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Prince Harry claims his brother’s ‘royal’ groomsmen at his wedding to Kate in 2011 were fellow members James Mead and Thomas Van Straubenzee, and that he was forced to accept the ‘blatant lie’ in his leaked autobiography.
According to the 38-year-old Duke of Sussex, his breakup with 40-year-old Prince William meant the senior royal “didn’t want to [Harry] giving a godfather speech’.
Instead, Harry writes, he played the role to avoid the blushes of Meade and Van Straubenzee, who gave the traditional best man speech at the reception.
The duke claims that although he was officially considered his brother’s best man at the wedding and even traveled with his father and future king to Westminster Abbey in a Bentley that day, it was all for show.
Prince William has known Mr. Van Straubenzee since childhood, where he attended Ludgrove School in Berkshire. They are pictured with Kate Middleton in 2016 at Ascot Racecourse.
Prince Harry (right) claimed in his leaked memoir, Spare, that he was not the real best man for Prince William (left) as his brother did not want him to give a speech (pictured at William and Kate’s wedding in Westminster Abbey in 2011)
Thomas Van Straubenzee has reportedly been close friends with the brothers for years. His relationship with royalty dates back to his high school days in Ludgrove.
Van Straubenzee is the global head of the private office of estate agent Knight Frank and accompanied the Prince to New Zealand on his sabbatical.
He is also godfather to Wales’s daughter, Princess Charlotte.
The businessman and property consultant, whose parents are Captain Alexander van Straubenzee and Claire Fenwick, is said to be interested in music, wildlife and conservation.
Thomas van Straubenzee, 38, a lifelong friend of Prince William, married Lucy Lanigan-O’Keeffe, 32, a teacher at Charlotte and Prince George’s School, Thomas’s Battersea, in 2020.
Prince William and Thomas (pictured together in 2014 at a polo match at Coworth Park) have been friends since prep school, and Thomas is Charlotte’s godfather.
Working as a partner in the private office of real estate agent Knight Frank, Mr. van Straubenzee has known William since high school, and his family is known as one of the royal family’s closest and most loyal allies. He is pictured (left) riding in a carriage with the Queen at Ascot in 2017.
In addition to his brother Charles, who is also said to enjoy close ties to the princes, Thomas had another younger brother, Henry, who was killed in a car accident in 2002.
William and Harry were said to be devastated by the death of Henry, who was killed instantly when the car he was riding in hit a tree outside Ludgrove Preparatory School.
After Henry’s death, his family created the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund, of which Thomas is a patron.
The charity works to combat poverty in Uganda through education, and both William and Harry are patrons.
His friendship with the princes made headlines in 2011, when he was robbed at knifepoint in Battersea while on the phone with Harry, and the concerned Prince made his way across town to check on him.
Thomas Van Straubenzee (pictured at a charity polo match in Cirencester in 2018) gave a speech at Prince William’s wedding reception.
James Meade, who went to Eton with Prince William, was the other royal best man, according to Prince Harry’s memoir (pictured: James Meade attends the wedding of Lucy Meade and Charlie Budgett in Chippenham in 2014)
In 2013, Thomas married Lady Melissa Percy, the daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, at his family’s ancestral home, Alnwick Castle, which doubles as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. Princes William and Harry were among the guests.
The couple divorced three years later, in 2016, with Thomas’ “unreasonable behaviour” being cited as the reason for the breakup.
He remarried in 2020, marrying Lucy Lanigan-O’Keeffe, a teacher at the Battersea School attended by Prince George and Princess Charlotte, and they share a young son, Albert.
Meanwhile, James Meade, who according to Harry was the other ‘royal’ best man at Prince William’s wedding, went to Eton with the eldest royal.
He is the son of Olympic gold medalist Richard Meade.
Prince William and his wife Kate on their wedding day on April 29, 2011. Prince Harry has sensationally claimed that, despite appearances, he was not the real best man on the big day.
James Meade is one of William’s closest friends, with a bond dating back to Eton.
James is also close with the Princess of Wales, whom he even accompanied to the badminton horse trials after her brief split from William in May 2007.
Known to his friends as ‘Meadey’, he once took part in a charity boxing match at the Boodles Boxing Ball in 2008, watched by William and Kate, under the nickname ‘the badger’.
He and his wife, Lady Laura Marsham, daughter of the 8th Earl of Romney, are godparents to Princess Charlotte.
In other claims, the Prince recounts how William met people who had gathered in the Mall at Buckingham Palace while he was “drunk on last night’s rum” just hours before his wedding to Kate.
Harry remembers him telling him, ‘You smell like alcohol,’ before offering him mints as he rolled down the car windows, describing the smell of ‘last night’s rum aftermath’ on his ‘drunk’ brother’s breath.
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