Brothers who could bridge the gap between Harry and William: Inside the Princes’ close bond with the van Straubenzee family – as Prince of Wales gets set to award an MBE to their mother

As Prince William leads the investiture at Windsor Castle today, one ceremony will be particularly poignant.

He will confer an MBE on Claire van Straubenzee, a close family confidante, whose son Henry, Prince Harry’s childhood best friend, died in a car crash aged 18.

His death in 2002 inspired her to establish the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund to raise money for education in Uganda in 2007, in honor of his plans to teach at a school in the African country during his gap year before moving to went to Newcastle University.

As she collects her gong, Claire is joined by her husband Alexander, 73, and sons, Thomas, 41, and Charlie, 35, who remain close to Harry and William.

But although the Duke of Sussex landed in London yesterday to attend a service later today to mark the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games at St Paul’s Cathedral, he is not expected to join the gathering.

Nicknamed ‘Henners’ by Prince Harry, who wrote about him in his autobiography Spare, Henry became the royal family’s best friend after they met at their secondary school, Ludgrove Prep in Berkshire.

“Skinny, without muscles and with hair that stood on end, Henners was all heart,” he wrote. “Every time he smiled, people melted.”

The Duke said in his memoirs that Henry was the only boy who asked him about his mother, Princess Diana, after she died in a car crash in 1997.

His family’s celebration today will be bittersweet as it comes just weeks after Claire and Alex’s announcement that they are closing their charity by the end of the year.

It also marks the end of a new joint venture between Prince William and Prince Harry, both of whom have been patrons of the charity since 2009 – the only one to have their joint patronage.

“This decision has not been taken lightly and is in no way due to financial hardship,” said an announcement on the charity’s website.

‘The charity’s key trustees will be over 70 years old by the end of 2024 and feel the time is right to close.’

The charity launched with an initial private donation of £3,000 to Bupadhengo School in Kamuli, where Henry would teach, and has since raised more than £3.3 million and helped more than 35,000 children.

The statement ends with these words: ‘Above all, we feel that the charity has left a long-lasting memory of our son, Henry, and has helped our family overcome the grief of his loss.’

Henry died when the car he was in hit a tree near Ludgrove Prep, where he was working on his gap year.

In Spare, Harry described how the news of Henry’s death had a terrible resonance with the moment his father, then Prince Charles, told him his mother had died.

He noted that Henry, “just like Mom,” was not wearing a seat belt.

“The news must have come in the form of a phone call, although I only vaguely remember holding the phone and hearing the words,” he wrote.

Claire remembered the 3am phone call telling her about the accident.

‘Charlie was with us when we heard. He said, “Who am I going to play with now?” she shared The Sunday times.

Both princes attended the funeral, and Harry recalled queuing to hug Henry’s parents and his friend’s two brothers.

Harry and William have been active patrons of the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund, played polo to raise money and attended the annual Christmas carol concert in Chelsea.

In December 2014, they paid a joint tribute to Henry side by side.

They said he was “a very special friend to us, with whom we share so many happy childhood memories.”

At a private carol service in 2018, Harry gave a speech and Meghan, whom he married that spring, gave a reading.

In December 2022, despite their estrangement, the princes signed a joint letter to mark the twentieth anniversary of Henry’s death.

The brothers wrote about “the family we all love and adore,” describing what Claire and Alex have achieved with the foundation as “nothing short of extraordinary.”

They added: ‘Henry’s legacy will live on through the incredible achievements of what his father and mother achieved over the years.

“For those of us who knew Henners, we will always miss his mischievous charm and hilarious sense of humor.”

The Van Straubenzees’ last visit to Uganda in February was “tinged with sadness”, Alex told the Sunday Times.

“There is no doubt whatsoever that this has been the most rewarding way to overcome our grief,” he added.

“Henry was a livewire. He was the center of the family. As the middle son, he got along very well with Thomas and Charlie. To lose him, they were crushed.”

The Van Straubenzees have often been described as a second family to William and Harry, and Claire and Alex provided a refuge for the royal brothers during the ‘War of the Waleses’ – Charles and Diana’s very public and painful divorce.

The ties between the two families go back decades: Princess Diana was a nanny for Thomas van Straubenzee’s cousin for a short time and was also good friends with his uncle Willie.

Van Straubenzee’s sons and Harry and William were all born within six years of each other and the princes holidayed in Cornwall with the ‘vans’ every summer.

Thomas and Charlie remain close to both princes and were ushers at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding in 2018, where Charlie gave a speech at the reception.

Harry is godfather to Charlie’s four-year-old daughter Clover and Charlie is in turn godfather to Prince Archie, who recently turned five.

And the old friends’ bond has not been affected by Harry’s move to Montecito, where they cycled around the California neighborhood in May 2022.

Meanwhile, Thomas is often described as the Prince of Wales’s best friend.

In Spare, Prince Harry describes how Thomas acted as William’s real best man at his wedding to Kate in 2011, giving the traditional speech with James Meade.

Thomas is also godfather to Princess Charlotte, and William is godfather to his daughter Mary, whom he has with his second wife Lucy Lanigan-O’Keeffe.

Lucy is one of Princess Charlotte’s former teachers at Thomas’s in Battersea.

“Henry would have been surprised,” Claire said of the news that William will likely lead the inauguration.