Will Harry ever forgive Prince William after he honours Jason Knauf, who testified against Meghan Markle?

It would seem that any tiny hope of any reconciliation between Prince William and Prince Harry has not only dwindled out, but been brutally extinguished. According to Newsweek, “Prince William has handed an honour to a former aide who accused Meghan Markle of bullying palace staff.” The article goes on to say that “Knauf’s inclusion on the list is striking, however, because of the role he played in one of the most explosive episodes in Meghan’s time as a working royal-and it shows the royals are seemingly making no attempt to distance themselves from the characterisation of Meghan as a bully”

The ‘former aide’ in question is Jason Knauf, who has been made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (RVO) and received the order at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle. Prince William presented the honour to Jason Knauf, who was named in King Charles’ first New Year Honours LIst in December 2022. 

When Meghan Markle joined the royal family, Jason Knauf was working as a communications secretary for Prince William, Kate Middleton and Prince Harry. He then was the CEO of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ Royal Foundation from 2019 until January 2022. 

According to The Mirror, “When working for Harry and Meghan as their communications secretary in October 2018, he emailed his concerns about Meghan to William’s then-private secretary, in an apparent attempt to force Buckingham Palace to protect staff. The Duchess's legal team have in the past strenuously denied the allegation.”

Tensions between Prince William and Prince Harry have been escalating rather than diminishing in the last year. Although momentous occasions such as weddings and of course the coronation are seen ideally as a way of bringing warring family members together, more often than not, they only serve as making fractious divisions even more pronounced.

Although Prince Harry made the decision to attend the coronation without his wife, Meghan Markle, by his side, this did little to ameliorate the ‘frosty’ relations between the brothers. In many ways, in the lead up to King Charles’s big day, much of the talk was around where his son Prince Harry would be seated, rather than about the day itself.

As the guests started to arrive for the coronation, once again, a lot of the focus was on Prince Harry and Prince William’s body language towards each other. Body language expert Judi James told The Mirror that “Harry performed what looked oddly-times an act of ignore or attention diversion as his father, brother and sister-in-law walked in a procession in front of him.”

Although Prince Harry could not have expected to sit in the front row as his brother, Prince William, he still must have felt awkward and totally removed from the situation in the third row. His decision to fly back quickly in order to make it back in time for his son Prince Archie’s fourth birthday, also demonstrated that a ‘reconciliation’ of any description would not be on the cards for that day.

However distant Prince Harry and Prince William are today, I am in no doubt that Prince Harry would have been aggrieved even more after seeing Jason Knauf receive an honour from his brother. If the brothers’ relationship was not at breaking point before the coronation, at present, the issues between them look insurmountable.