Prince Harry’s “ambush” damaged the Queen’s health in her last year of frailty, palace sources say

As well as having to deal with damaging allegations in TV interviews, the late Queen was aware that more revelations would be made in the Prince’s book. spare partoriginally slated for release last year.

Friends of the late Queen have left no doubt that it was on her mind in her last few months. “This affected the Queen’s health in her final year. It’s taken its toll,” said one.

The prince, it is said, was a “much beloved grandson” of Elizabeth II, making the “almost weekly” attacks particularly painful.

It comes as royal sources have accused the prince of falsely accusing Camilla, the queen consort, of leaking details of a private conversation with his brother Prince William to a newspaper.

Royal insiders also accused the prince of “hypocrisy” for going into details about the personal struggles of King Charles and William’s wife, Kate Middleton, despite posing as a mental health campaigner.

Meanwhile, the prince is facing a growing backlash from members of the British armed forces, who believe his revelation that he killed 25 insurgents in Afghanistan has put not only himself but serving staff in greater danger.

The book’s release was pushed back to Tuesday January 10 following the Queen’s death, but copies of it have been put up for sale in Spain, meaning its contents have been widely reported.

The prince writes affectionately about his grandmother in the memoir, but those who knew the late sovereign have revealed that she has suffered from the campaign he has waged against his family since he moved to California nearly three years ago.

A friend of the late Queen said: “She never wanted to engage in confrontation, even going back to the very beginning of Prince Andrew’s troubles, and that stuff was shoved in her face on an almost weekly basis.

“That worked. She had lost Prince Philip, and then the royal family’s constant ambush by a beloved grandson took its toll.

“At this point in your life and reign, you just don’t need that on top of everything else,” they said.

Another well-placed source said they had “absolutely” no doubt that the allegations leveled at Harry and Meghan had affected the late Queen’s health.

The first source asked how the prince could possibly achieve the reconciliation he wants with his family, commenting: “He says he wants a reconciliation, then he sticks this giant machete in their backs.”

They also said Meghan Markle said she wanted to be part of a family, “but how are her kids supposed to be part of a family now? It’s out of the question”.

Royal insiders have accused Prince Harry of hypocrisy for revealing his father and sister-in-law’s personal troubles.

Harry has long campaigned for better mental health support and also railed against others who leak personal details about his private life to the media.

But he uses his memoir to uncover sensitive and private conversations that took place between family members.

Prince Harry reveals in the book that Meghan believed Kate Middleton suffered from ‘baby brain’.

He suggests that after Prince Louis was born her hormones were haywire and made her forget things.

Harry also reveals that Charles had been unhappy in the years following Diana’s death, with “blank stares, blank sighs and frustration” always on his face.
He reveals that Charles begged him and William not to make his final years a misery, and also reveals details of several dinner conversations with William and Kate.

A royal source said: “It’s hypocritical of him to talk about other people’s mental health.
Another said: “It’s very difficult to understand how he reconciled that in his own head given his passion for protecting his private life.”

In the new book, Harry has also claimed that Charles wanted to avoid supporting Meghan financially because he was jealous that she could become a new Diana and steal the limelight from him.

Harry claims his father raised the issue during a visit to the Sandringham estate, where Prince Harry had to get the late Queen’s permission to marry Meghan, who was divorced.

The pair were driving to the Norfolk estate in a Land Rover alongside Prince William when Charles asked if Meghan planned to continue playing, according to the book.

When Prince Harry said she probably wouldn’t and wouldn’t live with him in the UK, he claims his father said, “Well, my dear son, you already know we don’t have any money to spare.”

The book claims Charles said he was already struggling to support Harry’s brother William and his wife.

While Prince Harry writes that he didn’t respond at the time, in the book he lashes out at his father for thinking he was “supporting” her.

He insists the endorsement was actually a salary of sorts for their royal roles.

There was an implicit agreement, he said, that required royals to live in a “gilded
cage” and give up their autonomy for “food and clothing”.

The reality, Prince Harry claims to have realized, was that Charles had previously experienced being eclipsed and could not face “a novel and bright” king who would steal the limelight from him and Queen Camilla and “the monarchy would dominate”.

“He’d been through this before and had no interest in letting it happen to him again,” Harry writes, apparently alluding to his mother, Diana.

In an ITV interview to be aired tomorrow, the prince was asked if he felt his book had invaded the privacy of his nearest and dearest without permission.

He replied: “That would be the accusation of people who don’t understand or don’t want to believe that my family informed the press.”

He added, “I don’t know how silence can ever make things better.”

Harry was asked by veteran presenter Tom Bradby, “If your brother didn’t say to you, ‘Harry, how could you do this to me after all? After everything we’ve been through?’. Wouldn’t he say that?”

He replied, “He would probably say all sorts of things.”