No such litigation was brought to bear by the delightful Ms Davies, at twenty-seven then eight years Harry’s senior, who made light of her kiss with Harry. Then assistant manager at Cirencester Park Polo Club, she joked, ‘What can I say? It’s all a bit silly really. We’re just friends.’ Her embarrassment was not diminished, however, at the publication in the national press of a topless photograph of her (well, she was using oranges to cover her modesty) taken for a charity calendar.
It was, however, Chelsy Davy who eventually captured his heart. On his twenty-first birthday (15 September 2005) he surprised even his father by going public and declaring that Chelsy was his girlfriend. In the spring of 2006 they spent a fortnight on a getting-to-know-you holiday and, following her return to the UK on a six-week break, they stayed at Highgrove at weekends and a borrowed cottage on the Lulworth Castle estate during his leave from a tank-driving course at Bovington in Dorset. To their friends it sounded bliss: this was surely the real thing. They were together constantly until, on the evening of 20 May, he decided to have a night out on his own after watching a show headlined by Ozzy Osbourne and Lionel Richie. On the other side of town the same thought had crossed the mind of Catherine Davies, a 34-year-old married (though separated from her husband) mother of two. Their paths crossed at the Art Bar in Walton Street, Knightsbridge. One can only imagine how Chelsy felt when she subsequently read Mrs Davies’s account of what followed: ‘Hi, I’m Harry,’ said the Prince, thirteen years younger than the woman whose cleavage had transfixed him. In what seemed like no time at all he invited her to join him on a club crawl, travelling in the back of the Range Rover with his two armed protection officers in the front.
After some horseplay at the club Boujis they went to a house in Chelsea, retiring to the kitchen where he made her a bacon sandwich. To cut a long story short, they ended up enjoying some horseplay, partly in an empty bath after Mrs Davies had said she would like to see the rest of the house. Shortly after, she claims he gave her ‘a long and lovely kiss’. More than that she declined to reveal in the account of her night with the Prince, which she sold to a newspaper, except to say that at 3 a.m. one of his protection officers drove them to her home in Battersea where Harry bade her a polite farewell with a kiss on the cheek. Catherine had just one souvenir of her unusual encounter with the Prince: a photograph a friend of hers had taken on a mobile phone of the two of them sitting in the bath.
It was probably Harry’s roving eye that caused Chelsy to split from him the following year. Although he was clearly in love with her and teased her mercilessly as only two people so close to each other can, he found it hard to be faithful. There was even talk of her finding a goodbye text message on his mobile phone from ‘Margaret’, who by now must have acquired his number. Harry’s decision to go to Paris for the Rugby World Cup final in October 2007 instead of turning up for Chelsy’s twenty-second birthday celebrations proved a bridge too far and she let it be known that they had split because she ‘needed space’.
Harry’s response to Chelsy’s choice was to go party-hunting although it has to be said that the girls who followed were never to be serious contenders for his heart. When Sir Richard Branson’s son Sam told him the heavenly Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia was planning a fancy-dress celebration for her thirty-fourth birthday in February 2009 at his father’s nightclub, the Kensington Roof Gardens, Harry made it known that he would very much like to be there. Recently divorced (from husband Daniel Johns), Imbruglia was more than happy to have one of the world’s most eligible bachelors – dressed in a surgeon’s outfit for reasons best known to himself (one of his more mischievous chums says he had gone as a gynaecologist and called himself Dr Goldfinger) – grace her gathering.
Well aware that royal presence would do her no harm, Imbruglia later boasted that she had both a prince and a princess at her party, for Harry’s cousin Beatrice also turned up with boyfriend Dave Clark who happens to work for Branson’s Virgin Galactic company. However, there was never any question of a romance: as a friend of the singer confides: ‘[Natalie] gets on very well with Harry but she tends to go for rock musicians rather than public schoolboys.’
