Royals need to offer Harry an olive branch
Not understandable by Harry. His half-hour BBC interview was unforgettable: aggrieved, embarrassing, repetitive, enraging. He suggested dark secret wrongs, mourned self-exile from his homeland but wanted reconciliation only if his “truth” was acknowledged and demands met. He said that the royal household effectively tried to imprison him and his wife and - clearly for the US market - that if anything happened to them it would damage Britain’s reputation.
He cited an al-Qaeda threat, without admitting that it followed his own public boast about having killed 25 Taliban. He disgracefully started a hare of speculation by suggesting that the cancer-afflicted King hasn’t got long. He said “a duty of care was thrown out the window” and “some want history to repeat itself": a clear reference to his mother, Diana.
She died, as nobody ever unkindly reminds him, not by assassination but because, after she refused royal protection, her private driver and detective didn’t make her and Dodi Fayed wear seatbelts. Her death was deeply sad and damaged him but it ill-befits him to use it in this way.
So yes, the interview was awful: slick with entitlement and ignoring the harm done by his own hostility. And despite his army record no 40-year-old can safely claim to have done “35 years of public service”.
It has been an awkward problem for five years, and I have written in the past that monarchy and government should, right now, lay out a pathway for any future “spares” (or heirs) who fancy the Harry route and explain the conditions when they come of age. But so far his step away is unique and, for all the crass behaviour by the Sussexes, I think the situation needs tackling. The only people capable - his brother and father - should grit their teeth and deploy superhuman resources of humour, charity and resignation.
Ever since Victoria, Britain has enjoyed the idea of a family monarchy: marriages, children, gatherings. As Bagehot said of royal weddings, they are a “brilliant edition of a universal fact”. For all the gossip, parody and minority of abolitionists, a royal family represents a wholesome norm. There is respect when it behaves, shows dignity on national occasions and stands alongside benign causes. In the depths of lockdown most of us appreciated the late Queen’s “We will meet again.” So it is unhelpful to have her grandson saying his father won’t speak to him, while two brothers are bitterly at odds and young cousins are unlikely to meet. It is worse than having a black sheep like Andrew because, although stripped of honours, he is resignedly tolerated as in any good family: on view, his children joining its gatherings.
All the royal commentators doubt the feasibility of reconciliation, the King’s hands tied by Harry’s court cases, the Prince of Wales adamantly cold, all fearing that contact would be reframed as oppression and splashed across the world news. But come on, it’s Bank Holiday Monday, so for a change try a little thought-experiment. Suppose Prince William threw aside caution and resentment and resolved to do something about this nonsense?
A famous saying goes “The first to apologise is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest.” An older concept, Christian chivalry, says that the stronger must care for the weaker, the happiest hold a hand to the troubled. Well, both Charles and William have the strength of happiness: a clear and useful job with their partners working harmoniously alongside, and public approval.
Harry, meanwhile, has no clear role, lives in exile with a partner who, even if devoted, is busily ploughing her own furrow in a world of “influencer” showbiz of which he understands nothing. His beloved charity Sentebale is imploding, his connection with Invictus weakened. He looked deeply unhappy on Friday, thinks his family don’t care about his safety or forgive him “for writing a book”. He and Meghan suffer declining public approval on both sides of the Atlantic, and are vilified online.
So which family group is happiest, with a duty to hold out the olive branch and take a risk? Harry says his family are only protected safely in Britain when they have been invited by the royals. So here’s the thought-experiment, presently feeling as adventurous as Einstein’s: let the four of them be invited. Repeatedly. Warmly. Insistently. Once the VE Day commemorations have passed, and the shock of that interview abates, offer hospitality. Not for some resentful 15-minute negotiation but for days or weeks at Balmoral, Sandringham, Windsor. Introduce the small cousins, let the King play with his grandchildren. Attempt warmth and tolerance across the cultural gulf, and all doggedly refuse ever to take offence. Because when you’re strongest and happiest you can be kindest.
Of course there would be costs. Hideous indiscretions, likely monetising of family gossip by the Californian duchess. Of course the King must avoid conversations turning political or cultural, and so should his heir. Of course family privacy would suffer a lot (there’s never a guarantee that small children will share their toys or that visiting relatives won’t take undesirable selfies). Naturally, media would be spiteful, but hell, we already were. Of course the visitors might just churlishly throw the goodwill back. But is that a reason not to try?
The Times
More Coverage
Israeli hostage ‘raped in her own home after release’
Mia Shem’s biggest fear during her captivity was being raped by her captors; but after her return home she was drugged and sexually attacked by a well-known personal trainer.
Papal favourites ‘withheld info on child sex abusers’
Cardinals Pietro Parolin and Luis Antonio Tagle, both favourites to succeed Francis, withheld incriminating church records, including those requested by Australia, it has been claimed.
‘The duke’s sense of grievance,” said the Court of Appeal judge Sir Geoffrey Vos gently, “does not translate into a legal argument.” Prince Harry’s loss of working-royal security was, he said, “an unintended consequence” of stepping away from duties; “understandable, and perhaps predictable”.