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

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.

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.

Princes William and Harry are patrons of the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund

In the wake of their son’s death, Claire and Alex van Straubenzee set up the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund (HvSMF) in 2007. Henry was on his gap year when he died, and had been planning to spend part of the year teaching at a school in Uganda, in East Africa. As a result, the memorial fund has helped out the school ever since.

The princes became patrons of the charity in 2009 – the brothers’ only joint patronage to date, according to UK media. However, the van Straubenzees’ celebration of Claire’s MBE was described as “bittersweet” in the British press, coming “just weeks after Claire and Alex van Straubenzee’s announcement that they are closing their charity by the end of the year”. This means that the one tenuous link between the estranged princes – their joint patronage – is also about to be severed.

According to the HvSMF website, the fund has completed more than 1,800 separate projects in Uganda since 2003, and has invested the equivalent of US$4.37 million through the generosity of grant-making organisations, friends and family. The van Straubenzee family writes that, in memory of Henry, they hope to have “changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ugandan children, who have now had a good education and the opportunity of a better life”.

William and Harry, and Thomas and Charlie van Straubenzee, officiated at each other’s weddings

Henry van Straubenzee’s younger brother Charlie was Prince Harry’s best man at his wedding to Meghan Markle in May 2018. In turn, when Charlie married Daisy Jenks in August that same year, Harry served as the best man.