In his explosive memoir Spare, Harry described how he immediately felt more at ease upon hearing that Kate wouldn’t be attending either. Reflecting on the moment in Spare, he wrote:

“Meg and I looked at flight options. The Press started phoning; we couldn’t delay a decision any longer. We told our team to confirm: We’d be missing the WellChild Awards and hurrying up to Scotland.

“Then came another call from Pa. He said I was welcome at Balmoral, but he didn’t want…her. He started to lay out his reason, which was nonsensical, and disrespectful, and I wasn’t having it. ‘Don’t ever speak about my wife that way’.”

Talking about the moment he found out Kate wouldn’t be attending either, he said: “He stammered, apologetic, saying he simply didn’t want a lot of people around. No other wives were coming, Kate wasn’t coming, he said, therefore Meg shouldn’t. ‘Then that’s all you needed to say.'”

By this point, it was already midafternoon, and there were no more commercial flights to Aberdeen that day. Still, he hadn’t heard back from Willy. That left him with only one option—a charter flight from Luton. Two hours later, he was on board.