Within a fortnight of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announcing that they would be «stepping back» as senior royals, it was decided that the couple would, in fact, be stepping down from royal life entirely. For Prince Harry, it seems things have not gone entirely to plan — again. Speaking on Sunday night for the first time since negotiations with the Queen and the Prince of Wales were finalised at Sandringham, he elaborated on the «progressive» arrangement envisioned by him and his wife, the one he hoped would have left them «half-in, half-out» of the royal show, representing the Queen but free to live abroad and to pursue commercial interests.
«We were excited, we were hopeful, we were here to serve,» he said. «For those reasons, it brings me great sadness that it has come to this.» «This» means the Sussexes being removed from all royal duties, Prince Harry — a former Army captain who has undertaken two tours of Afghanistan — being stripped of his military appointments and the couple paying rent on Frogmore Cottage, their Grade II-listed home in Windsor, once they’ve repaid the €2.6m cost of its refurbishment. Log In
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The Sussexes’ plan may have looked good on paper, but it was never something the Queen could countenance. If you take public funding and use the HRH title, you don’t go around touting for private work.
While the couple have ended up with an arrangement Meghan craves — a home in North America with a base in the UK, careers as A-list professionals and the freedom to take ambassadorial roles for charitable causes of their choice — it is unlikely to bestow the sort of privacy that Harry has longed for ever since the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.
For the couple’s success will depend, to a great extent, on public exposure. Last month, they sought to register «Sussex Royal» as a global trademark, although it is now unclear whether this will survive the spring, when they give up using their HRH titles.
And never again will they enjoy the extraordinary luxury, reserved for actual royalty, of being led along a line of Hollywood’s most powerful players. And so, yet again, Prince Harry hasn’t got quite what he had wanted from this. It is a theme that has echoed throughout his life.For decades, his happiness has been like an intermittent radio signal, crackling on and off, but rarely staying on full power for long. As a little boy, he was blessed with the natural larkiness of the naughty younger brother, a foil to the more sensible, dutiful William. He has long made jokes about being ginger with an outspokenness born of a sure-fire confidence in his looks, rather than an insecurity about them.
But his happy-go-lucky nature was damaged by two appalling hammer blows. First, the unhappy marriage, separation and divorce of his parents; and then, a thousand times worse, the death of his mother when he was only 12. His years spent at Eton were inevitably underpinned by that tragedy. No one, least of all Prince Harry himself, would claim he was any sort of intellectual, but he failed to shine academically at school. He did, though, develop deep, lasting friendships there, and the school provided shelter from the press and public interest.
His happiest time was in the Army, where he headed after school and stayed for a decade until 2015. There, he found purpose, with control and respect of — and from — his brother officers while serving in Afghanistan. Again, as with Eton, the Ministry of Defence kept the press at arm’s length — bliss for him.
Today, it is easy to forget that there was a long period where Harry could do no wrong. There were the natural wildnesses that came with being a young Army officer, a member of the privileged classes and someone who had been, at his own admission, so harmed by those early blows. So there was the young Harry, stupidly dressing up as a Nazi; getting into scuffles with paparazzi; downing the Flaming Lamborghinis in nightclubs; playing strip billiards in Las Vegas. But those wild days are long gone, thanks in part to the passing of time- and to his confronting his demons. In 2017, Prince Harry joined The Daily Telegraph journalist Bryony Gordon on her Mad World podcast to talk about how he sought counselling after 20 years of bottling up the grief over his mother’s death. A year later, with the discovery of love in the shape of Meghan Markle, he seemed truly happy at his wedding, and the pair were unequivocally taken to the nation’s hearts on that sunny, hopeful day. However, the honeymoon period was surprisingly short-lived. Confusion over Archie’s birth last year, followed by the secrecy surrounding his christening, were taken as signs of petulance. When the couple were followed around Africa by a documentary team last year, their sadness and irritation was palpable.
The sudden six-week holiday over Christmas showed that their unexplained dissatisfaction had reached turning point. Not to go to Sandringham for Christmas was a break with royal protocol; the illness and hospitalisation of Harry’s beloved grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, at the age of 98, appeared to make little difference to the Sussexes. In their Canadian hideout, they were putting the finishing touches to their bombshell announcement.
An increasing lack of purpose seems to have gnawed away at Harry, just as his brother’s destiny has grown more and more substantial. Certainly, Harry’s status as the «spare» to the heir makes him increasingly expendable, not least as Prince William and Kate have produced three children. Just as he gave up the Army, the only job he has ever adored, so he has moved further away from the Biggest Job — as a potential king.
While the couple’s move to North America may make Meghan happy — the former actress will easily capitalise on her now-stellar international status — it may leave her with a problem: a down-in-the-mouth husband. What will Harry do with all that spare time? He has always been happiest with a pint in his hand surrounded by boisterous mates, and he won’t have ready access to that in Canada. With this latest gambit, the Unhappy Prince risks being unhappier than ever.
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