Who are the van Straubenzees, Princes Harry and William’s long-time friends? William just gave an MBE to Claire, whose late son Henry was Harry’s best friend, while Thomas was William’s best man

May 14 , 2024

Prince Harry embracing Claire van Straubenzee as his brother Prince William looks on at the formal launch of the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund in 2009. Photo: WPA/Getty Images

Claire van Straubenzee was recently awarded an MBE for her charity work in Uganda in honour of her son Henry, who died aged 18 in a car crash like Princess Diana, in a tragic coincidence

Her other sons, Thomas and Charlie, were best men at Prince William and Harry’s weddings to Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle respectively, and the princes share patronage of the Uganda charity

On May 8, Prince William got to present an MBE to Claire van Straubenzee – the mother of his and Prince Harry’s close childhood friends Thomas, Henry and Charlie van Straubenzee.

According to The Telegraph, William was “keen to conduct the investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle due to his personal links with Claire van Straubenzee and her family”.

It’s common knowledge that the estranged princes lost their mother Princess Diana in a car accident, but fewer people may know that they tragically lost their friend Henry van Straubenzee in the same way back in 2002.

The van Straubenzees have been described as a “second family” to William and Harry, with some royal watchers even speculating that the van Straubenzee brothers could exert a positive influence on the princes’ now strained relationship.

So just who are the van Straubenzees, and how far back do their connections to Princes William and Harry go? Here’s everything we know.

Henry van Straubenzee and Prince Harry were best friends at school

A young Prince Harry as a pageboy (centre). Photo: @londoncleaners2/X

While both princes were childhood friends of Henry, Prince Harry was particularly close to the middle van Straubenzee son. the two were in the same year at Ludgrove, the boarding school they attended in Berkshire, southeast England.

According to Prince Harry writing in his memoir Spare, Henry was the only boy who asked him about his mother after she died in the car crash in Paris in the summer of 1997.

Five years later, in 2002, Harry and Henry graduated from secondary school (by that time, Harry was at Eton and Henry at Harrow). In December of that year, Henry was killed near Ludgrove at the age of 18. Just like Diana, he was a passenger in a fatal car accident.

Harry also mentions in Spare that, “just like mummy”, his friend wasn’t wearing a seat belt.