What Queen Elizabeth Would Have Done About Prince Harry and Prince William’s Rift Today (Exclusive)

A source close to the palace tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue that the late monarch “knew that families are complicated”

Prince Harry and Prince William in 2021; Queen Elizabeth in 2017.Credit : 

DOMINIC LIPINSKI/POOL/AFP via Getty; Chris Jackson/WPA Pool/Getty

The royal family is missing their matriarch, Queen Elizabeth, who died on Sept. 8, 2022, ahead of what would be her 100th birthday in late April.

In this week’s PEOPLE cover story, sources address the ongoing, six-year rift between Prince Harry and Prince William — and how the late Queen Elizabeth might have offered her support behind the scenes were she still alive.

“She saw both of them, even after the estrangement,” a source close to the palace tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “She also believed that you might have views, but you don’t have sides. She knew that families are complicated.”

Ailsa Anderson, a former press secretary to the Queen, adds, “It’s very difficult. The only two people who can mend this are themselves. She could have been the convener, but they have to take the first steps.”

While the brothers’ relationship remains strained, a source also tells PEOPLE that there have been gradual efforts to repair Prince Harry’s relationship with his father, King Charles, and the two have been talking more since their reunion in September 2025.

Prince Harry, 41, and Prince William, 43, have had a fraught relationship for several years. It’s been widely reported that the brothers’ rupture began in 2016 when William expressed concerns about how quickly Harry’s relationship with Meghan Markle was moving. In his memoir Spare, Harry revealed the complexities of his relationship with William, which, despite a public image of closeness, was marked by tension. Harry described William as both his “beloved brother and arch nemesis,” recounting instances of verbal and even physical altercations between them.

Tensions between the couple and the royal family continued to mount in subsequent years as Harry and Meghan, 44, moved to California in 2020, broke from the royal mandate of “never complain, never explain” and shared their grievances about royal life in various high-profile interviews, a Netflix series and Harry’s 2023 memoir.

In a new book by Russell Myers, William and Catherine: The Monarchy’s New Era: The Inside Story, the author claimed that William was left “absolutely seething” by what he saw as his brother’s betrayal.

“He felt betrayed by Harry to the extent that he vowed never to speak to him again,” Myers wrote. “Such was his anger that he told one of his most trusted aides that he had “absolutely no time to entertain either of them [Harry and Meghan].”

However, Myers said that it’s Kate, 44, who has been the steadying force for his husband amid the estrangement and the multitude of other stressors that come with being the future king of England.

“Her attitude was consistently ‘this will pass,’ ” he wrote of the Princess of Wales. “Whenever William would get riled up about it, she would calm the situation down and bring him back to what matters most to them. That is their family and what they are doing.”

From his sons’ feud to the fallout from the actions of his brother, the former Prince Andrew, to a battle with cancer, King Charles’ first years on the throne haven’t been easy.

Catherine Mayer, author of the upcoming book Divide and Rule, tells PEOPLE, “Charles was the most prepared monarch in history. But he will be seen as one of the unluckiest.”

However, those closest to the royal family say there’s still something of the late Queen’s resilience left in the surviving royals. Anderson tells PEOPLE that the family’s latest troubles “are not going to be [their] downfall.”

“They’re survivors. The monarchy has weathered far worse,” she says.