RICHARD EDEN: Inside story of Prince Harry’s absence from the biggest wedding of the year and how he’s becoming just as estranged from his old friends as Meghan is from her family

When Prince Harry started introducing new girlfriend Meghan Markle to his closest friends in 2017, not all of them were enthusiastic about the American actress.

After all, Harry’s friends are mostly country sports enthusiasts with an earthy sense of humor, while Meghan is a politically correct Californian who practices yoga when she’s not sipping green smoothies or nibbling avocado on toast.

However, one of the prince’s oldest friends was determined to maintain a close bond and in 2019 agreed to take on the responsibility of becoming godfather to Prince Archie, the Sussexes’ first child.

The seventh Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, will marry Olivia Henson tomorrow

That friend is 33-year-old Hugh Grosvenor, the 7th Duke of Westminster and one of the richest men in Britain.

Hugh, who was among the guests at St George’s Chapel, Windsor when the Sussexes married, will walk down the aisle himself tomorrow in a ceremony of such grandeur that it is itself being described as a ‘royal wedding’.

So the absence of Archie, the godson of Harry, Meghan and Hugh, from Chester Cathedral may seem notable.

Citing an insider source, US magazine People reports that Prince Harry received an invitation but turned it down after realizing “the challenges of his presence.”

This followed a claim in the New York Post that, according to another unnamed source, “Harry got a ‘save the date’ card a few months ago, but Hugh called and said it would be too awkward if he and Meghan Markle would be there, so he apologized and Hugh understood.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the Armed Forces Complex in Abuja, Nigeria last month

I’m told the actual sequence of events was quite more confusing than that. We may never know. But Harry and Meghan’s absence from the wedding speaks volumes.

Other members of the royal family are expected to attend, and Harry’s older brother, Prince William, will be an usher. Are relations between Harry and his brother so bad that they can’t even attend the same event?

Space would hardly have been an issue. With room for 500 guests in the cathedral, it would have been easy enough to seat the Sussexes far away from the relatives they publicly attacked.

It won’t be the first wedding of a close friend that Harry has missed. There was disappointment when the Sussexes were absent from Jack Mann’s exchange of vows with osteopath Isabella Clark in Suffolk last summer.

Guests that day included Harry’s friend Thomas van Straubenzee, the godfather of his niece, Princess Charlotte.

On the night of his own wedding in 2018, Harry stood shoulder to shoulder with Mann and his other close friends in the famous ‘band of brothers’ photo at Windsor Castle. It was later suggested that Mann – who met Harry at Sandhurst, where both were commissioned into the Blues and Royals division of the Household Cavalry – was not just one of the ushers, but in fact the prince’s ‘real’ best man.

And that, by implication, older brother Prince William only played a role in St. George’s Chapel.

Anyone doubting the depth of Harry’s rift with some of his oldest and – once – best friends need look no further than the new series Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime, in which columnist and presenter Jeremy Clarkson tries to run his business. Diddly Squat farm on 1000 hectares in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

Clarkson was condemned by Harry last year after writing in a newspaper article that he hated the Duchess of Sussex ‘on a cellular level’.

Although Clarkson – previously presenter of Top Gear and The Grand Tour – apologized, Harry’s spokesperson was baffled in his complaint, stating: ‘What remains to be addressed is his [Clarkson’s] the long-standing pattern of writing articles that spread hate rhetoric, dangerous conspiracy theories and misogyny.”

But who should appear in a recent episode of Clarkson’s Farm… but another of Harry’s oldest friends!

Hugh van Cutsem, described on screen simply as ‘Hugh’, is seen stalking deer in the Cotswolds countryside with Clarkson – an appearance that would have been unthinkable if he were still close to Harry.

Hugh, whose late father was one of King Charles’ oldest friends, has known the royal princes all their lives. He and his wife Rose were among those who did their part to make Me-ghan feel at home when she first moved from California to Britain in 2017, inviting the new couple for dinner at their home in West -London.

The following year, the Van Cutsems were also among the guests at the Sussexes’ wedding. Yet things look very different now.

Harry appeared to confirm the extent of the rift with the family in his best-selling memoir, Spare, in which he revealed that both Hugh’s mother, Emilie, and one of her four sons had contacted him to express their anger after the interview with the Sussexes in 2021. with Oprah Winfrey – in which Meghan made the explosive claim that the royal family was racist.

Harry’s older brother, Prince William, will officiate the wedding tomorrow. Richard Eden wonders if Harry and his brother’s relationship is now so bad that they can’t even attend the same event

‘Several close friends and beloved figures in my life, including one of Hugh and Emilie’s sons, Emilie herself, and even Tiggy [Pettifer, his former nanny]had punished me for Oprah,” the duke wrote.

How sad it is that Harry’s increasing estrangement from some of his friends seems to mirror Meghan’s distant relationship with members of her own family.

Harry never even met his father-in-law, Thomas Markle, and it was surprising how few of Meghan’s relatives were invited to their wedding.

No matter how many new showbiz friends Harry makes in California, there may come a time when he regrets losing touch with his old friends. Tomorrow’s wedding would have been the perfect opportunity to mend a few fences.

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