The woman Harry will be really turning to during his father’s cancer fight

As Harry made his trans-Atlantic dash to be by King Charles’s side after the news broke of his cancer diagnosis, he cut a lonely figure. But there is one person in his life who has been with him through all his toughest times – and it’s not Meghan – says Polly Dunbar

The royal outcast arrived at Clarence House for a 30-minute meeting with his father (LNP/AP)

It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trip, but one which unleashed an inevitable flurry of speculation. On Tuesday, Prince Harry spent little more than half an hour with the King at Clarence House, following a 5,000-mile dash from his home in Montecito after hearing the news of his father’s cancer diagnosis.

A night in a London hotel, then he was back on a plane to the States, leaving the nation to wonder if those brief moments with the man he says he’ll “always love” were enough to begin repairing their fractured relationship.

After the turbulence of the last few years, with Harry quitting his royal role and making a slew of damaging allegations about his family, he certainly can’t turn to his brother, the Prince of Wales, for mutual comfort during this worrying time. The pair are not believed to have spoken at all since Harry’s memoir Spare, in which he described William as his “arch nemesis”, was published.

But there is one member of the family he can still depend on, though, whose support has been unwavering throughout Megxit and beyond: cousin Eugenie. The pair, who have been the closest of friends since childhood, are in regular contact, seeing one another in person whenever they can and catching up on FaceTime in between.

Always bonded by their shared realisation that, as secondary figures within The Firm, they needed to carve their own paths, the cousins now find themselves facing a far graver challenge at the same time. Both of them have a parent with cancer – in Eugenie’s case, her mother Sarah Ferguson, who underwent treatment for breast cancer last summer only to be diagnosed with malignant melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, in January.

As King Charles begins treatment for his as-yet unspecified cancer, Harry will know he will be able to share his feelings with Eugenie, the one person who will really know what he is going through. Trusting her implicitly, he has always been able to confide in her and he will appreciate her now more than ever. Not only will she be there to provide comfort to help quell the anxiety that invariably surrounds a relative's cancer diagnosis, now that Harry has made his first steps towards reconciliation with his father, the link provided by his cousin to the rest of his family could become crucial in easing the path to forgiveness – on both sides. 

“Eugenie is incredibly loyal, and she and Beatrice have been so supportive of their mother throughout this difficult time,” says a source who knows her. “She has always been known for being wise beyond her years, and is great at giving advice. She and Harry are still very close, so there’s no doubt she’ll be there for him over the coming months – and if she can help at all with relations between him and the family, of course she will.”

Watching Harry and William grow up after the death of their beloved mother, Diana, the world hoped the brothers would be as close as she’d undoubtedly wanted. As Spare revealed, painting a bleak picture of a life spent in the shadow of William, the heir, that was never the case. Instead, it was laughter-loving Eugenie with whom Harry found a more natural and deeper connection.  

Princess Beatrice, Prince Harry And Princess Eugenie during Trooping the Colour (UK Press/Getty)

It was their mothers, both viewed as outcasts from the family following their divorces, who brought them together as children. Fergie would often bring her daughters for tea with the princes at Kensington Palace, and she and Diana took all four children on holiday together to the south of France in 1996. 

When they grew older, the naughtier younger siblings of the more serious William and Beatrice were often spotted on nights out to clubs such as Mahiki, where Eugenie’s then-boyfriend Jack Brooksbank was once manager, and Tonteria, where they downed shots from Mexican skull-shaped glasses. Knowing he longed to meet someone special, Eugenie played Cupid for Harry and his former girlfriend Cressida Bonas after his crushing split from Chelsy Davy.

She was also friends with Harry’s future wife Meghan Markle before he met her, the two women meeting through their mutual friend, fashion designer Misha Nonoo. During the Sussexes’ bombshell 2021 Oprah interview, Meghan confirmed: “Eugenie and I had known each other before I had known Harry, so that was comfortable. We’re friends with them as a couple,” referring to Eugenie and Brooksbank, who now divide their time between Frogmore Cottage, Harry and Meghan’s former home, and Portugal’s Atlantic coast, where Brooksbank works in a marketing role at the luxury CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club.

After Meghan and Harry were set up by Violet von Westenholtz, a PR for Ralph Lauren and the daughter of one of Charles’ best friends, in 2016, the couple went on double dates with Eugenie and Brooksbank.

A family once united during the Royal Family's ski break in Switzerland in 2005 (Getty)

On the night before their romance was revealed to the world, the foursome “pulled the pin on the fun grenade”, attending a post-apocalypse-themed Halloween party together, with Harry in disguise in a full ski mask with goggles and Meghan wearing a trapper hat and camo tank top.

Significantly, Eugenie’s mother was the first older member of the family Meghan met after the news broke that month. In Spare, Harry wrote: “First stop, Royal Lodge. To meet Fergie, because Meg already knew Fergie’s daughter Euge, and Jack, so this seemed a logical baby step.” It was Fergie who taught Meghan to curtsy before meeting Queen Elizabeth for the first time, demonstrating the move so Meghan could copy her.

Since Megxit in 2021, Eugenie has remained steadfast in her support of the couple, visiting them several times in California and even appearing in the background of their Netflix documentary. In Endgame, Omid Scobie’s latest book, the author revealed that as Harry flew to Balmoral in the thwarted hope of seeing the Queen before her death in September 2022, he kept Eugenie updated with news of her ailing condition. In September of last year, her family and his spent time together in Portugal following the Invictus Games.

Fergie has always been a Harry champion and her comments in defence of his choices seem to reflect a continuing affection for her nephew: she has said she wouldn’t judge the Sussexes for their decision to quit as working royals, having been “judged all my life’”, and has also praised Meghan, saying: “She has made Harry very happy, and that is so nice. Honestly, he’s so happy with her. She really loves him. And I think that’s beautiful.”

However, Harry has been highly critical of Sarah’s ex-husband Prince Andrew, to whom she is also extremely loyal. He became the first royal to publicly criticise the prince, describing his involvement with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “a shameful scandal”. Sarah, by contrast, maintains that her ex-husband is a “good man”.

So, like so many of Harry’s relationships within the family, it’s complicated. But should he require an example of someone who was cast out of the family under the most toxic of clouds, but has eventually been welcomed back in, he need only look to his aunt.

Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, was welcomed back into the Royal family fold this Christmas (PA)

Following her very public shaming over the toe-sucking affair with John Bryan – during which the Duke of Edinburgh said he never wanted to be in the same room with her again – Fergie managed to gradually win over the senior royals, helped in no small part by Harry’s decision to invite her to his wedding in 2018.

Friends now report that she has “family treasure” status, with nobody making the King giggle like she can and the Queen appreciating her loyalty, warmth and good humour in a crisis. Fergie and her daughters are so close that Beatrice refers to them as “the tripod”, an achievement admired by all, along with her remarkable stoicism in the face of her cancer diagnoses, jokingly referring to her reconstructed breast as “Derek” and using her melanoma as an opportunity to urge her social media followers to get their moles checked out.

Her appearance at the family’s annual Christmas service walkabout at Sandringham was a highly significant public olive branch on the part of the King, for which she said she was “grateful”. But having spent decades out in the cold, having “reached the end of my royal rope”, she might know better than anyone else how Harry feels. 

It is fitting, then, that her daughter Eugenie is Harry’s main point of contact within the family. As they both navigate the difficult months ahead, it would be the greatest possible comfort to the King to see Harry building bridges – and if anyone can help make it happen, it’s his fun-loving cousin.