During a tough year for the royal family—the death of Prince Philip, the claims about Prince Andrew, and the widening rift between the family and Prince Harry—Kate Middleton has reportedly been the royal family's "glue." At Prince Philip's funeral, she was seen apparently playing peacemaker between Princes Harry and William, whose relationship has been fractured since Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down as senior royals. According to royal expert Camilla Tominey, writing in The Telegraph, Kate very much wants to fix things between the Sussexes and the Cambridges—in part so that Archie and his sister can be close to her own kids, Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte.
Writes Tominey: "Having grown up being close to her own siblings, Pippa, 37, and James, 34, the Duchess remained keen to bury the hatchet even after the interview aired to a global audience of millions, seemingly for the sake of two-year-old Archie’s relationship with his cousins." A source added: "Her natural instinct is to try to smooth things over."
Kate is famously close to her own family, and she and William were very close with Prince Harry before his departure from the royal family and move to California. (Harry is thought to still be close to his own cousins, especially Princess Eugenie.) Kate is widely believed to be the family peacemaker—commentators have noted how the to-be queen has stepped into Prince Philip's shoes in that way—and photographs suggest that she was the first to speak to Prince Harry at his grandfather's funeral, just weeks after the Oprah tell-all interview during which Harry said his brother William was "trapped."
Prince Harry, Prince William, and Peter Phillips at Prince Philip’s funeral.
"My father and my brother, they are trapped. They don't get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that," said Harry in the interview.
As for where Harry and William stand now? While they were seen talking at Philip's funeral, the last on-the-record comment we got was from Harry, who told Oprah: "The relationship is 'space' at the moment. I love William to bits. We’ve been through hell together and we have a shared experience, but we are on different paths."