The royal family is riven with ambition, suspicion and competition with the Prince and Princess of Wales at the heart of it all, according to an explosive new book about The Firm.
In Endgame, royal reporter and author Omid Scobie moves beyond Prince Harry to detail an alleged power struggle between King Charles and Prince William.
He explores the new king’s relationship with his disgraced brother Prince Andrew and examines why Kate is perfect in the mould of Britain’s future queen.
Scobie examines the UK media’s coverage of past controversies surrounding William and Kate, and makes sensational claims about the heir’s attitude towards his brother Harry.
Ahead of the book’s release on 28 November, here are some of the biggest royal revelations from Endgame:
William snapping at Charles’ heels as ‘ambitious’ prince eyes throne
One of the key themes of Scobie’s book is the alleged ‘rift’ between King Charles and Prince William
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Scobie highlights an alleged rift between King Charles and his son, the Prince of Wales. In Endgame, William is painted as an ambitious, hot-headed prince, determined to lead the royal family into the future, with Scobie claiming that he wants to “rip up” the rulebook and do things “the Cambridge way”.
He adds that, while William respects his father, the difference in their views might become an issue over the years ahead. Scobie writes that William and Charles are united in their frustration towards Prince Harry but do not see eye to eye about how the institution should be run.
He describes Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace, the offices of Charles and William respectively, as hives of competing agendas and different ideas about how to modernise the monarchy. Scobie also claims William is “not giving his father the same space” Charles did with the late Queen, as the 41-year-old eyes the throne. “There’s no time for that,” the author writes.
Inside the Wales’ relationship with UK press
The book looks at favourable coverage in the media of William and Kate
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Through the lens of a number of incidents in 2019, Scobie provides an analysis of the UK media’s relationship with the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Prince Harry has previously claimed stories about his wife were leaked to the British press. Calling it a “dirty game” in the couple’s 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry said negative news coverage about Meghan helped steer unwanted media attention away from other members of the royal family.
Scobie brands William and Kate’s 2019 holiday to Balmoral Castle a “showy publicity stunt”. That year, the prince and princess were praised for booking a £73 a head Flybe flight from Norwich to Aberdeen amid reports that Harry and Meghan had chartered four private flights in 11 days. What wasn’t included in the “PR gamesmanship”, Scobie writes, was that the Cambridges’ scheduled flight did not have the Flybe logo on its side.
Since airline bosses were keen for them to use a properly branded plane, an empty one was sent from the headquarters in Humberside, around 123 miles north of Norwich. The same plane also returned empty to Humberside after the family landed in Aberdeen.
In total, the two flights released over four and a half tons of carbon emissions. “Their perfect family trip was exposed for what it really was; a showy publicity stunt,” Scobie says. A source close to William and Kate reportedly said they were unaware Flybe had switched the flights and did not seek any special treatment, in a statement to MailOnline.
William thinks Harry has been brainwashed by ‘army of therapists’
Prince Harry has been very open about his mental health struggles
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Scobie believes the relationship between William and Harry is unlikely to be mended, as the rift between the brothers continues to push them apart.
The heir and the spare have grown apart in the aftermath of Harry’s bombshell allegations against the royal family since resigning as a senior member and relocating to the US with Meghan.
In Endgame, the British journalist claims William believes Harry blindsided the family with their public complaints and “oh so California” self-importance. A source reportedly told Scobie William is convinced his younger brother is being brainwashed by an “army of therapists” and that he no longer recognises who Harry has become.
“He feels he has lost Harry and doesn’t want to know this version of him,” a source close to William told Scobie. Harry is reportedly ready to move on from the whole saga, whether he and Meghan receive an apology or not over their alleged treatment by the royal family since their wedding.
Kate ‘jokingly shivered’ when Meghan’s name came up
Meghan was regarded more difficult than Kate ‘because she had opinions’
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Scobie gives Endgame readers his take on the reportedly frosty relationship between Kate and Meghan, writing that they were never close.
Citing multiple sources, he claims Kate was never a fan of the former actress. One person reportedly told Scobie the Princess of Wales has spent “more time talking about Meghan than talking to her”. He also reveals that Kate “has jokingly shivered when Meghan’s name has come up” on recent occasions.
Describing Kate as an “institutional dream come true”, Scobie suggests the future queen has “successfully sublimated her authentic self, becoming an enigma to the public and perhaps even herself”. He claims Kate, who was born in Reading and attended St Andrew’s, where she met Prince William, has “had several rounds of elocution lessons” and now sounds “posher” than her husband.