Someone with no objection to public schoolboys is Astrid Harbord, with whom Harry was spotted leaving Chelsea haunt Raffles within weeks of his split from Chelsy, seeing him safely home to Clarence House after yet another celebratory night. Astrid (an old friend of Kate Middleton’s) and her sister Davina are from a noted family with aristocratic connections. Their father Charles Harbord was an Old Harrovian and the family home was a splendid residence in Wiltshire – until, that is, Harbord shot himself dead in May 2012 at the rented apartment in Dorset to which he and his wife Sarah-Juliet (née Blandy) had been obliged to move eighteen months earlier when his extravagant lifestyle caught up with him.
Dubbed the Hardcore Sisters by Tatler, Astrid and Davina are known to enjoy a good party – and it doesn’t have to be in the Chelsea/Mayfair areas that Harry normally frequents on London nights out. So when they decided to celebrate Davina’s twenty-seventh birthday at a rave on the third floor of a dilapidated venue in Whitechapel – an area of east London notorious for high crime rates and drug problems – the Prince had no qualms about accepting an invitation, despite the fact that the property had been repossessed. According to neighbours, police had been called to the premises on a number of occasions to break up fights which had broken out between drunk and drugged guests. It was known to be a matter of concern to his royal protection officers that Harry was determined to go and join in the ‘fun’ at the party labelled ‘Dress 2 Sweat’.
Techno was pumped out to 400 revellers at the event, which was organised by a group of students from Leeds, a number of whom were known to Chelsy: the Who’s Who guest list included Prince William’s former girlfriend Arabella Musgrave, the daughter of Cirencester Park Polo Club manager Major Nicholas Musgrave.
Harry’s attendance at the rave was subsequently criticised by Dai Davis who was in charge of royal security until 1998. He said,
We are at the severe end of severe danger according to the Home Secretary. What is the point of the taxpayer spending £50 million on protection for the Royals when officers are unable to prepare for events like this in a venue that is incredibly difficult [to police]. My concern is that if you are being protected the onus is for you to look after yourself to some extent. That responsibility seems not to be taken seriously and it puts Harry and his officers in a dangerous position.
Royal aides had already advised him to keep a distance between himself and the blonde socialite hostesses. He had, it seemed, developed a taste for a clubber lifestyle and had no difficulty in finding similar events known to the affluent attendees as ‘raavs’.
Harry swears he went home alone on the night of the Whitechapel raav. The same may not be said, however, for the night he met fun-loving television presenter Caroline Flack that June. The Daily Mail reported that she might have spent a night with Harry at his ‘private London apartment’. If ever there was a party-loving girl it is Miss Flack: her many friends include actor James Corden, One Direction star Harry Styles, Robbie Williams (who entertained her with a beans-on-toast supper at his apartment), Dec Donnelly, comedian Russell Brand, Jordan Stephens of Rizzle Kicks, Johnny Lloyd of Tribes and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s son Jack, with whom she was reported to have shared a hot tub at his Los Angeles home alongside another girl – Caroline enjoys the company of a number of close female friends.
It was way back in 2005 when she found out that a colleague at the Poker TV channel (none other than the aforementioned Natalie Pinkham) knew Prince Harry, that she set her sights on meeting the most famous one of all. It took four years for her dream to come true but the one-time presenter of Sky 1’s Gladiators show achieved the near-impossible shortly after breaking up after a year with Holloways drummer Dave Healy (‘the absolute love of my life’). It was in 2009 that she met her Prince Charming at a charity poker event.
The two briefly
became close and when she posted ‘Caroline loves Jam…’ on her Facebook site it was mistakenly reported that she had given HRH the codename Jam ‘because he has jam coloured hair and is really sweet’. She was, however, able to put the record straight when she explained that Jam was the joint nickname she had given to one of her closest friends Josie and her boyfriend Sam.
