Prince Harry ‘Completely by Himself’ amid Queen Elizabeth’s Death: Exclusive Book Excerpt

Excluded from a flight with other members of the royal family, Harry “remained in the dark” about the monarch’s health in her final moments, author Omid Scobie writes in his new book 'Endgame'

Prince Harry was famously close with his grandmother Queen Elizabeth. But in the monarch’s final hours, he was kept in the dark about her health, according to an explosive new book.

In this passage from Endgame — out Nov. 28 and exclusively excerpted in this week’s PEOPLE — author Omid Scobie offers an intimate look at Harry’s journey to the Queen’s deathbed last year.

In September 2022 Harry, 39, and wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, 42, visited the U.K. for a series of engagements. While there, the palace announced that Queen Elizabeth, 96, had been advised by her doctors to rest.

By the next morning, the Sussexes had no idea that Buckingham Palace was already planning for the Queen’s final hours and the first days of the monarchy’s new era — until the duke’s phone started ringing. An unknown number. He usually ignored those.

“You should answer it,” Meghan told him. He tapped accept just before it stopped. Harry hadn’t spoken to his father much that year, but this was not the time for any father-and-son tension. Charles told him he and Camilla were about to leave Dumfries House for Balmoral, where Princess Anne was already by the Queen’s side. He told Harry to make his way to Scotland immediately. William, whom Charles had just spoken to, was supposedly working on arranging travel. Harry sent a text message to his brother asking how he and Kate planned to get to Scotland and whether they could travel together. No response.

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With no further information from other family members or Palace aides, the Sussexes and their team had to operate in the dark. Harry was informed that William had already secured a flight with his uncles Andrew and Edward (and Edward’s wife, Sophie), but he couldn’t get in touch with anyone about joining that flight. “It was upsetting to witness,” said a source close to the Sussexes. “[Harry] was completely by himself on this.”

With the world’s media now rushing to Aberdeenshire (and most flights and train tickets selling out within minutes), travel options dwindled. Another call came through from Charles, who instructed his younger son to come alone. Despite already publicly confirming that Meghan would come with him (always the plan if they were traveling from California for this very situation), he reluctantly agreed, after Charles assured him that Kate would not be there, either.

Charles had cited “protocol,” but the reality was that Kate chose to stay back to pick up the children from their first day at a new school. “They just didn’t want Meghan there,” said a former Palace aide. Meghan, a friend added, “could sense she wasn’t wanted.”

Harry sent another text to his brother. Nothing. Though there were available seats on William’s chartered Dassault Falcon private jet, which was leaving in less than an hour, Harry was left to fend for himself.

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“William ignored him,” said a family source. “He clearly didn’t want to see his brother.” Princess Eugenie reached out to Harry to see if he had any more information about their grandmother. She had heard from another family member that it was “time” but knew little more.

With no invite forthcoming from any of the family members, Harry eventually located an available option—a private charter costing [$37,000] from Luton Airport, a 40-minute drive from Frogmore without traffic.

And with that, Harry started his own race to Scotland. Though rumors of the Queen’s passing were rife at this point, Harry had no way of knowing whether it was true. His father doesn’t carry a cell phone and his brother wasn’t acknowledging his existence. When William and the others landed at 3:50 p.m. to discover the news that the Queen had passed away at 3:10 p.m., Harry still had no idea what was going on when his own plane finally took off at 5:35 p.m. And, as his phone service cut out after takeoff, he remained in the dark for the duration of his 70-minute flight.

Back on the ground, there was a tug-of-war between the Sussexes’ team and Buckingham Palace over whether to announce the news without Harry being informed. With Her Majesty’s death already confirmed to the prime minister an hour before Harry left, and all other senior family members now gathered in Scotland processing the news, royal press secretaries were ready to share the news with the world. The Palace claimed Charles tried to call Harry (sources later told me there was never any proof of this), and that there was no more time left to delay.

“His team literally had to beg for them to wait for his plane to land and they reluctantly agreed to hold the statement back for a little bit,” confirmed a close family source. But as stormy weather over Aberdeen International forced Harry’s plane to circle the airport numerous times before landing, patience at the Buckingham Palace press office wore thin — they could wait no longer and the announcement went live at 6:30 p.m. When Harry’s plane finally touched tarmac twenty minutes later, he received a text from Meghan urging him to call ASAP followed by a breaking news alert via the BBC News app with the announcement of the Queen’s death.

Palace “sources” later briefed certain papers that Charles had personally shared the news with his younger son, but this was just a move to save face. “Harry was crushed,” said a friend of the duke. “His relationship with the Queen was everything to him. She would have wanted him to know before it went out to the world. They could have waited just a little longer, it would have been nothing in the grand scheme of things, but no one respected that at all.”

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When he arrived at Balmoral, Princess Anne warmly greeted him and led him to the Queen’s room, where he spent a quiet moment privately paying his respects. He had hoped to see his father — who had made it to Balmoral Castle in time to see his mother alive — to express his sympathies, but he was informed that Charles, William, and Camilla had already left for Birkhall together.

Again, no invite was extended to Harry. That night after eating he retired to his room, exhausted by the day’s emotional roller coaster. He was glad to have had a private moment to say goodbye to his grandmother, but there was no point in sticking around. With no offer to return with William and the others in the morning (all of his texts, including a thoughtful message about the loss of their grandmother, continued to be ignored), Harry booked his own British Airways ticket on the first available departing flight.

In the months that followed their grandmother’s funeral, the division between brothers Prince Harry and Prince William widened following the release of Harry and Meghan’s Netflix docuseries and the duke’s revealing memoir Spare.

[William] believes Harry and Meghan blindsided the family, even the Queen, with their public complaints and their “oh so California” self-importance (an opinion he has repeatedly voiced in various ways to friends and aides during the past two years). Convinced Harry’s been brainwashed by an “army of therapists,” William says he no longer even recognizes his own brother, a source said.

As for how he feels about Harry since the release of Spare, a source close to the prince told me, “There’s a huge amount of anger there. He feels betrayed and sad about the situation. But he also doesn’t agree with the things his brother feels he has done. He feels he has lost Harry and doesn’t want to know this version of him.” That version, countered a Spencer family source, is simply “Harry being a man who has stepped outside of the institution and sees things in a different light. They will never see eye to eye at this point. They’re on completely opposite sides . . . that won’t change.”

In May Harry made a brief appearance at the coronation of his father, King Charles, 75, but was not invited to join the royal family on the palace balcony. Meghan and their children stayed home.

As the duke left California on May 5 for King Charles’s coronation — a decision he had made because “it was the right thing” to support his father on such a big day — his emotions were a world away from how he felt landing in London with knots in his stomach for the Platinum Jubilee just a year earlier. “Though he hasn’t found closure with his family, he’s accepted that things are unlikely to change, particularly with his brother — who refuses to even properly talk with him,” said a source. As Harry later explained to a friend, “I’m ready to move on past it. Whether we get an apology or accountability, who knows? Who really cares at this point?”

From Endgame by Omid Scobie. Copyright © 2023 by Omid Scobie. Reprinted by permission of Dey Street, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

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