Prince Harry has revealed that he was forced to turn down an invite on a trip to Scotland out of fear it would cause a ‘huge scandal’.
Writing in his memoir Spare, the duke, 40, recalled how he had been visiting his late childhood friend Henry van Straubenzee, nicknamed Henners, in Edinburgh, when the pair started discussing the future and what it could hold.
He penned: “The future. We wondered aloud about what it held. I worried about it, but not Henners. He didn’t take the future seriously, didn’t take anything seriously. Life as it comes, Haz. That was Henners, always and forever. I envied his tranquility.”
The duke said his pal then decided to head to a casino in Edinburgh and asked if he would join him but the prince cautiously declined.
Recalling his reply, he wrote: “Ah, can’t, I said. I couldn’t possibly be seen in a casino. It would cause a huge scandal. Too bad, he said. Cheers, we both said, promising to talk again soon.”
Sadly Harry did not know that he didn’t have much time left with his dear friend as he reveals later in the book that Henry was killed in a car crash in December 2002 when the duke was just 18-years-old.
Harry wrote: “I only dimly recall holding the phone, hearing the words. Henners and another boy, leaving a party near Ludgrove, drove into a tree… They didn’t bother with seatbelts… Just like Mummy.
“And yet, unlike Mummy, there was no way to spin this as a disappearance. This was death, no two ways about it. Also, unlike Mummy, Henners wasn’t going that fast. Because he wasn’t being chased. Twenty miles an hour, tops, everyone said.
“And yet the car went straight into an old tree. Old ones, someone explained, are much harder than young ones.”
Henry’s brothers Thomas and Charlie are also mentioned in Spare, although it’s believed that Harry no longer has a close relationship with the siblings.
Harry and Prince William had first met the Van Straubenzee brothers at Ludgrove School together as their fellow classmates.
It’s believed that the Prince of Wales is still very good friends with the siblings with Harry also claiming in his memoir that Thomas Van Straubenzee was his older brother’s ‘real’ best man at his 2011 wedding to Kate Middleton.
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