Prince William Refused to Attend a Family Lunch with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Amid the Royal Exit

• The ongoing feud between Prince William and Prince Harry was already so bad earlier this year that Will refused to attend a family lunch with his brother amid the royal exit, apparently.
• In his new book, Battle of Brothers: William and Harry – The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult, royal historian and biographer Robert Lacey described the incident. 
• According to Lacey, the Queen suggested a family lunch before a meeting to discuss Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal exit, but William refused to be part of it.

Prince William and Prince Harry's relationship (opens in new tab) has been infamously strained for months now. The rift is such an issue among the royal family that it's the subject of an upcoming book from famed royal historian and biographer (and official consultant on Netflix's The Crown (opens in new tab)) Robert Lacey (opens in new tab).

Lacey's book, Battle of Brothers: William and Harry – The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult (opens in new tab), is due out later this month and is reportedly based on "countless" interviews the biographer conducted with insiders about the princes' feud (opens in new tab).

In a new portion of the book serialized in the Daily Mail (opens in new tab), Lacey reveals that things were so bad between the brothers amid Harry's royal exit with his wife, Meghan Markle (opens in new tab), that Will turned down a family lunch invitation from the Queen (opens in new tab) to avoid spending extra time with the Sussexes.

"The Queen had suggested the family should gather for lunch before their big pow-wow in the library that afternoon, but [Prince William] refused his grandmother’s invitation," Lacey writes in the book. "He would obviously turn up at 2 p.m. for the meeting, he said, but he only wanted to talk business."

Refusing a suggestion from the Queen? That. Is. Intense.