‘Don’t make my final years a misery’: King Charles made a desperate plea to warring sons Prince William and Prince Harry

We often talk about the fallout of Prince William and Prince Harry‘s, er, falling out — how it has torn the two brothers apart, how it fed into a hostility between their wives, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, how it means their children won’t grow up together… One thing that often isn’t discussed, however, is how it affects King Charles.

As the reigning monarch, Charles isn’t one to open up about his feelings, as he’s very much following in his late mother’s footsteps — Queen Elizabeth II followed a strict mantra of “don’t complain, never explain.” Even so, his only children having such a bitter feud that one of them feels the need to flee the coop and relocate thousands of miles and an ocean away, meaning he can’t get to know his own grandchildren, must be a huge weight on him at all times.

We’re unlikely to ever get the full picture of just how much this whole situation has impacted him, but Harry has revealed one heated moment between himself, his father, and his brother which hints at the king’s true feelings about his fractured family.

King Charles had to step in when William and Harry almost came to blows at a family funeral

Harry’s notorious memoir Spare has finally released in paperback form this week — Oct. 22 in the U.S. and Oct. 24 in the U.K. — so it’s worth revisiting one of the most memorable revelations the Duke of Sussex admitted in his tell-all autobiography. Namely, the time he and William couldn’t put their grievances aside when forced to reunite for a Royal family funeral.

In Spare, Harry opens up about what went down during the funeral of Prince Philip, his grandfather, in April 2021. By this point, Harry and Meghan had already left Britain and relocated to California so it was obviously tense for the family to be together again, especially at such an emotional time. The boys attempted to put a pin in their squabbles for the day, presenting a united front as they walked side-by-side during the coffin procession at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor.

Behind the scenes, though, things got intensely fraught and Harry admits that he and his brother began to hash it out, slinging insults at each other and getting angrier and angrier. It got so bad that Charles, then Prince of Wales, was forced to intervene. Harry writes that he stepped in between his two furious, flush-faced sons and demanded: “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.”

This was a stark request on Charles’ part, as it shows just how much his own mortality was on his mind as he attended his father’s funeral. Over three years later, and the now-king is facing a battle for his health amid his treatment for cancer. Sadly, even the gravity of this situation hasn’t been enough to bring his two sons back together again. Hopefully they’ll have many more years to make his life a “misery.”