• Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare makes numerous mentions of Henry.
• The princes were classmates at Ludgrove School, and have remained close friends as adults.
• Henry was Harry’s best friend growing up, and he describes how he envied his ‘tanquility’.

The three brothers are at the centre of love, drama, and tragedy, In the lives of Prince Harry and Prince William.

The van Straubenzee boys were classmates of the young princes at Ludgrove School, and they have remained close friends even as adults.

Harry’s highly anticipated autobiography Spare makes numerous mentions of Henry, Thomas, and Charlie.

The van Straubenzee family, originally from the Netherlands, are members of Spennithorne’s landed gentry and have a strong military tradition.

One of the most shocking revelations from Spare is Harry’s bombshell claim that he was not William’s best man, but rather one of the brothers.

Another secretly became one of Harry’s best men, while the middle brother tragically died at a young age.

All of the brothers were close friends to Harry, but Henry was his best friend growing up.

The two friends were both named Henry, but Harry referred to him as Henners and dubbed him Haz.

People referred to them as ‘Jack and Russell,’ possibly because the royal princes had that breed of dog at home.

When Harry wasn’t roaming the school corridors, he was hanging out in the grounds with Henners, who is described as being skinny with no muscles, hair that stood on end and “all heart”.

In Spare, Harry recalls eating strawberries in a farm near the school grounds, where they were once caught red-handed by a teacher because of their crimson palms.

The Duke of Sussex also discusses how lonely he felt at Eton because Henry attended Harrow School instead.

Henners was accepted to Newcastle University and received an Army scholarship to The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, where he planned to attend after finishing university and taking a year off to teach at a school in Uganda.

Harry had written in Spare: “The lads had planned to meet up in Africa.” “He didn’t take the future seriously, didn’t take anything seriously. Life as it comes, Haz. That was Henners, always and forever. I envied his tranquillity.”

Henry died in a car accident in December 2002, at the age of 18, as a passenger in a car that crashed into a tree while leaving a party near Ludgrove.

Hearing that his best friend had died “just like mummy” took Harry back to the night King Charles told him Princess Diana had died.

The Royal Family attended the funeral, and the princes have supported the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund since 2009.

In Spare, Harry recalls a phone call with Henry’s brother Thomas during which they talked about old times with Henners.

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