Palace finally hits back at major Harry, Meghan claim

A new book has knocked one of the key allegations made by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex about their treatment by Buckingham Palace.

Earlier this year, a man named Scott Moore took a new job and had to learn something that you and I have never had to: How to address his royal boss.

In an interview with a local Canadian paper Moore, the CEO of the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025, talked about asking how to address Games founder Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.

He was told that “the simple sir and ma’am is fine”. “Simple” - only not really.

Now, for a 17 second video that has just come out showing Prince William helping serve Christmas dinner for the homeless, and what is notable is not only how comfortable he looks in apron but that he is very simply addressed.

On the job, clearing plates and being useful, he is simply … “William”.

No “sir”, no “your royal highness”.

Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan Markle speak during the 2021 Global Citizen Live festival at the Great Lawn, Central Park. Photo: Angela Weiss / AFP.

The juxtaposition couldn’t be any more acute. On one hand we have the man who will be the 43rd King of England (and 13th monarch of Great Britain), a bloke who will one day quite literally command an army and head up an entire faith, being simply and easily referred to like any other person creating a little festive cheer to those in need.

And on the other, two people who are struggling to make it as infotainment TV producers and who are a Volvo station wagon’s worth of places away from the throne wanting to be formally addressed.

Whatever happened to the idea, as Meghan discussed with famed feminist Gloria Steinem in 2020, that women should be “linked not ranked”?

At the time, the duchess said of that idea, “It means everything to me on every level” - though it would seem that the couple are happy for their rank to show at times.

So too other details that have come to light in recent days that the Sussexes seem to have forgotten.

If we were to plot the ongoing themes and narrative arcs of the Not So Young And Royal and Restless, aka the duke and duchess, using a multitude of coloured pens and a big piece of cardboard, then the discrepancy between what they say and do - and what they say and other people say - would feature.

This week, the Daily Mail has been busy serialising the updated edition of Robert Hardman’s Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story which has brought fresh scrutiny to bear on one of the Montecitans core claims about their treatment by Crown Inc. Specifically, that in the two years leading up to Megxit, that they were left to fend for themselves and isolated by an unhelpful institution.

Meghan previously claimed that women should be “linked, not ranked”. Picture: Raul Arboleda/AFP

Asked by Oprah Winfrey in 2021 why they had left, Harry responded, “Lack of support and lack of understanding.”

Later on during the interview, Winfrey asked, “if you’d had the support, you’d still be there?”

Harry’s response: “Without question.”

Only now Hardman has delivered a different account of events with claims that actually the Sussexes were provided with more “support” than from a bolted-on, triple-strength underwire sports bra.

In Charles III, Hardman writes that “officials had tried to give both the Duke and Duchess extra support during their brief royal existence.

As a staffer from that time told Hardman: “It was Clive [now Sir Clive Alderton, private secretary to the King] who said that if we could get this right for Harry, we’d be creating a blueprint for future younger sons for generations.

“And Clive said, ‘These two need more staff.’

“And we seconded people from Clarence House, very expert people, to help them, but the duchess wouldn’t trust them. Those two were offered considerable resources, and then later said that they had been offered no help. And that was completely wrong.”

This is not exactly the first time that Harry and Meghan have said one thing only for a contradictory version of events to later come out.

Hardman, in Charles III, quotes a senior constitutional expert and adviser to the royal family as saying, “You also have the situation where the King’s son publishes accounts of private conversations, some of which have been, shall we say, wrong”.

The expert points to Harry’s account in Spare of being told out about his great grandmother the Queen Mother’s death while at Eton and lonely - except he was actually away skiing with his father and brother when Her late Majesty passed away.

During the couple’s incendiary Winfrey interview, Harry declared, “my family literally cut me off financially” - only for accounts to emerge a few months later showing that Charles had actually given the couple a “substantial sum” when they stepped back from their official roles.

Harry previously claimed that his family had cut him off financially, only for evidence to emerge of the contrary. Picture: Brian Otieno/Getty Images for Sentebale.

Or take Bikegate. Harry also talked to Winfrey about his joy in being able to ‘stick’ son Prince Archie “on the back of the bicycle in his little baby seat and taking him on these bike rides, which is something I was never able to do when I was young.”

It did not take long for photos of Charles riding bikes with his sons to then emerge.

In 2022, the duke and duchess were involved in what they termed “near catastrophic car chase” while in New York, the problem being that the city’s mayor, police force and a taxi driver who briefly ferried them failed to quite back up their interpretation.

There is also the Sussex knack for saying one thing and then haring off and doing the opposite.

The Duke of Sussex loves to stand on a stage and thunder on about the fact the polar ice caps are melting faster than their Netflix deal (boom tish) but he regularly flies on borrowed private jets like a man with his own private oil stocks ready to burn.

In 2021 the couple famously put out a statement saying “service is universal” but these days their charity work seems to be a side salad to their various commercial projects.

Harry doesn’t want to bring Meghan and their children back to the UK. Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images.

Harry has spoken about not wanting to take Meghan and their children back to the UK because he does not feel safe there - and yet lives in a country where there are quite literally more guns than people.

The duke told a conference last year, “My life is charity – always has been, always will be” and yet is hardly setting the philanthropic world on fire with his occasional speech and Archewell donation here and there.

The thing is, the couple repeatedly seem to want to have it both ways and then fried and served on the side. They want to have their cake and eat it too and then save some for afters as well. They want freedom and to earn money and to keep enjoying some of the nice shiny bits of royalty too. And that - that is far from “simple”.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.