19 September 2023 , 06:00
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Their bitter rift means that feuding brothers Prince William and Prince Harry have rarely been seen out in public together in several years.
In fact, one of their last appearances where they were seen together was exactly a year ago today when they reunited to say a final goodbye to their late grandmother the Queen at her funeral. During the funeral, the two stood shoulder to shoulder several times as they marched in processions behind their grandmother's coffin.
However, there appeared to be one slightly awkward moment when the royals took their seats in St George's Chapel for the committal service after the ceremony at Westminster Abbey. William had to hold back his wife Kate as well as children Prince George and Princess Charlotte to let Harry and and wife Meghan Markle take their seats.
Kate went to walk down the row of seats, but William stopped her to let Harry past (BBC)William had to point out that they needed to wait, forcing Kate to step back to allow Harry and Meghan to make their way down the pew. And according to body language expert Judi James, it appeared that during this moment there was little communication between the families - bar one unusual gesture from Harry.
She told the Mirror: "During the second service in Windsor there was a moment when William and his family had to hold back to allow Harry and Meghan to get into the pews first. Despite the proximity, there seemed to be no sign on camera of any glances or exchanged acknowledgements, apart from a hand-flicking gesture from Harry."
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The brothers walked behind the Queen's coffin alongside their dad King Charles (Getty Images)Relations between William and Harry have long been strained despite their closeness in their younger years. The fallout is said to have begun before Harry’s wedding to former Suits star, the Duchess of Sussex, with the duke accusing William of being snobbish to his bride.
But it worsened following the death of the late Queen after the accusations Harry publicly levelled at his brother in double tell-alls: his memoir, Spare, and his Netflix documentary. In his autobiography, released just months after Elizabeth II died, Harry accused William of physically attacking him and pushing him into a dog bowl in a row over Meghan.
Harry and Meghan, in their Netflix series two months after the Queen’s death, claimed Kensington Palace lied to protect William when it issued a statement denying a story he had bullied Harry out of the royal family. Harry also wrote of how Charles pleaded with his two sons during a tense meeting at Windsor just after the funeral of Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, saying: “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery”.
When it came to marking the first anniversary of the late Queen's death, both brothers were in the UK as Harry made the trip across the Atlantic to his home in California to attend a charity awards ceremony. However, he did not meet up with William nor his father King Charles - and paid his respects to his grandmother alone at Windsor Castle while his two royal relatives were hundreds of miles away in Wales and Scotland respectively.