“For nearly twenty-five years we’d reserved that soul-crushing vow for times when one of us needed to be heard, to be believed, quickly,” the Duke of Sussex wrote in ‘Spare’ Prince Harry’s memoir Spare was published one year ago today, inspiring a look back at a dramatic passage that marked a defining moment in the breakdown of his relationship with his brother Prince William.
In the last chapter of the groundbreaking book, released on Jan. 10, 2023, Harry recounts how a heated exchange with his older brother and father King Charles after Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021 took an emotional turn as they discussed the circumstances around Harry and wife Meghan Markle’s decision to step back from royal life. The Duke of Sussex, 39, says that William shockingly used their “secret code” connected to their late mother Princess Diana, who died at age 36 in 1997.
“’Harold, you must listen to me! I just want you to be happy, Harold. I swear… I swear on Mummy’s life,’ ” Harry writes. Harry said that the reference stopped both him and Charles in their tracks. The father and sons had been walking around Frogmore Gardens hours after Prince Philip’s funeral. “He’d used the secret code, the universal password. Ever since we were boys those three words were to be used only in times of extreme crisis,” Harry writes in Spare. “For nearly twenty-five years we’d reserved that soul-crushing vow for times when one of us needed to be heard, to be believed, quickly. For times when nothing else would do.”
The Duke of Sussex adds that William’s use of the powerful phrase “stopped me cold” because it “didn’t work.” “I simply didn’t believe him, didn’t fully trust him. And vice versa. He saw it to. He saw that we were in a place of such hurt and doubt that even those sacred words couldn’t set us free,” Harry writes of the emotional moment. Prince Harry looked back at his childhood in the royal spotlight, career in the British Army and love story with Meghan in Spare, which was an instant bestseller and recently revealed by Amazon as its “Most Sold” book of 2023. One of the book’s biggest bombshells was the allegation that William physically attacked him in 2019 after the brothers got into an argument and William insulted Meghan.
While speaking to PEOPLE last year about the book, Prince Harry kept it open-ended when asked what he hoped his family’s takeaway was. “I don’t want to tell anyone what to think of it and that includes my family. This book and its truths are in many ways a continuation of my own mental health journey. It’s a raw account of my life — the good, the bad and everything in between,” Prince Harry said.
Following the publication of Spare last January, the Duke of Sussex traveled solo to the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla in May, where he and Prince William did not cross paths publicly. The brothers did not sit together during the church service, which saw King Charles crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and William, the Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, symbolically pay homage.
Harry left London shortly after the service to return to California, where Meghan and their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet celebrated Archie’s 4th birthday. The Duke of Sussex traveled back to London in June to historically testify against Mirror Group Newspapers over allegations of phone hacking and other unlawful acts. He emerged victorious in the litigation in December 2023 and described the judge’s decision as “vindicating and affirming.”
