Some books are born with gunpowder, and the new one about Prince Andrew seems to be one of them. Entitled The Rise and Fall of the House of York, the book reviews his most notorious scandals and recounts an anecdote that, if true, says a lot about family tensions in the palace.
According to the author, Prince Harry went so far as to call his uncle Andrew a “coward,” and not just at any moment, but during a family party in 2013, after hearing that he had made comments behind his back.
The episode, as recounted, was one of several friction points between them.
The book even claims that Andrew made unkind remarks about Meghan before she married Harry.
The Sussexes’ team, however, categorically denies that this happened. Even so, the story fits with the image that many in the UK already have of the Duke of York, isolated, with a history of gestures and comments that have distanced him from the rest of the family.
What is interesting here is that we are not talking about a public fight or a head-on collision, but rather those moments of underlying tension that, in royal families, say more than they seem to.
That Harry allowed himself to call a senior member of the family a coward at a private event is no small matter; it means that even before his official departure from the Royal Family, his relationship with some of his uncles was already marked by friction.