So, Harry, was it worth the trip?
On the plus side, Prince Harry could reflect, nobody thumped him. Nobody mentioned the dog bowl, nobody argued about uniforms and, if Netflix were there, well, at least they got wet. In a parallel universe the King’s son would have been at the coronation with his wife, standing shoulder to shoulder with his brother. Instead Harry ambled in to Westminster Abbey with a property developer and a former tequila salesman, Edo Mapelli Mozzi and Jack Brooksbank. Their wives, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, are the only members of the family who still talk to him. He walked up the nave on his own, nodding hopefully at people in the congregation, who didn’t nod back, and took a seat in Siberia.
Well, not quite Siberia. He wasn’t on the other side of the nave from his family, as he was at the Platinum Jubilee. But he was seated with the also-rans in the third row, behind the Princess Royal, next to Brooksbank, along from Prince Andrew and up the nave from Ant and Dec. He chatted a bit to Brooksbank, and even cracked a smile at one point, but the depth of the family froideur was obvious. Nobody in front turned to say hello or tapped him on the shoulder from behind. Scarcely anyone even looked at him - although Princess Anne seems to have made a point of smiling at him.
Was it an accident that there were more shots of Tom Parker Bowles, the King’s stepson, than there were of Harry? Was it a coincidence that in so many of the shots Harry was cropped just out of sight? The Palace controls the footage with an iron fist, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt right until the end. But then, as the King and Queen processed out of Westminster Abbey, the chosen shot had Harry right in the middle, his face hidden by the big red feather on Anne’s hat. At that point, I decided, the Palace was having a laugh.
He arrived on Friday morning from California and flew commercial, which was good of him. He spent the night at Frogmore Cottage, his last before his father repossesses it. Did he feel a pang when he saw the other members of his family in their gowns and uniforms? He was dressed like any other civilian in a morning suit and medals and seems essentially to have flown 5,000 miles to look at his lap.
When the sceptre was put into his father’s hand, he looked at his order of service. When the crown was put on his father’s head, he was looking the other way. When the choir launched into Zadok the Priest, fit to raise the dead, he was gazing idly up the nave towards the door. He peered round the side of Tim Laurence to see his father standing at the altar, and glanced at William as he walked back to his seat, but then it was straight back to his lap.
He didn’t look up when the Archbishop of Canterbury shouted “God Save the King” and he definitely didn’t look up when his supposedly wicked stepmother - in a Garrard diamond necklace and with two small Jack Russells embroidered in gold thread on the hem of her gown - was crowned. He muttered “God Save the King” and the national anthem. He looked at his feet. If Charles glanced at Harry, I didn’t see it. William and Kate definitely didn’t, because if they had, he would have turned to stone.
As is customary with the couple who left London for a quiet life, the run-up to the coronation came with an awful lot of noise. Would they be invited? Would they come? Harry, reliably vocal in his hatred of the press and publicity, began negotiations through the press, in a blaze of publicity.
Going on television in January to flog his autobiography, which threw his family under the bus and reversed over them several times, he was asked if he’d be joining them at the coronation. He replied with consummate passive aggression that the ball was in their court. He wanted an apology, a sit-down peace summit and an explicit acknowledgment of the Sussexes’ terrible suffering, which no amount of money, marital happiness and California sunshine has done anything to abate. The royals effectively replied that they’d love to talk, but they’d be very busy washing their hair for the next five months.
There were rumours that the King and Prince William disagreed over whether to invite them at all. The King thought yes, whereas William worried they would pull a stunt: a freelance royal walkabout in a deprived London borough, perhaps, posing as the duke and duchess of the downtrodden and dispossessed. A source told Valentine Low, The Times’s royal correspondent, that their invitation would not be “wrapped in an apologetic bow. It will be, ‘Here is an invitation, let us know if you are coming.’ ”
Email negotiations went on long after the deadline for RSVPs had expired, with reports that Harry was being “advised” to “play it long right up to the last minute”. One frustrated source described it to The Mail on Sunday as “like trying to communicate with Mars. It was easier to deal with Sinn Fein.”
To chivvy them along, Harry told The Daily Telegraph that he had more than enough material for another 400-page book, and went on TV to say, with a straight face: “There needs to be a constructive conversation, one that can happen in private, that doesn’t get leaked.” He also said that writing 400 pages of nasty things about his family felt like “an act of service”, although he did not clarify to whom.
In the end, the King is said to have been “pleased” that Harry was there, while the Queen was in “a forgiving mood”. One courtier said carefully of Meghan’s absence: “The outcome chosen is one that suits all.” Another was more direct: there were “audible sighs of relief”, although if they’d only listened to Meghan’s podcasts last year they would know that, actually, she is not difficult and her presence is in fact a balm to the soul. She was apparently worried that she might be booed, or as they put it in California, she had a desire “to avoid attracting negative attention”.
For the Montecito Two, it’s back to playing the long game. Peace talks could happen in the future, The Sunday Times reported. Harry will be back. This time he came on his own, sat on his own, talked to pretty much no one and left. By the time the golden coach was back at Buckingham Palace, he was at Heathrow. He had been in England for 29 hours. Was it worth it? I guess it depends how much you’re paying.
The Times
More Coverage
Join the conversation
Shrink your waist in five weeks – pasta and wine allowed
Over-45s carrying too much weight around their middles get some advice on how to lose it.
Read more
Charles to take doctors (but not homeopath) on Australia trip
The King, who is receiving cancer treatment, will undertake an 11-day tour which includes a number of concessions to prevent him from being overworked.
Read more