In the past week, we’ve watched as the “secret peace summit” has shredded what was left of the British royalists’ tender sanity. Representatives from Archewell and Buckingham Palace met in London last week, and the news came out last weekend. It’s been chaos ever since. Prince William’s panicked, enraged briefings have become a whole other story, running alongside the speculation of “what does Harry want/why now/what is Charles thinking.” I’m reminded of the bullsh-t about Archie and Lili’s titles, and how the HRH royal-style was conflated with “Harry wants his kids to be working royals.” A similar conflation is happening now – Harry and Charles are slowly working to mend fences, and that’s being conflated to “Harry is begging to come back to become a working royal.” I didn’t think Tessa Dunlop – who is arguably one of the sharper royal analysts – would fall down the lunatic fan-fic rabbit hole, but here we are. An excerpt from her latest piece in The Independent:
Look at how the British public have forgiven Charles down the years. Mistakes happened. All too often, we hurt those closest to us. So far, so good; the road ahead is long and not straightforward, but it is hopeful. More broadly, better relations mean improved optics for both parties (in that context, the leaked meeting is not surprising). A softer, forgiving King, and a happier Harry, (who I suspect still covets the half-in, half-out role he mooted five years ago), is an infinitely more appealing prospect than the current cold war statis.
However, when it comes to royal relations, a (crucial) third party was significantly absent from the balcony. Subsequently, the Prince and Princess of Wales have reportedly been less than impressed with a “peace summit” about which they knew nothing. Ouch. While Kate was single-handedly winning Wimbledon in exquisite sartorial style (her Princess England vibe neatly offsetting Meghan’s Little Miss California), beneath the surface, all has not been forgiven. William still bears a grudge – can you blame him? Siblings play by very different rules.
One sun-dappled spring day back in 2017, Kate, William and Harry sat down to talk about the merits of their “Heads Together” mental health campaign. In the interview, Kate marvelled at the brothers’ strong bond, and Harry admitted William often encouraged him to speak about their late mother, an offer he felt unable to take up.
William acknowledged that through their mother’s death they had been ‘brought closer’. The love was palpable; what came next, the hate, has proved equally strong. If Harry looked to protect his father in Spare, he did not cut William and Kate the same slack. It will take years for the future king to trust again, if he ever can. Harry alluded to this when acknowledging there were some in the Royal Family who would never forgive him for what he had written.
The mirroring in recent history is spooky – after the 1936 abdication, stumbling George VI never resumed a normal relationship with his charming, callow brother Edward VIII, (who also wrote a biography).
But emotionally it is not a one-way street, and the Prince of Wales would be foolish to take his familial cues from the unbending social strictures of a bygone era. Today, William sits at the heart of Britain’s most revered institution (and in the face of recent domestic adversity enjoys enormous public sympathy) but moods can change.
As a nation, no matter how much we verbally kick Harry, affections run deep. Beneath it all, what really rankled was the Sussexes’ rejection of our most revered institution. Likewise, William surely knows that one day he must rediscover his affection for his younger sibling. Protected by a pre-ordained sovereign destiny, the longer he withholds the olive branch the more churlish it could start to look.
At the moment King Charles is Harry’s best hope. And even then, a Sussex return to the sunlit uplands of royalty may well prove short-lived. For the Duke to make a meaningful comeback, good relations are required on two levels – with his father-king and with his older brother, the future king.
William is not a man for turning, and as the “spare” knows all too well, one day the Prince of Wales will have all the power. But impressive kingship (like all good leadership) requires flexibility. If, at the moment, Harry steals all the negative headlines, it will be history that judges William, his more powerful older brother. Only by genuinely forgiving (and including) the ‘spare’ will he be able to boast that his reign has the requisite hallmarks of modern monarchy – compassion and magnanimity. And most important of all, he will know it is what Diana, his mother, the self-proclaimed Queen of Hearts, would have wanted.
Harry “still covets the half-in, half-out role he mooted five years ago??” “A Sussex return to the sunlit uplands of royalty??” My God. In my opinion, these people are using Sussex-bashing/Sussex-delusions as the framework with which to send a larger message to Prince William. As in, they spread their usual nastiness about Harry and Meghan’s lives and motivations, but buried within those lies is a critique of William and Kate. How many times are royalists going to write pieces which start out with “obviously, Harry is terrible and everyone rightly hates him” and end with “William needs to come to his senses and reconcile with his brother.”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
