10
Loading video...
By Jack Royston
Chief Royal Correspondent
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Sir Clive Alderton, King Charles III's most senior aide, has announced he will retire in May after 20 years at the palace, bringing to a close a chapter in a longstanding conflict with Prince Harry that in recent years has had police protection as its backdrop.
The king's principal private secretary manages his diary and organizes his professional life, meaning Alderton has been an important intermediary for Harry's relations with his father.
The Royal Household staffer has another role as one of several palace aides to sit on RAVEC, the Home Office committee that decides who gets Metropolitan Police protection.
Read More on Analysis
Newsweek has been told that Harry is deeply suspicious of the role of the household on the committee and that some in the Sussex camp believe Alderton could have secured him the return of his police bodyguards. Palace insiders emphatically denied this, saying the Royal Household only sit on RAVEC to advise the chair on what impact specific proposals might have. RAVEC's terms of reference suggest it is the chair who decides outcomes.
Alderton's departure may therefore provide an opportunity to test Harry's belief that individual royal household officials can influence the decision of the RAVEC chair.
Why It Matters
Prince Harry has in the past argued that it is not safe in Britain for his family without Metropolitan Police bodyguards. Newsweek was told he was distraught after learning he would not get a police team for his United Kingdom visit at the beginning of July.
Meghan Markle and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, ultimately joined him for private elements, meeting King Charles and visiting Princess Diana's family estate, where her grave is. However, the dispute over police brought significant disruption.
...
Sir Clive Alderton's Departure
Alderton told Royal Household staff in a message on Monday: "It has been the greatest imaginable honor to serve The King and Queen in my present role through such historic times and with unforgettable humor along the way. That support will continue, in a less formal capacity, for all of my life."
He will step down next year around the time of his 60th birthday, in May, to assist with the search for a successor as principal private secretary, a role he has held for 11 years. The palace aims to have a replacement in position in spring or summer 2027.
A palace spokesperson told Newsweek that the king and queen "are deeply grateful to Clive for his tireless support and wise counsel over the years and for the enduring loyalty that will ensure a smooth transition to his successor."
Alderton helped Charles prepare for his succession in the years before Queen Elizabeth II's death in September 2022 and also for his coronation, in May 2023.
Ingrid Seward, author of royal book My Mother and I, told Newsweek: "I honestly think that when you work in that kind of proximity to Charles it is all consuming."
Prince Harry's Relationship With Sir Clive Alderton
In his book Spare, Harry described tense relations with three palace aides to whom he gave insect-based nicknames. "The Bee," was reported at the time to be Sir Edward Young, Queen Elizabeth II's private secretary, who left the royal household shortly after her death.
"The fly" was said to be Simon Case, then private secretary to Prince William, who later left Kensington Palace to become head of the U.K. civil service and has since left government.
"The Wasp," was widely accepted to be Alderton.
"The Wasp was lanky, charming, arrogant, a ball of jazzy energy. He was great at pretending to be polite, even servile," Harry wrote.
"Because he seemed so weedy, so self-effacing, you might be tempted to push back, insist on your point, and that was when he’d put you on his list. A short time later, without warning, he’d give you such a stab with his outsized stinger that you’d cry out in confusion."
Alderton is the last of the three senior palace aides whom Harry believed had thwarted him during the Sandringham Summit, in January 2020, at which the terms of his royal exit were negotiated.
Related Story
Prince Harry Failed Campaign Against Press ‘Burnished’ Tabloid Reputations
The Sandringham Summit and the Security Dispute
All three were present for the meeting, alongside the queen, Charles, and William. Harry later sued the Home Office in an effort to get his police bodyguards back and during the case he accused the aides of failing to pass on to RAVEC and the Home Office his offer to pay privately to keep his police protection team, which he said he made at Sandringham.
A court filing, seen by Newsweek, read: "[Prince Harry's] offer was made at a meeting on 13 January 2020 at which members of TRH [The Royal Household] were present and is also referred to in an email to Sir Edward Young of 16 April 2020. There has been no explanation of why the offer was not conveyed."
However, evidence disclosed during the litigation suggested the situation may have been more complex. Harry lost the case, and the High Court judgment quoted contemporaneous emails that appeared to suggest there had been some pushback from the palace.
On 13 January, Sir Richard Mottram, then chair of RAVEC, told the head of the U.K. civil service that "the Royal Household tended to see matters in [redacted]–whereas we considered [redacted]. There might be circumstances where some state support was justified in the context say of [redacted] but this was different to [redacted]."
While the redactions obscure key elements of the discussion, the correspondence suggests the palace and government took different views of the situation. The documents indicate the government's position ultimately prevailed.
Then-Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, according to the filing, "said the Royal Household had also asked whether it was open to them to ask to pay for security delivered by the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] but he had ruled this out. I agreed."
During that court case, much of Harry's frustration was targeted at Young who has since left the palace. More recently, Newsweek was told Harry remained suspicious of Alderton's role on RAVEC, believing he could have intervened to secure him police bodyguards.
"I'm sure that Harry needs to have a victim if you like," Seward said. "Someone he's targeting. I'm sure that it switched from Edward Young to Clive Alderton because Clive Alderton is the one with the power."
The palace has always maintained that it would be constitutionally improper for the king or his staff to try to change a government decision about a royal family member's protection.
Robert Jobson, author of The Windsor Legacy, told Newsweek he was skeptical about Harry's argument: "I think it is a bit of a stretch. But that said they didn’t get on at all."
Either way, soon Alderton will have left too. That means all three of the palace aides who were at the Sandringham Summit and communicated with the Home Office about Harry's police protection at the time it was stripped from him will have left.
If a future change in the government's position coincided with the departure of the officials Harry has criticized, it could lend weight to his argument that specific individuals played a role in frustrating his efforts. However, if the Home Office maintains the position it has held since 2020—that Harry is not entitled to the level of police protection he seeks during visits to Britain—it would weaken his argument that particular palace officials were responsible for the outcome.
"There will be a renewed relationship which may be better or it could indeed be worse," Seward said.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton, Tony Phillips, Sam Wilson.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines