Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton was once the private secretary for Prince William and Prince Harry, when they were in their twenties (and early thirties in William’s case). JLP is long-retired from royal service, and he’s currently promoting a novel he wrote, which is why he’s been giving interviews in recent weeks. Royal reporters have been desperately begging him to bad-mouth Prince Harry. He has not done so. Tom Sykes even asked JLP to appear on The Royalist podcast and JLP still refused to criticize or mock Harry.
A royal insider has revealed what Prince Harry and Prince William are like behind closed doors. Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, who formerly served as the private secretary for both of King Charles’ sons, appeared on The Royalist podcast to detail what he witnessed when he was in proximity to the two princes during their young adult lives.
“Very soon after starting work with them, I realized that they were both great guys. I really loved them, actually. I mean, they were really, really fun to be with,” Lowther-Pinkerton, 66, told the podcast. “I have to say, I never really did keep up with them, but I was very, very fond of them, and I still am—both of them, actually.”
Lowther-Pinkerton served as a private secretary for the two princes from 2005 through 2013, while Harry, 41, and William, 44, were both in their twenties. Host Tom Sykes asked Lowther-Pinkerton, who was described positively by Harry in his 2023 memoir, Spare, about what it meant to realize the appreciation that Harry had for him.
Lowther-Pinkerton, who is a godfather to William’s son, Prince George, answered that he felt “very privileged” to have served as the princes’ aide.
“I loved it. I think the point of working for them when I did is that it was in their twenties,” he explained. “I think one of my principal objectives was really to sort of be able to allow them to, or enable them, with others’ help, to get to a position where, at the end of their twenties, they could say—as my Irish father would have said—you know, we have known the days, and we’ve got it right.”
Lowther-Pinkerton added, “They both wanted to be soldiers, they both wanted to serve their country, and both of them, in different ways, went on operations and got that sort of feeling of being there and done it.”
“Obviously, we dipped our toes into all of the other stuff—the sort of overseas tours, and the sort of charitable side, which they were very, very knowledgeable about—much more knowledgeable than I would ever be about it because they’d lived it all their lives,” Lowther-Pinkerton said. “That was the sort of emphasis for me, was to make sure that their twenties were—they were able to hit the goals they wanted to.”
“Circumstances have come along which are very sad, but they’re not really for me to talk about because I left in 2014,” he told the Royalist podcast. “But I’m fond of them both.”
“The monarchy, throughout its 1,200-year history, has always been on the edge of crisis but it’s a brilliant, brilliant organism for change,” he said. “It’s a chameleon, if you like. I’ve got no doubt that it remains able to do that, actually.”
[From The Daily Beast & GB News]
I’m glad that JLP remains loyal enough to both brothers to refuse to engage with these storylines. What I find interesting is that royal reporters are obviously asking him about everything that’s happened between Harry and William in the past decade, which he really wasn’t part of (as he says). But the seeds of dysfunction were absolutely sown during JLP’s era as private secretary, starting with the fact that the monarchy’s “plan” was always to have William and Harry share an office. I even said this in real time, before Harry even met the woman who would become his wife: there was absolutely zero reason for Harry to still be in the same office as William past their early 20s. JLP was serving two “masters”: the brothers themselves, and the institution which always treated Harry like he would be William’s property forever. A bureaucrat or manager worth his salt would have understood that the brothers’ offices needed to be split during this exact moment, during JLP’s time as private secretary. Ask him about that.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton speaking at a reception to celebrate the endeavour challenges completed to date and outline future plans to use the existing Endeavour alumni to seek out and reach Servicemen and women to engage them on inspirational challenges, at St James’s Palace, London, UK. 11/11/2015.,Image: 506798443, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: /Avalon
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- The Duke of Cambridge (second left) and Duke of Sussex (second right) talk to, Rupert Gavin, Chairman of Historic Royal Palaces (left) and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton (right) the former Private Secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and to Prince Harry, who sat on the statue committee, ahead of the unveiling of a statue they commissioned of their mother Diana, Princess of Wales in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, London, on what would have been her 60th birthday. Picture date: Thursday July 1, 2021. .,Image: 619024501, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Avalon.red/Avalon
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- The Duke of Cambridge (second left) and Duke of Sussex (second right) talk to, Rupert Gavin, Chairman of Historic Royal Palaces (left) and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton (right) the former Private Secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and to Prince Harry, who sat on the statue committee, ahead of the unveiling of a statue they commissioned of their mother Diana, Princess of Wales in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, London, on what would have been her 60th birthday. Picture date: Thursday July 1, 2021. .,Image: 619024501, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Avalon.red/Avalon
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- The Duke of Cambridge (second left) and Duke of Sussex (second right) talk to, Rupert Gavin, Chairman of Historic Royal Palaces (left) and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton (right) the former Private Secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and to Prince Harry, who sat on the statue committee, ahead of the unveiling of a statue they commissioned of their mother Diana, Princess of Wales in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, London, on what would have been her 60th birthday. Picture date: Thursday July 1, 2021. .,Image: 619024748, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Avalon.red/Avalon
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- The Duke of Cambridge (left) and Duke of Sussex (right) are greeted by Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the former Private Secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and to Prince Harry, who sat on the statue committee, ahead of the unveiling of a statue they commissioned of their mother Diana, Princess of Wales in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, London, on what would have been her 60th birthday. Picture date: Thursday July 1, 2021. .,Image: 619024755, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Avalon.red/Avalon
Harry should have given his own “household” and offices under BP the moment he turned 18.
Charles and Bill wanted to keep control of him so it didn’t happen. QEII let them until summer 2019 (when it was too late).
Don’t forget that Chuck and Andy’s coup against Sir Christopher Geidt, the Queen’s secretary, happened just two years prior, in 2017. This was only a year after Harry met Meghan, and four years before Prince Phillip’s death and five years before Her Late Maj’s passing. Liz and Phil were already in failing health at this point, and that’s when then Prince Charles decided to stage that.
Within two years of that event, the coup, H&M were already being ground down by and pushed out of the Firm.
And this is just the horrible facts we know; how many other horrors were visited upon the Sussexes by Chuck behind the scenes we can only speculate on, as Harry and Meghan for their own reasons have chosen not to speak on it.
“The monarchy, throughout its 1,200-year history, has always been on the edge of crisis but it’s a brilliant, brilliant organism for change,”
— Say *what*??
Yeah, what the heck did it mean? An organism for change?
Well he’s a novelist now, so…
As far as I know, every other front-bench member of the family (to borrow a parliamentary distinction) got their own office when they got married. William should have been established in a separate office when he and Kate married in 2011. Harry didn’t really need an office as such, but if he was sharing with anyone, it should have been his father, as he was still (technically) under his father’s roof. The property, London apartments, country houses, separate offices, all of it was typically a marriage endowment, for obvious reasons. You had to be head of your own household. The weird kink in the brothers’ relationship is that Harry was paired with William to the exclusion of Kate, who was — in hindsight — obviously not expected to do very much at all. So when Meghan came on the scene, it was clearly William’s perception that it was Meghan who’d poached his workhorse out from under him, and Kate probably felt the same. They weirdly treated Harry as if he were William’s heir, and not his father’s.
Totally agree about every other senior, working, Royal getting their own office previously. I think this has less to do with logistics than it does with William’s failings.
I think that the royals and courtiers always knew how lazy (and mentally volatile?) William was and he would need his brother to prop him up, and that would best be done by sharing an office so that William could take credit, at least in part, for Harry’s projects and industriousness. I also think they rightly saw that the only way to get William to do anything was to have Harry around, so that William would be spurred on by his jealousy. Remember the moaning and anger for years about how Harry should not have left because William needed him?
This man is clearly a monarchist so he is not going to badmouth nobody. I am not a monarchist so I think it’s sad that he’s lying about William just to uphold the fairy tale.
Yeah, what was this ‘they both went on operations’ business? He’s working too hard to be even-handed. I will say, though, at least he’s written fiction & isn’t trying to peddle yet another BTS memoir of how things ‘really worked’.
I think he means air rescue flights when he says “operations”. In the military operations means “a coordinated military action, plan, or a series of tactical actions conducted by armed forces to achieve a specific strategic or tactical objective”. It doesn’t have to be combat related.
Exacly this. It seems to me, and has done since the first time this man popped up in an interview to publicise his book, that he has been tasked with totally whitewashing William and giving him nonexistent depth and ambition. He seems to be on a mission to give people the impression that William is as accomplished, intelligent and ambitious as Harry when this is very much NOT the case. He can’t have been much of a private secretary if he could not see that, and he cannot have much in the way of judgement if he cannot see that now, even in hindsight. It’s one thing to not want to badmouth your former principal, but why make him out to be something he’s not? The last time he gave this whole rigmarole story insinuating that William had been flying in massive storms as an air ambulance pilot when William was only ever a co-pilot. Here he is now insisting that William always wanted to be a soldier, just like Harry, which I’m certain will come as news to many. Dress up and play soldier, yes, stomp his foot to ensure that his younger brother never got an earned military promotion above his own, yes, but actually BE a soldier? Nah.
They’re using this man because of Harry’s expressed respect for him in Spare, because then they expect that people will take anything he says seriously, including the lies about William. But he’s blowing so much smoke up William’s proverbial that I cannot take anything he says seriously.
They had every intention of utilizing Harry as a “shadow king”. It’s increasingly obvious that the Firm is well aware that William “isn’t right” and they planned to try to hide that fact behind Harry’s hard work. William knows it too. That’s why he’s so livid that Harry got away. It will far more difficult to hide William’s insufficiencies and shortcomings, not to mention what appears to be unchecked, untreated mental illness.
They will never forgive Harry for realizing his true worth and extracting himself and his family from such a soul-destroying farce.
Yes, these decisions were above Pinkerton’s paygrade. I don’t think Harry would have minded being a “shadow king” if the job didn’t also include “scapegoat” and “the media’s chew toy.” But the real problem is that Harry isn’t a shadow – he would always be more popular.
The “media’s chew toy” – perfect description.
@beverly, sorry, I posted a reply to a comment above before I saw your comment. I totally agree about the royals and courtiers knowing that William wasn’t quite “right” and that much of the anger toward the Sussexes for leaving is because William “needs” him. I also think this is the main reason that the half-in half- out arrangement was not accepted -while it worked for other royals.
@Mayp, I totally agree. William is a complete disaster.
The Palace wanted Harry and William to be tied together for ever. I agree that their office should have split up from early on. JLP had to have known that they had different visions of how they wanted to work as royals and he should have made that known to his superiors. But I think he didn’t because he bought in the myth that Harry was born to be William’s support.
It should have been separated the day Harry turned 18.
He was not the future duke of Cornwall, he was the second son. He should have been removed from duchy funding right then.
Once he legally became an adult, he should have been moved under buck house and put on civil list (now sovereign grant). There would never have been a question about “affording” his wife.
JLP could have advised him from there. He would have been able to have his own royal foundation from that point. No asking Charlie’s or Billy’s permission.
I think in fairness to the men in grey — and I’m stretching here, because they’re clearly a huge part of the problem — they looked at previous generations of royals and saw the heir / spare dynamic played out in a much more constructive way. Margaret was ideally partnered as a foil for Elizabeth, really, Anne was a brilliant foil for Charles, wholly supportive, and this is the salient aspect of it: Anne and Margaret are as different as any two people could hope to be, but both found it within their ability and desire to be linchpins to the institution, just in very different ways. The BRF is an institution that relies on habit and inertia, frankly, in a country that relies on habit and inertia, waaaaaaaay too much. They just assumed that Harry would play the role. The role was to be a stalwart, in whatever form that takes: comic relief, lightning rod, workhorse, all three. But I doubt it ever occurred to them that he would just *leave*. They really botched this job. They shat the bed, and it will likely bring the whole house of cards crashing down. That’s my two cents.
Jamie did a similar interview with Inewspaper a couple weeks ago and he compared Will to the Lion King posing on a rock whilst Harry was a busy bee buzzing around! I chortled at that because you could interpret that as Will forever posing whilst his brother was proactive and busy, actually working!
Am I reading this wrong? He was close enough with Will and Kate to be one of George’s godparents in 2013 (he resigned between the birth and the christening) and hasn’t kept up with them? If so, what happened? Or was he saying he couldn’t keep up with them in their 20’s?
I had that same question because it sounds as though he is saying that he is not been in contact with either of them.
Jamie’s “they both went on operations” line is doing a lot of heavy lifting. William never served in war zones, never deployed, and was only a co‑pilot — with colleagues who weren’t exactly impressed. It reads like someone is paving the PR road to make William look Invictus‑ready, even though his actual military record doesn’t match the narrative.