A confidant of Caroline’s says:
She and the Prince are like chalk and cheese but perhaps that’s where the attraction lay. He was fascinated by her wild carefree attitude and rock-chick lifestyle. He was never really her type though. She normally goes for cool, grungy indie musician types. I’d never known her to date a non-celebrity. The main criterion is fame and they don’t come much more famous than HRH Harry.
It took a royal advisor to convince Harry that the association would do him no good and that word of it had already reached Chelsy, whom he still regarded as ‘the best thing that has ever happened to me’. Miss Flack found herself being reported as ‘well and truly dumped’. ‘These are just silly stories in a very serious world,’ says the Xtra Factor presenter.
‘When you think of the real stories – people around the world dying of starvation, being killed in conflicts, born into poverty – when you think what I did: I went out with a younger guy [she was referring to Harry Styles] and I am the front page news. It’s just absurd.
The warning he received from the Palace was enough for Harry Wales to proceed with caution that summer. Apart from enjoying the company of PR advisor Stephanie Haynes, who worked for the Italian fashion house Armani at the time, he seemed to be taking his royal position more seriously. Despite being his type (an easy-on-the-eye blonde) it was not Stephanie’s physical attributes that attracted him to her. Although she was just six years his senior he regarded her as a mother figure and found her to be the best media advisor he had ever encountered. This was important since he was well aware that newspaper reports of his escapades since their split meant he stood little chance of winning Chelsy back unless she saw – or rather read – that he had changed his ways.
Whatever Ms Haynes advised him seemed to pay off, for by July the couple were secretly meeting again following Chelsy’s return from a holiday in Portugal, and when Harry – by now on his best behaviour – celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday at Raffles (where a methuselah of vintage champagne costs £9,000), Chelsy was the star, not to say the surprise, guest. It was after all the first time they had been seen in public for more than six months. The couple spent most of the night together in deep conversation in the club’s VIP room while the Wagabees – WAG wannabes – could only look on enviously.
The reunion was a delicate matter and, apart from a joint appearance at a West End pub to celebrate the successful completion of his helicopter course, they kept it out of the public eye. But not for long. The world, they decided, needed to see they were back together and it was Harry who chose the venue and the occasion for their public display: Twickenham Stadium where England were playing Australia early in November of 2009. Prepared for the inevitable throng of photographers, Harry did his best to look like any other member of the crowd, dressing in a blue beanie, a casual jacket, black zip-up top and jeans. Chelsy opted for a bright blue jumper, leather jacket and gold scarf. No one was going to miss them. As it happens, the English team were beaten by the Australians but the result gave the love of his life the opportunity to comfort him in front of a massive audience.
Although the Queen’s rules forbade Harry from taking Chelsy to Sandringham for the traditional Christmas gathering, they enjoyed advance yuletide celebrations. Nothing revealed their reconciliation more than a joint Christmas e-card sent to their friends: it featured Harry and Chelsy’s faces – along with those of her brother Shaun and her best friends Kirsten and Pegs – superimposed on a 44-second segment of video footage which featured a group of elves dressed in green tunics and striped stockings. When the card was played the group broke into a breakdance to the tune of a jazzed-up ‘Jingle Bells’ soundtrack with Harry as the undoubted star.
The card was fun but the thought behind it was serious: the third in line was back with the girl he loved. Chelsy was sure that he had mended his ways. What’s more, he would be reunited with the Davy family on a beach holiday in Mauritius just as soon as he could get away from the Queen’s formal festivities at Sandringham.
It had been early on an October morning in 2010 that Harry received the call that proved him wrong about William’s intentions regarding Kate Middleton. ‘How do you fancy being a best man?’ his brother asked. William had proposed to Kate on the balcony of an isolated log cabin they were sharing miles off the beaten track during a holiday tracking elephants, hyenas, buffalos and leopards in Kenya. They had made a 24-hour stop at the Rutundu camping area (a hideaway he had visited two years earlier) staying in a small lodge that didn’t even have electricity. A four-poster bed was the only luxury and guests, including William and Kate, were advised to bring their own food and drink. For two weeks William had been carrying in his rucksack his mother’s diamond and sapphire engagement ring – for which Charles had paid £28,500 almost thirty years earlier – to slip onto his sweetheart’s finger. And, in anticipation of an acceptance, he also had a bottle of – albeit warm – champagne to celebrate. He was not disappointed by her positive reply, although he made no mention of the historic event that had occurred in Cabin 5 when, on departure, he simply wrote in the guest book: ‘Thank you guys! Look forward to the next time, soon I hope.’
