Prince Harry reveals why his secret code with Prince William 'didn't work'

Prince Harry has revealed that Prince William used a secret code about Princess Diana to communicate with him at Prince Philip's funeral - but it apparently failed to work. 

• Prince Harry has revealed that Prince William used a five-word phrase about Princess Diana to communicate with him at Prince Philip's funeral, but that the code failed to have the desired effect. 
• The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex's relationship has been strained ever since Harry's high-profile withdrawal from the Royal Family in 2020. 
• In other royal news, Prince George, Charlotte and Louis ‘lucky’ to have childhood privilege mom Kate Middleton didn’t.
  

Prince Harry has revealed that Prince William's phrase about Princess Diana to him at Prince Philip's funeral failed to have the desired effect. 

Speaking to ITV's Tom Bradby, the Duke of Sussex opened up about his strained relationship with his older brother. 

Tensions between the two siblings have been high since Harry's high-profile withdrawal from the Royal Family in January 2020, and it appears that the last few years have done little to heal their rift. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made several allegations against their English relatives in their bombshell interview with Oprah and their subsequent Netflix docuseries, including accusations of racism against Buckingham Palace and that Kate Middleton made Meghan cry before her wedding to Harry at St. George's Chapel in May 2018. 

Prince Harry returned to the UK in April 2021 to attend the funeral of Prince Philip, marking his first trip back to the country since his US emigration with Meghan Markle. It was this somber occasion, however, that also highlighted to him just how distant he had grown from the future King. 

Prince Harry claims that Prince William approached him at Prince Philip's funeral and said, "Harold you must listen to me, I just want you to be happy, Harold, I swear, I swear on mummy’s life." 

According to the 38-year-old royal's memoir, Spare, this was a phrase that the brothers had historically reserved for urgent matters. 

"It stopped me cold, as it was meant to," Harry told Bradby. "Not because he'd used it, but because it didn’t work. I simply didn’t believe him."

Harry and William walked behind the coffin of Prince Philip at the historic service on April 17, 2021, and were seen chatting to each other outside the chapel after the funeral was over. Their interactions inside the church were far from amicable, however, according to one royal expert. 

An argument between the pair broke out "within minutes of the siblings getting inside the castle and beyond camera vision," according to the royal historian, Robert Lacey, Battle of Brothers author and consultant to The Crown. 

"They started quarreling again." 

A friend of the Royal Family also told Lacey that they were "at each other's throats as fiercely as ever."