Kate, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William have been married for eight years so far, after their unforgettable 2011 royal wedding. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry followed suit in 2018 and have recently celebrated one year of married life, just after Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was born in May. However, before both royal weddings took place, Prince William questioned himself and Harry and their impending commitments to the Duchesses, according to a royal expert. 

New Idea’s royal commentator Angela Mollard, speaking on a June episode of podcast “Royals”, took a look at the family dynamics. 

Ms Mollard said: “I suspect there is some tension between them.

“William is a very dutiful man.

“He himself, in his relationship with Kate, when that had been going on for many years, he had to question himself, whether or not this relationship was going to last the distance.

“He didn’t want to have a broken marriage.

“They had a bit of time apart, and then of course got back together.”

William called off his relationship with Kate Middleton twice, before the pair eventually became engaged in 2010.

The brief break-ups happened in 2004 and 2007, when the prince wanted space to think about his commitment to Kate. 

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge finally married in 2011, ten years after they first met at university. 

Ms Mollard continued: “I think he was concerned Harry hadn’t known Meghan for very long, and that they were marrying.

“We don’t actually know what went on between the two brothers, but it would not be unreasonable for an older brother to question a younger brother.

“A younger brother who has spoken about his own vulnerability, about his own grief, about mental health issues.

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“It wouldn’t be unreasonable I think for William to sit down with his brother and question [him].”

She added: “Now, we’re always very protective of relationships, particularly in that phase that we call the limerence phase in the first three years when we’re deeply infatuated.

“It takes three years for it to soften out to a normal relationship. 

“They haven’t got to that point, and in a sense they didn’t have the time to get to that point.

“Meghan was already 36, and if they wanted to have children they had to move quite quickly with it. 

“I think William probably did question the nature of the relationship and that may have got Harry’s back up.

“We do know that some of his friends also questioned the relationship and the speed of it.” 

In June, The Sun’s royal correspondent Emily Andrews claimed that William and Harry avoided each other for six months after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s royal wedding.

Ms Andrews said: “I was told, after the royal wedding, Harry and Meghan didn’t see Kate and William personally.”

She said of William’s brotherly advice:  “I think it was meant very kindly in a well-meaning way but Harry was very defensive of Meghan and took it completely the wrong way and said to William something along the lines of, ‘You’re trying to destroy this relationship before it’s even started’.”

Many royal watchers have speculated that William does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past, as his own mother and father, alongside Prince Andrew and Princess Anne, got divorced in the Nineties.

Added to this, Prince Charles and Princess Diana only spent a short amount of time together before marrying.

They met in 1980 and announced their engagement in February 1981.

Similarly, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson only dated for six months before they got engaged in 1986.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, meanwhile, went on their first date in the summer of 2016 and announced their engagement in September 2018, just over 2 years later.

Like Princess Diana, who gave birth to Prince William a year after her royal wedding, Meghan and Harry welcomed Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor one year after their nuptials.

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