Prince Harry: William and I ‘begged’ Charles not to marry Camilla

The Duke of Sussex has claimed he and Prince William “begged” the King not to marry Camilla Parker Bowles in a devastating memoir used to settle scores with the most senior members of the Royal family.

In his autobiography, entitled Spare, Prince Harry reveals that he feared having a “wicked stepmother” and recounts in detail how his relationships with his brother and father fell apart.

He makes a series of accusations, describing the Prince of Wales as his “arch-nemesis” and accusing him of physically attacking him in his kitchen.

He also alleges that the King refused to allow Meghan to join him at Balmoral as Queen Elizabeth II was dying, prompting the Duke to reply: “Don’t ever speak about my wife that way”.  

For the first time, the Duke publicly hits out at Camilla, the Queen Consort, alleging that she “sacrificed” him to improve her own public image and leaked details of a conversation with Prince William to the press as part of a concerted campaign to marry Charles against his son’s wishes.

The book is due to be published on Jan 10, but has already gone on sale in Spain, from where The Telegraph has obtained a Spanish language copy.

The 410-page book lays bare the Duke’s bitterness over the way he feels he was treated by his family, revealing intimate conversations and airing a series of grievances about the King, the Queen Consort and the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace declined to comment on the revelations, seemingly determined to rise above the fray despite the scale of the Duke’s alleged betrayal.

However, such a sustained attack on the family will only serve to widen the gulf between the two sides, offering little hope of the reconciliation Prince Harry claims to crave.

The Duke’s attack on the Queen Consort comes months ahead of the King’s Coronation, when Camilla will be crowned alongside her husband.

Referring to her as the Other Woman, he says she had “played a role” in the death of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales because she had been “pivotal” in the disintegration of his parents’ marriage.

He says he and William were prepared to forgive her if she made their father happy, but told Charles they would only welcome her into the family on condition that he did not remarry.

Harry writes: “All that we asked in return was that he did not marry her. ‘You do not need to remarry,’ we begged him. A wedding would … make the whole country, the whole world, compare our mother and Camilla, something that nobody wanted.”

He adds that they told their father they approved of Camilla, but said: “Please, don’t marry her. Be together and that’s all.”

Charles did not respond to the plea, but Harry says Camilla did not “waste any time” in developing her own long-term strategy, “a campaign directed towards marriage and, with time, the crown”.

Harry likens his first meeting with his mother-in-law to “getting an injection”, saying that he said to himself: “Close your eyes and you won’t even feel it.”

He suggests that the then Mrs Parker Bowles was “bored” during their meeting, partly because Harry was not his father’s heir and so was not a major obstacle to her marrying the then Prince of Wales.

The Duke cast doubt over whether he would attend the May 6 Coronation, telling ITV in the trailer for a forthcoming interview that there was “a lot that can happen between now and then” and adding of his family that “the ball is in their court”.

The Duke reveals that the King begged his warring sons not to make his final years “a misery”. He accuses his father of failing to hug him when he told him his mother had died.

In September, when Queen Elizabeth II was dying, he claims his father told him on the phone that he did not want the Duchess of Sussex to travel up to Balmoral, laying out “nonsensical and disrespectful” reasons.

The Duke retorted: “Don’t ever speak about my wife that way,” prompting the King to offer an apology.

He claims Prince William called his wife “a difficult person” and “rude” before launching himself at his brother, physically pushing him to the floor.

“He broke my necklace by grabbing me by the collar of my shirt,” he writes. “I fell on the dog bowl, it broke under my back and the pieces scratched me.”

For the first time, the Duke also reveals the extent of the froideur between his wife and the Princess of Wales, making a series of jibes against his sister-in-law. He claims the Princess demanded an apology from Meghan after she suggested Catherine had “baby brain”.

In a more light-hearted extract, the Duke reveals that he lost his virginity in a field behind a pub to an older woman who treated him “like a young stallion”.

Friends of the Duke suggested there was a certain amount of frustration and disappointment that the book had been leaked ahead of its publication date, suggesting that denied readers the chance to absorb it in full and understand the various claims within the full context.

However, it will not alter plans for the book’s publication on Jan 10, before which Prince Harry will embark on a series of television interviews to be broadcast on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.