A potential change to King Charles III’s staff might open the door to a royal return for Prince Harry. A royal author says the possibility of the king’s private secretary, Sir Clive Alderton, retiring might be the thing that clears Harry’s path to re-entering the royal fold.
Sir Clive Alderton’s retirement could mean a ‘friendlier path to negotiations’ for Harry
Royal author Tina Brown suggested on her Fresh Hell Substack blog, per Newsweek, that Alderton, private secretary to King Charles, might be looking to retire. It would be a big deal for Harry and his royal future because the courtier and Duke of Sussex didn’t get along.
With the 57-year-old gone, negotiating could be back on the table for Harry. “If Alderton goes it could create a new, friendlier path for negotiations with Harry to be given the security protection he seeks and to resume some curtailed version of his royal duties,” Brown wrote.
Meghan Markle, she added, might get a “great face-saver” out of Alderton’s potential retirement. The Duchess of Sussex, 43, “must realize by now that the dull demands of second-division royalty are less onerous than grinding out serial rebranding flops.”
“Enough with the feuds. Families, including this one, need to stick together,” Brown wrote. “[Prince] William, whatever his abiding resentments toward Harry for his intemperate broadsides in Spare, should now suck it up and let his father give Harry something to do.”
Harry nicknamed Alderton ‘The Wasp’ in his ‘Spare’ memoir
In his 2023 Spare memoir, Harry didn’t have kind words to say about Alderton. He nicknamed his father’s private secretary “The Wasp,” describing him as “lanky, charming, arrogant, a ball of jazzy energy.”
“He was great at pretending to be polite, even servile,” Harry explained. “You’d assert a fact, something seemingly incontrovertible—‘I believe the sun rises in the mornings’—and he’d stammer that perchance you might consider for a moment the possibility that you’d been misinformed: ‘Well, heh-heh, I don’t know about that, Your Royal Highness, you see, it all depends what you mean by mornings, sir.’”
“Because he seemed so weedy, so self-effacing, you might be tempted to push back, insist on your point, and that was when he’d put you on his list,” Harry went on. Then, “without warning, he’d give you such a stab with his outsized stinger that you’d cry out in confusion. ‘Where the f*** did that come from?’”
Alderton is one of the three courtiers Harry later claimed used “bold Machiavellian maneuvers” at the 2020 Sandringham Summit.
Prince William is still an obstacle to Harry’s royal return
Whenever Alderton retires it won’t necessarily be smooth sailing back to the royal fold for Harry. There’s still the matter of his estranged brother. The Prince of Wales, 42, as royal historian Robert Hardman told The Daily Beast, will need to be in total agreement with their father.
“Whatever the king does needs to be done in tandem with both brothers, not just one. He can’t have unilateral discussions if William isn’t in agreement,” Hardman said. “Whatever reconciliation or bridge-building happens, it needs to be a three-way process.”
“People keep asking about the king’s feelings, but William also has to be on board, which adds complexity,” he explained. “It’s tricky and a situation nobody wants. But whatever the way forward is, it has to work for everybody.”
Although William and Harry have been estranged for years, Hardman’s not ruling out a potential reunion. “All things are possible; never say never,” he said. “The bond between the brothers historically runs deep.” However, sharing private details of their lives in Spare is likely hard for William to move past.
“This is why William was upset by the book. Not because of specific depictions, but because of the breach of trust,” he said. “Things that happened between the siblings were made public, which is a huge deal for someone who values privacy like William.” For now, Alderton is still employed by King Charles with seemingly no retirement plans to speak of. At least not publicly. Meanwhile, William and Harry are still not talking.
