Prince Harry made a very bold five-word plea for King Charles to abandon his “unnecessary” marriage to Queen Camilla ahead of their wedding, according to his memoir Spare.
The Duke of Sussex didn’t mince words when discussing his father’s second marriage, disclosing that both he and Prince William were so troubled by the idea of their father remarrying that they implored him to abandon the plans.
Despite the boys’ concerns, Charles and Camilla made their relationship public in 1999 and tied the knot in a civil ceremony in Windsor in 2005, with William and Harry both present.
The Duke of Sussex has been openly critical about the marriage, even confessing to Anderson Cooper in an interview last year that he saw the union as “unnecessary”.
Harry and William believed the marriage would do more harm than good, questioning the need for it if Charles was already content with Camilla.
Prince Harry said: “We didn’t think (getting married) was necessary. We thought that it was going to cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person, that – surely that’s enough?
“Why go that far when you don’t necessarily need to? We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her. So, at the time, it was, ‘OK’.”
In his explosive memoir Spare, published last year, Harry detailed his relationship with his soon-to-be stepmother, recalling the promise he and William made to Charles – welcoming Camilla into the family under one condition.
Prince Harry wrote: “Willy and I promised Pa that we’d welcome Camilla into the family. The only thing we asked in return was that he not marry her. You don’t need to remarry, we pleaded. A wedding would cause controversy. It would incite the press. It would make the whole country, the whole world, talk about Mummy, compare Mummy and Camilla, and nobody wanted that. Least of all Camilla.
We support you, we said. We endorse Camilla, we said. Just please don’t marry her. Just be together, Pa,”
He also admitted that he believed Camilla played a “pivotal role” in the disintegration of his family.
He continued: “Camilla had played a pivotal role in the unravelling of our parent’s marriage, and yes, that meant she’d played a role in our mother’s disappearance, but we understood that she’d been trapped like everyone else in the riptide of events.
“We didn’t blame her, and in fact, we’d gladly forgive her if she could make Pa happy. We could see that, like us, he wasn’t.”
