves interacting as mentor and mentee, or even colleagues at times.
As British historian Robert Lacey told Vogue in 2017, there's a lot for William to learn
before he ascends the throne.
Lacey said that some of the work began when the prince was still a teen, and went on to
say,
"She would have him at Windsor Castle and would open the state boxes and guide him through
the papers.
It was William's constitutional education."
Prince William and Prince Harry have been locked in a feud that appears to have begun
around the time Harry began dating his wife, Meghan Markle.
According to Cosmopolitan, problems between the brothers began in Christmas 2018, when
Harry reportedly approached William about doing more to welcome Markle into holiday
celebrations with the royal family.
Eventually, the feud between the brothers escalated to a point at which the relationship
between the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who originally
shared an office and several charities, began to break apart.
The Sussexes began to separate themselves from the Prince and Princess of Wales.
"As brothers, you know, you have good days you have bad days."
While it's been said by some royal sources that Queen Elizabeth preferred to stay out
of the business of her family members, others have claimed that the monarch herself was
behind the decision for the brothers to separate their households and charities.
Prince William and Kate Middleton began dating in college, and the royal family knew that
if Middleton was the woman William married, she needed to be protected and taken care
of as she learned more about her own stature within it.
As one royal aide explained to author Katie Nicholl, who wrote the book "Kate: The Future
Queen," those who work at the palace were introduced to the future wife of Prince William
early on in the relationship.
The aide explained,
"William said we had a duty of care to her and her family and so we advised her on how
to deal with the cameras.
We told her to smile at the photographers so that there would be a better picture.
She was given advice on how to manage the media, and we were there to support her if
there was a crisis."
Queen Elizabeth was one of the first people who welcomed Middleton into the royal family.
After William and Middleton's relationship hit the five-year mark, Queen Elizabeth invited
Middleton to Balmoral and allowed her to photograph the home and the land around it.
As Nicholl also noted in her book, this was a big break from royal protocol, but it showed
where Queen Elizabeth was making an effort to welcome Middleton and make her feel comfortable.
To say that Queen Elizabeth was pleased with Prince William's wife is an understatement.
Royal author Andrew Morton told OK!
Magazine that Queen Elizabeth was keen to avoid some of the mistakes the family had
made with Princess Diana when Prince Charles began dating her.
As Morton told the outlet, Queen Elizabeth was happy that Middleton loved Prince William
for who he was.
To support that, she invested herself into the pair's relationship.
Morton explained,
"She spends a lot more time supporting and nurturing the relationship between William
and Catherine than she did with Charles and Diana.
It's pretty clear she wasn't going to make that mistake again."
Morton also told the publication that few things had made Queen Elizabeth as happy as
William and Middleton's wedding day.
He recalled,
"The queen was positively playful on the day of her grandson's nuptials.
She had a sense that the future of the royal family, her family, was now secure."