William and Harry fell out years before Megxit, says a leading royal author. They were on ‘no speaks’ 20 years ago – because little brother Harry felt he ALWAYS got the blame

Despite reports that Harry wants to rebuild bridges with the royal family, there is little sign of William allowing that – not in the short term.

The distance between the two is all the more sad considering how close the two princes, united in adversity, had once been.

But as royal biographer Robert Lacey notes, if a rift is now emerging between the brothers, it isn’t the first time William and Harry have fallen out.

Looking somberly towards St Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee

Prince Harry and friend Guy Pelly watch England play France at Twickenham

Prince Harry made headlines after it was discovered he had been smoking cannabis

Princes William and Harry at Cirencester Park Polo Club. They had played in the winning Highgrove team for the King Constantine Trophy

In fact, the rifts were visible much earlier – as early as 2002.

That’s the year it was discovered that Harry had been smoking cannabis, a revelation that sparked excruciating headlines about ‘drug shaming’.

Three years later, further humiliation occurred for Harry when he was pictured in a Nazi desert uniform at a Colonials and Natives fancy dress party at the home of Olympic gold medal-winning show jumping rider Richard Meade.

Amid the commotion, Harry publicly apologized and Prince Charles sent him away for a lecture by the Chief Rabbi.

But how did it happen, Lacey asks, that Harry took all the blame for such incidents, while the older brother emerged scot-free.

“Meghan was not the original factor in Prince Harry’s decision to shoot his family,” the author writes in his bestseller Battle of Brothers.

‘In January 2005, following the ‘Colonials and Natives’ costume fiasco, we now know that Prince Harry was drawn to re-evaluate his older brother’s involvement and the unfairness of William’s rose-scented rise.

‘It made Harry feel alienated. Friends recall that not a word was spoken at the time and that there was quite a serious rift between the brothers – as there had been after the “Drugs Shame” of 2002, when Harry first began to realize the price of playing the functional scapegoat.’

On that occasion, Lacey writes, Harry and friend Guy Pelly had taken the blame for the “wild antics” in the Rattlebone pub, “while the real leader of the Rattlebone ring had been William.”

Prince Harry plays polo for Eton College in Cirencester Park

The Rattlebone Inn in Sherston, Wiltshire

The Sun newspaper published a photo of Prince Harry wearing a khaki uniform with a swastika bracelet for a fancy dress party. The Crown recreated the moment above in its latest series

Harry was criticized but claimed his brother helped him choose the offending costume. There was no criticism of William in the ensuing furor

Prince Harry’s relationship with his brother suffered and they barely spoke to each other, says royal writer and commentator Katie Nicholl. Harry and William are pictured at Sandringham

Author and journalist Katie Nicholl remembers a royal aide telling her that “for the first time their relationship really suffered and they barely said anything…Harry felt bad that William got away so lightly.”

Lacy concludes that:

‘It was the function of the older brother to be perfect, whether he really was or not, and it was the function of the younger to make the rest of us laugh or complain or feel disapproving – and in every case to make us feel thoroughly superior to the poor, ignorant child.

“This was the role we all shaped for Prince Harry over the years.”