During a recent Champions League match between Aston Villa and Paris Saint-Germain, Prince William had the company of a long-time friend by his side, Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster.
Accompanying the Prince of Wales to the Birmingham stadium was not only Grosvenor but also his pregnant wife. This gathering may have caused some discomfort for William’s younger brother, given their strained relationship.
As one of the most significant landowners in the UK, the Duke of Westminster shares a close bond with both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex. Additionally, he holds the role of godfather to both Prince George and Prince Archie.
But Harry’s transatlantic dash has seen him miss multiple friendship milestones, ranging from a low-key football match to his perhaps more painful absence from Hugh’s 2024 wedding to Olivia Henson, 32, who was present yesterday.
The billionaire aristocrat was reportedly keen to invite the Sussexes but mutually agreed with Harry that it would be better if they didn’t attend so the occasion wouldn’t be overshadowed by royal tensions.
It’s a far cry from Hugh’s once-close relationship with the Montecito-based father-of-two, who was reportedly earmarked as Hugh’s best man at one point prior to his exclusion from the society wedding.
Despite Hugh, known as Hughie by friends, and Harry, 40, remaining friends, seeing his brother celebrate Villa’s 3-2 win with the landowner yesterday would have no doubt added a sting for Harry, who is rarely in the UK to catch up with his old circle.
To rub salt in the wound, it came just days after William enjoyed another boys’ night out in Paris to watch Aston Villa with childhood friends Thomas von Straubenzee and William van Cutsem.
Prince William was accompanied by his old friend the Duke of Westminster (pictured right) yesterday evening
Hugh and his wife Olivia (pictured far right) applauded after Aston Villa scored their second goal at yesterday’s match in Birmingham
Harry agreed to stay away from Hugh’s wedding for fear of his feud with his brother overshadowing the event, it was claimed.
A phone call from Hugh Grosvenor, the 7th Duke of Westminster, saw the Duke of Sussex invited to his nuptials with fiancée Olivia Henson at Chester Cathedral in June last year.
However, it was later claimed that Harry reached a ‘civilised understanding’ with Hugh to bow out of attending, The Times reported.
The change made the Prince of Wales free to be an usher for Hugh, who has been friends with the pair since childhood, avoiding the potentially awkward situation of having to show Harry to his seat during the ceremony.
It was claimed that month that Harry – who at one point had been earmarked as Hugh’s best man – was unhappy that his brother was due to be given the key role.
A well-informed source told The Mail on Sunday in May last year: ‘William was asked to have a prominent role in the wedding and that’s what triggered Harry to decline an invitation.
Harry and Hugh are seen during a 2015 visit to the Khulula Care for Wild Centre in South Africa with Care for Wild Centre owner Petronel Nieuwoud
Pictured: Hugh and William attend the wedding of Edward van Cutsem and Lady Tamara Grosvenor at Chester Cathedral on November 6, 2004
William and Hugh, known as Hughie to close friends, have maintained a close friendship over the years (seen in 2018 at the Stanford Hall Estate in Leeds with General Timothy Granville-Chapman)
‘Apparently he [Harry] was put out by the request when he thought it should have been him.’
Despite the awkwardness surrounding his wedding, Hugh – who is normally publicity-shy – remains good friends with both Harry and William and he could link up with his California-based friend if he fulfils his goal of representing Great Britain in clay pigeon shooting at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Hugh, one of Britain’s wealthiest landowners after inheriting his father’s £10billion estate at the age of just 25 in 2016 following the death of his 64-year-old father from a heart attack, was introduced to Olivia by mutual acquaintances in 2021 before announcing their engagement in April 2023.
The Duke and Duchess of Westminster, who are expecting their first child, wed at Chester Cathedral, inviting around 400 guests, including Princess Eugenie and TV producer Phil Redmond to a lavish reception at the Grosvenor family seat, Eaton Hall, just outside Chester.
Harry’s changed dynamic with Hugh isn’t the only recent friendship change he’s experienced in recent times, with him cutting ties with his boyhood friends Thomas von Straubenzee, 42, and William van Cutsem, 45.
However, William hasn’t let the change impact his relationship with his old pals, who last week took to the football with him.
Both were friends with William and Harry and their families have remained closely entwined since, from high society events to charity partnerships, to godparent duties – and being ushers at each others’ weddings.
But after the Duke of Sussex made a dramatic move to Montecito in 2020, and laid bare his grievances with the family in a tell-all memoir, Spare; his connections with old friends have suffered alongside the well-documented rift with his family.
The Duke and Duchess of Westminster, who wed last year, announced that that are expecting a baby this summer
Thomas is known as William’s best friend and in the wake of Megxit, sources said the future King was leaning on his old pal for support while Harry turned to another Van Straubenzee brother, Charlie.
Meanwhile, Harry himself confirmed in his memoir Spare that he’d experienced a rift with some members of the van Cutsem family who didn’t approve of his tell-all Oprah interview.
Seeing his brother enjoying himself with their old pals will have caused an even greater sting, coming just days after Harry skipped the wedding of his close friend Lord Vivian even though he was in London just days later for his Court of Appeal hearing regarding security provisions.
The Duke cut a lonely figure on the visit, during which he didn’t see his father King Charles or appear to catch up with any of his old circle of friends, which once included Thomas and VC as key members.
The van Straubenzees have often been described as being like a second family to William and Harry, and Claire and Alex – the boys’ parents – provided a retreat for the royal brothers during the ‘war of the Waleses’ (Charles and Diana’s very public, and painful divorce).
Harry was particularly close to Thomas’s late brother Henry who became the royal’s best friend after they met at their prep school, Ludgrove Prep in Berkshire.
‘Skinny, with no muscles, and hair that stood up in permanent surrender, Henners was all heart,’ he wrote affectionately of ‘Henners’. ‘Whenever he smiled, people melted.’
The Duke said in his book that Henry was the only boy who asked him about his mother Princess Diana after she died in 1997. Tragically, he himself passed away in a car crash at the age of 18.
Olivia, who is expecting her first child this summer, got into the spirit and donned an Aston Villa scarf
In Spare, Harry described how the news of Henry’s death had terrible echoes of the moment that his father, then Prince Charles, told him that his mother had died. He noted how, ‘just like Mummy’, Henry was not wearing a seatbelt.
In December 2022, despite being estranged, the princes signed a joint letter to mark the 20th anniversary of Henry’s death.
Thomas’s brother Charlie appears to still be close to Harry, and both himself and Thomas were ushers at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding in 2018, where Charlie gave a speech at the reception.
Harry also is godfather to Charlie’s four-year-old daughter Clover and, in turn, Charlie is godfather to Prince Archie, five. The pair were also seen cycling around the Californian neighbourhood in May 2022.
However Thomas – often described as the Prince of Wales’s best friend – is likely to have divided loyalties over the princes’ rift.
He and the Duke were close to one another in the 2010s, and when Thomas was in 2012 mugged in Stockwell, south London – it was Harry he was on the phone to when his Nokia phone was snatched.
In 2015, he accompanied Harry and his brother Charlie to a rugby match.
However, there seem to be no public joint appearances of the duo since – while Thomas has been seen by William’s side aplenty, both at the football and other gatherings, such as the Duke of Westminster’s wedding.