When the engagement was announced the following month Harry said he was delighted to be getting a sister, ‘which I always wanted’. Somewhat less tactfully Charles said, ‘Well, they’ve been practising long enough,’ and there was even a note of impatience in the Queen’s response when she added, ‘It has taken them a very long time’ after expressing her delight at the ‘brilliant news’.
Once the news had been absorbed it was time for public attention to be re-focused on the still-eligible Prince: who would be on Harry’s arm at the wedding on 29 April? It was, of course, Chelsy, the love of his life, and they looked to all the world as if they would be the next royal couple at the altar. Alas, the reunion turned out to be all too brief and after yet another serious disagreement (over what this time no one will say), it was Harry’s turn to look elsewhere for a bride of his own – not easy for a man who has a fondness for fabulously attractive women but must find one to fit comfortably into the Royal Family. His dreams seem to have come true just two months after William and Kate’s wedding when he re-met Florence Anne Marie Brudenell-Bruce – they had vaguely known each other for years – a woman stunning enough to model lingerie for La Senza and yet one who had heritage suitable to become Her Majesty the Queen’s daughter-in-law and sister-in-law to a future queen.
The impeccably mannered aristocrat is a descendant of the Earl of Cardigan who led the Charge of the Light Brigade against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. Privately educated (like Chelsy) at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire before graduating with a degree in history of art at Bristol University, she is the daughter of Old Etonian Andrew Brudenell-Bruce, a wine merchant, and his French wife Sophie, an exotic painter.
And she is also the sexiest woman Harry had ever dated. Known to her friends as Flee, she had previously been involved with Formula 1 racing driver Jenson Button, featured in a Bollywood movie, played a corpse in an episode of the TV detective drama Lewis and posed for risqué modelling shots in her underwear. What more could a man ask?
Less of a party girl than some other of Harry’s female acquaintances, Flee spent much of her 2011 summer romance with Harry in private trysts at her home in Notting Hill, west London where he did the washing up after each meal and called for a minicab when it was time to go home, rather than have a royal limousine turn up outside. This looked like the real thing – it certainly put paid to nonsensical reports that he had become romantically involved with Pippa Middleton, as well as confirming that Flee was free of h
er entanglement with the upper-crust (and grandly named) Henry St George, son of the fabulously wealthy financier Edward St George.
Alas, the relationship lasted a mere two months, with Harry’s nearest and dearest declaring that he did not want to be tied down. Plans for him to join Flee on holiday in Ibiza were suddenly cancelled. The only certainties are that Harry was certainly not ready to give up his army career and settle down and Flee, at that time, still cherished the dream of moving to Hollywood and becoming a movie star, although she subsequently returned to the arms of Henry St George and in January 2013 the couple announced their engagement.
Flee had once been the face of the designer fashion label Aspinal and her successor in that job, Mollie King, who sings with the group The Saturdays, found herself linked with the Prince in April 2012 after matchmaker-in-chief Zara Phillips (friend of another Saturdays girl, Una Healy) introduced them. Although King says she went out with him a few times, it turned out to be yet another ‘we’re just friends’ situation which neither caused Harry any grief nor the rising girl band any harm – a repeat of the situation in 2010 when he was said to have fallen for Scandinavian rock singer Camilla Romestrand, who fronts a band called Eddie The Gun. Harry was obliged to point out that his stepmother was the only Camilla he had learned to love.
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