Of course, if their objective was to acquire as much fame and fortune for themselves as they could, with never a thought for the welfare of the monarchy or the interests of the British people, that was another matter. Certainly she and Harry would not be receiving reliable advice from any American organisations, all of which are utterly ignorant and completely inexperienced where British institutions are concerned, and are therefore in no position to estimate risk to Britain or its monarchy, even though they possess undoubted expertise in headline grabbing on both sides of the Atlantic.
These were just some of the considerations which Buckingham Palace hinted at when it stated that Harry and Meghan’s desire to step down as senior royals was complex and therefore it would take time for all the issues to be resolved. The couple was not best pleased that what they saw in purely personal terms - their right to earn as much money as they could, and to do it in their own way with reference to no one, including courtiers at the palace - was viewed in less personal terms at the palace.
Intent on getting their point of view across to their supporters and the American public, Harry and Meghan got ‘friends’ to complain that those who were standing in their way were simply ‘naysayers’ who were ‘spiteful’ because they wanted independence and these spiteful opposers didn’t want them to have it. To drive the point home that Harry and Meghan were benevolent and loyal to those opposing forces who were so nastily obstructing them, these friends then assured the world that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would nevertheless do as the palace desired
Although Harry and Meghan wanted the world to know that they were being noble despite being hard-done-by, the view within the palace was that the couple’s public relations briefings were jeopardising the future wellbeing of the monarchy. Although no one but the couple wanted them to strike out on their own commercially, the Queen and her senior advisors nevertheless accepted that they might well be able to forge a new career path which, if successful, would lay down a beneficial precedent for their successors. After all, there will always be second sons and minor royals and, if a way could be established whereby royals like them could function commercially without danger to the Crown, that would only be to the advantage of successive generations.
The Sussexes, on the other hand, felt that the palace’s concern for the monarchy should be on at least an equal par with their own interests. The message Harry was giving out was that he and Meghan should have absolute control over their options. Why should he, a second son, be hamstrung by putting the monarchy’s concerns over his own - which was the aim of the palace - when he was never going to be number one? He and Meghan ‘seemed incapable of considering any option but the top job, and since they were never going to be King and Queen of the United Kingdom, they should be freed to become king and queen of something else instead,’ a courtier said. They genuinely could not see why their future plans should be curtailed or monitored by the palace. They could not understand why absolute liberty to strike deals as and how and when they pleased might conflict with their continuing duty to the British Crown and the British people. The dilemma of whether Harry and Meghan could ever become entirely free agents, shorn of all responsibility to the Crown and its citizens, and whether they owed a continuing duty of care to both those entities irrespective of whether they were fully functional royals, fully retired, even de-royalised, lay at the heart of the matter. It is still an issue which remains unresolved.
I am informed that William was particularly disappointed by his brother’s attitude. He felt that they all have responsibilities which go above and beyond their own personal desires, or even their own happiness. Harry, however, has always had a tendency to think in more personal terms than his elder brother, even when others would deem it more suitable to think in institutional terms. This, in effect, was the result of the way Diana had raised Harry. She had brought him up without limits, to think in personal and emotional terms rather than objectively, to escape the consequences of his actions, to do as he pleased, to regard himself as special, not because he was a prince but because he was the adorable Harry. A bit less personalism and a bit more royalism might have redressed the balance, for the fact is, while some of Harry’s specialness is due to nature, an even greater part is due to the position into which he was born. Diana herself had trodden a fine line between self-indulgence and the damage her actions might do to the Crown, but she at least had an awareness that she had to tread carefully even when she was trying to sabotage her ex-husband or discomfit the Royal Family. Always, at the back of her mind, was the knowledge that one day her son would inherit the throne. She therefore couldn’t afford to rock the boat too much, and this had a restraining influence upon her. No such compunction existed with Harry.
With fully fledged Second Son Syndrome motivating him, and without the restraining influence of duty before personal satisfaction to curtail his aims or actions, once he and Meghan figured out that their ambitions would be more achievable outside of the royal fold than inside it, they behaved with a reckless disregard that had been absent even with Diana. This
