My takeaway from the coronation will be the family drama. The familial cruelty, that most personally destructive of civil wars, on a world stage. There’s nothing quite like the loneliness felt within a dysfunctional family, the loneliness of feeling you don’t quite belong. The piracy of silence, emotional bullying and exclusion are some of the vicious weapons deployed, to often lacerating effect. It’s why I’ll be thinking of Prince Harry during the gilded royal extravaganza this weekend; thinking of the troubled prince islanded in the midst of his family. For me, the loneliness of that outcast prince will stain the day.
Diana would have been devastated for her younger son. He’s the man who feels too much – and the world punishes him for it, alongside his family. Hurting can be a way of holding on to someone, and it works both ways within this particular Windsor knot. Yet it feels like Harry is being continually broken by his father and brother, for his sins of honesty.
As Charles rides in his gold carriage I’ll also be thinking, well, this spectacle aligns with the definition of a cult – meaning, a system of devotion towards a particular figure. And this cult-like institution feels like an increasingly odd one, out of step with modern thinking. It’s likely harbouring a paedophile, and most certainly adulterers, raising the latter to the highest level while pushing fealty to the church. It was historically involved in the transatlantic slave trade as well as a multitude of colonial crimes in countries too numerous to mention, including our own. And it aims to keep us all in subservience while retaining monstrous reserves of wealth.
How ridiculous that we’re entranced by this fairytale, still. Less so the younger generations, coming up strong with their gimlet eyes trained on unfairness. So, these people on their weird golden thrones are supposed to be better than us? Why? And they deserve more than us? Why? They’re the ultimate nepo-babies. And the celeb who young people relate to the most – the honest prince – has been cast out.
Harry’s had a tough year, despite the monetary success of his biography, Spare. But we’ll likely never know the personal cost. Where were his protectors, I wonder, in terms of this book? By that I mean ghost writer, publishers and publicists, the people who should have had his best interests at heart, and not their employer’s bottom line. Because it feels to me like the advance – rumoured to be $29 million – won out, over everything else. Did no one say to Harry, at any time: “Don’t, just don’t. Think. It’s not worth it. We do not need to read how many people you killed in Afghanistan, it will endanger your little family; we do not need you to do interview after interview to flog the book, to the point that everyone is sick of the sound of your voice.”
It feels like his publishing people saw the money, those bits in the story that would go viral, and were licking their lips. My industry – the publishing industry – doesn’t come off well, despite the book being perceived as an enormous success in pure, cold, monetary terms. What of the lone figure at the centre of this? Harry will go down in history for his honesty, and I maintain the long lens of revisionism will look kindly on him for it.
Meanwhile, narrative tropes play out in this coronation. The aged monarch tormented by family, brothers at war, wayward son and electrifying interloper whose absence is a presence over the entire event. Yet what of the roar of a father’s love? The roar of a child’s hurt? I’m hoping for the grace of Charles’s forgiveness within this; he’s a man who feels much, too, after all. And who else do I feel sorry for? The next generation. Will’s kids, most of all, with those two spares among them in a changing world.
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