This process was fostered when Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles on the 8th April 2005. Harry and William’s evident pleasure in their father’s marriage did much to increase the public’s regard for both boys, while also deflecting the jeremiads who had tried in every way to prevent Camilla from playing any part in Charles’s life. Had the press known that for most of the last four years of her life Diana had viewed Tiggy and not Camilla as her threatened replacement, they would have understood why the boys had a more nuanced view of their parents’ marriage than the public did.
One calendar month later, Harry finally entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as Officer Cadet Wales. He joined the Alamein Company, ironic considering the Allied victory at El Alamein had been the beginning of the end for Field Marshal Rommel, who would ultimately be forced by Hitler to commit suicide. The way Harry had breezed through the Regular Commission Board’s intensive and difficult three day entrance examinations showed that he was truly like his mother: unacademic, but when his interest was engaged, bright enough, focused, determined, and possessed of genuine leadership qualities. Ken Wharfe had predicted to Diana, ‘here was a boy destined for a career in the army. It was always where he wanted to do.’ This time he sailed through all the tests, including the leadership and physical tests which could not have been fudged irrespective of any amount of assistance or coaching such as he had received at Eton.
The officer training course at Sandhurst is intended to instil confidence and bring out the leadership qualities in officers. According to Major-General Paul Nanson, Commandant of The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst since 2015 and General Officer Commanding Recruiting and Initial Training since 2018, it’s about ‘teaching new habits and hopefully helping you shake off old ones’. The simplest things are transformative. If you are made to get up early, make up your bed properly, keep your room tidy, iron your clothes up to a desirable standard, stand up straight, have a well-ordered environment, be on time, attend to your duties, you will become disciplined, effective, and self-confident. ‘All of these skills can promote broader empowerment, self-discipline and leadership skills. They equip us for the battlefield, to fight insurgents and prepare for counter-terrorism ops.’ Anyone, according to Nanson, can apply these techniques to develop ‘a confidence that can radiate from our very being. It is not about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. It’s about how good you are. If you look good, you feel good. The road to greatness starts with a perfectly folded sock. It’s about having a sense of pride in everything you do, an inner satisfaction in not having cut corners.’
Harry found the inculcation of discipline and good habits life-changing. ‘I was at a stage in my life when I was probably lacking a bit of guidance. I lost my Mum when I was very young and suddenly I was surrounded by a huge number of men in the Army. My Colour Sergeant was someone who teased me at the right moments and gave me the confidence to look forward, to actually have confidence in yourself, to know who you are.’
In April 2006, Harry, by then considerably more straightened out than he had been when he entered Sandhurst, completed his training. He was commissioned a Cornet (Second Lieutenant) in the Blues and Royals. In attendance at his graduation were his grandfather the Duke of Edinburgh, his father and stepmother, and William, who had recently enrolled at Sandhurst having graduated from St. Andrews University in Scotland. Also present were Tiggy, Mark Dyer, and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, a former equerry to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother who had been appointed both boys’ Private Secretary on the 2nd May 2005.
Harry had finally come of age, and had finally found himself.
CHAPTER 3
Unlike Harry, who found stability when he left school and entered the Army, Meghan’s experience of entering the real world after graduating from university was one of struggle and strife. She returned to California and her father, who was happy to support her while she tried to get a break in the ‘industry’, all thoughts of being a Broadway star replaced with the intention of becoming a star of the screen. If there was one thing she had realised during her studies at Northwestern, it was that she did not have what it takes to become a huge theatre star. She was no Geraldine Page, Patti LuPone, or Angela Lansbury. Such talent as she had equipped her for the screen, not the stage. Hers was not, by common consent of the professionals, a major talent, nor did she have the outstanding beauty of a Charlize Theron or the sex appeal of a Jennifer Lopez to catapult her to quick stardom.
To Tom and his beloved Flower, it did not matter whether she succeeded on the big or small screen, nor even whether she got her break via commercials; all that
