“People are asking, family and friends. We know who it is, and then suddenly it’s just a reality of ‘this isn’t going to go away’”, she said. “Forever this is going to flare up. Until they know who it is, they’re going to be questioning people.”

“And yes, I could not have said anything but then it’s never going to stop”, she added.

Whilst Ms Walpole wasn’t named in the memoir, she feared that her circle of friends could have figured it out. “He didn’t name me but people who were there that night, or simply part of that social circle, would be able to work out it was me”, she echoed in The Mail on Sunday.

“Our group was a very mixed bunch of polo players, grooms, hunt staff and racing people, a cosmopolitan crowd”, she adds. Whether you were a “groom” or a “Royal”, there was no judgment.

40-year-old Sasha Walpole disclosed her identity this week (News UK)

In his explosive autobiography, the prince describes his encounter with the unnamed Ms Walpole as a “humiliating episode with an older woman” who “treated me like a young stallion.” The pair slept together in the summer of 2001, placing Harry at 16 years old and Ms Walpole at 18.

“I mounted her quickly, after which she spanked my ass and sent me away”, he wrote. “One of my many mistakes was letting it happen in a field, just behind a very busy pub.”