In contrast, one former palace aide told Scobie Meghan was regarded as being difficult “because she had opinions”.
“They wanted Meghan to just go with everything that was suggested and not create any additional work,” he writes. “It was a combination of her not conforming with how women marrying into the family are expected to behave and certain individuals just being lazy.”
William ‘ignored his brother’ and Harry was ‘left completely by himself’ after Queen’s death
Prince Harry has become increasingly distanced from his family in the UK
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Queen Elizabeth’s reign ended last year, as the long-serving monarch died on 8 September 2022. Scobie writes that the Sussexes had no idea that Buckingham Palace was preparing for her final few hours, when Charles rang Harry and asked him to make his way to Balmoral Castle immediately.
When Harry reached out to William to check whether they could travel to Scotland together, he was said to have been met with radio silence.
Harry was reportedly informed William had secured a flight for himself and his uncles, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. Meanwhile, the duke received no details about joining that flight.
A source told Scobie: “It was upsetting to witness. [Harry] was completely by himself on this.”
Harry sent his brother a follow-up text message but he still didn’t hear back from William – despite the fact that seats were available on the Dassault Falcon private jet the prince had chartered.
“William ignored him,” said a family source. “He clearly didn’t want to see his brother.”
In the end, Harry flew out by himself in a private plane, costing $37,000, from Luton airport.
Harry learnt about Queen’s death after news alert
A source claimed William ‘completely ignored’ Harry in the time surrounding the Queen’s death
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Harry had no idea his grandmother had died at 3.10pm on 8 September, over two hours before his own flight took off. While the duke was still racing against time to make it to Her Majesty’s bedside, Buckingham Palace was preparing to break the news of her death to the world, Scobie writes.
“[Harry’s] team literally had to beg for them to wait for his plane to land and they reluctantly agreed to hold the statement back for a little bit,” Scobie shares a statement from a close family friend. But, when Harry’s plane was delayed by bad weather over Aberdeen International airport, “they could wait no longer and the announcement went live at 6.30pm,” he writes.
When the plane landed at around 6.50pm, Harry received a text message from Meghan, urging him to call her after she received a BBC breaking news alert that the queen had died.
“Harry was crushed,” a friend of the duke told Scobie. “His relationship with the queen was everything to him. She would have wanted him to know before it went out to the world. They could have waited just a little longer, it would have been nothing in the grand scheme of things, but no one respected that at all.”
Charles ‘tearful’ over disgraced Andrew’s mental health
Prince Andrew with his brother Charles
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Scobie says that Charles, like his late mother, has a soft spot for Prince Andrew, who stepped back from royal life over intense scrutiny of his ties to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
“Stonewalling and expelling his son came easy enough,” he writes, referring to Charles’ approach in dealing with Harry, “although it’s a different story with his own brother.”
Amid Andrew’s fall from grace, Scobie writes, “Charles was tearful over fears for the shamed duke’s mental health.”
The Duke of York was stripped of his military titles by his mother after one of Epstein’s victims Virginia Giuffre accused him of sexually abusing her at his apartment in Belgravia when she was 17. Andrew strongly and repeatedly denied the allegations, and later paid a multimillion-pound amount to settle the lawsuit.
According to r Scobie, it was “William who set the wheels in motion” in distancing the royal family from Andrew, although the Queen was the “official face of Andrew’s reckoning”. Charles, he claims, “didn’t want any part of” it.
Royal family’s silence over Prince Archie race row
Harry is apparently now in a ‘great place’ and focusing on his physical and mental fitness
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In the two years since the royal family became embroiled in a race row over Harry and Meghan’s son, no one except Charles is said to have addressed the alleged conversation about Prince Archie’s skin colour.
After they relocated to Montecito, California, Harry and Meghan sat down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. During their hour-long conversation about their treatment by the royals, Meghan claimed that a senior member had speculated about the colour of Archie’s skin while she was pregnant.
While the issue has reportedly been privately addressed in letters between Meghan and Charles, neither Kate nor William have reached out to the Sussexes about the matter.
“The silence has caused a lot of confusion and upset,” says a source close to the family.
Harry ‘is in a great place’
With the long rift between him and his family showing no sign of healing, Prince Harry is focussing on his role as a father to Archie and Princess Lilibet.
According to Scobie’s account, Harry’s also prioritising his physical and mental fitness, adding that the duke works out regularly with his personal trainer. His routine also includes regular hikes, bike rides, and ice baths.
‘Endgame’ will be released in the UK on 28 November. You can read The Independent’s review of the book here.
Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, and the Sussexes were all contacted for comment.
