Prince William’s new holiday beard, shown in a short clip at the end of the Olympic Games, is being seen by friends as a “new episode of the beard war” with Prince Harry.
A friend of William told The Daily Beast: “It was a bit of a surprise to see William in a public video with a beard. It’s an unexpected new episode in the beard war.”
The expression refers to the heated argument between William and Harry over Harry’s beard, which contributed to the breakdown of their relationship in the tense period before Harry’s wedding.
In his memoirs spare part, Harry said he first grew a beard during an expedition to the South Pole and has relied on it as a “Freudian blanket” ever since, saying it made him feel “calmer.”
Harry wrote that he asked his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who was reportedly not a big fan of beards, for permission to keep his beard at his wedding to Meghan Markle and that she was “understanding.”
However, when he told his brother, William was “outraged” and said it was not in line with military regulations – which was relevant since he was getting married in uniform – nor with precedent.
Harry hit back, pointing to historical examples of bearded royals, including King Edward VII and George V. However, William still said it was inappropriate.
Harry then said: “When I told him that his opinion didn’t really matter because I had already gone to see Grandma and had been given the green light, he got really angry. He raised his voice.”
William accused Harry of putting Elizabeth “in an uncomfortable position” and said she “had no choice but to say yes.”
Harry said the dispute lasted “over a week, in person and on the phone.”
Harry wrote: “At one point he ordered me, as heir, speaking to the surrogate, to shave.”
Harry claims that William eventually blurted out the real reason for his opposition to Harry’s facial hair: William had come back from a special forces deployment “with a full beard and someone told him to be a good boy and run out and shave it off. He didn’t like the idea of me enjoying an advantage that had been denied to him.”
Friends of William have long disputed Harry’s portrayal of many events in his book, but point out that William is not in a position to publicly refute Harry’s claims.
The “beard wars” are no different. One source, a former courtier who worked at the palace at the time of Harry and Meghan’s wedding, told The Daily Beast: “What annoyed courtiers about Harry was that he kept going to his grandmother in person to get special treatment and then turning around and saying, ‘Well, grandma said so, so that’s the way it is.’ He didn’t have much respect for the line between monarch and grandmother, between the institutional and the personal.”
“The beard was a case in point. It was a ridiculous argument, but in the end William was honestly right; he should not have put his grandmother in that position. That’s why after the separation people went to great lengths to prevent him from seeing her because they were afraid he would force concessions out of her.”
A military source told The Daily Beast: “The point about the beard at the wedding is that active members of the armed forces were not allowed to have beards at the time. That rule goes back to the days of gas masks. They wouldn’t seal the face properly unless you were clean-shaven. He went to Granny and got special permission. William was absolutely right.”
A senior PR agent who has previously worked with the royal family told The Daily Beast: “William and Kate always make a point of portraying themselves as normal, and normal guys don’t shave for a week or two on vacation. Their whole brand is about being normal, just like us, so showing up on vacation with a scraggly beard and a polo shirt is much smarter than putting on a suit and tie. They have perfected normality as a brand image.”
Duncan Larcombe, former royal affairs editor at The Suntold The Daily Beast: “I actually spoke to William once about his beard. After Sandhurst he spent a period in all the services, including some time in the Navy, and during that time he allowed himself the luxury of growing a beard because you were allowed to do that in the Navy.
“I grew a beard back then, but William had to shave it off because of the wedding where he was wearing a uniform. I spoke to him in Prince Edward Island and he complimented me on my beard and said, ‘I love my beard, I really like the look.’ So I’m not surprised he’s growing it back. Maybe he’ll go all out and grow a Prince Michael.”
