Prince Harry faces renewed pressure to come home and face his family following the death Monday of his and Prince William’s uncle, Lord Robert Fellowes, at the age of 82.
Harry’s representatives were not immediately able to say whether he would attend the funeral of his uncle, a date for which has not been announced. Fellowes was not only married to Princess Diana’s elder sister, Jane Fellowes (née Spencer), but was also the late Queen Elizabeth’s private secretary for nine of the most tumultuous years of her reign, from 1990 to 1999.
He was widely credited with persuading the queen to return to London after Diana’s death in 1997 and crafted the bulk of the extraordinary speech Elizabeth gave, live, to the nation in the wake of Diana’s death in which she paid tribute to Diana as an “exceptional and gifted human being” and memorably described herself as “a grandmother.”
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Diana was not fond of Fellowes, whom she regarded as one of the faceless “men in grey” and was said to have even suspected him of being involved in tapping her phone calls.
Fellowes, who was said to have coined the phrase “We don’t have protocol here, just bloody good manners,” remained firmly aligned with the palace, but his wife, Jane, 67, became a close and supportive presence in the life of her late sister’s bereaved sons, particularly Harry. Indeed, Jane gave a reading at Harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle in 2018, highlighting her important place in their lives.
A former friend of Harry’s who has fallen out of touch with him since he left the U.K. told The Daily Beast: “The death will be a huge blow to the Spencer family. In normal times it would be unimaginable that Harry would not be there to support Jane. Of course he would want to be there. It will be a huge gathering of the Spencer clan. But these are not normal times and it may well be that everyone feels Harry’s attendance would just create too much drama. It will be very sad for him if he can’t make it.”
