Most of the royal rota tagged along with King Charles and Camilla for this week’s Italian holiday. Charles and Camilla basically made the Italian government host them and celebrate them for their 20th wedding anniversary. Sure, some diplomacy happened, but make no mistake, this was mostly about Charles and Camilla enjoying a “romantic holiday” to Italy. They planned on dominating the headlines with their trip, only Prince Harry had other ideas. Harry was in London for several days for his security appeal, much to the surprise and chagrin of the royal reporters in Italy. He absolutely stole his father’s Italian thunder too. The courtiers are furious, the king is furious and the reporters are furious. They’re so mad, they can’t even settle on one explanation for why they’re mad. Here’s the Mirror’s Russell Myers, writing from Italy about why Harry is the worst!!
Compare [Charles & Camilla’s Italian vacation] with the continued hyperbolic language deployed in recent days by Prince Harry via his legal team at the Court of Appeal in his continued fight for taxpayer funded security. For better or worse, Harry chose to leave his role within the royal family in search of a better life for his family by moving to the United States.
At the start of the two day appeal to challenge the High Court’s ruling that he should have had his security level downgraded, Harry claimed he was “singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment”. Yesterday his lawyers ramped up the rhetoric claiming his security and life are “at stake”.
Harry has not seen his father for 14 months despite coming to the UK on numerous occasions, forgoing the offer of being put up in a royal residence where he might be able to catch up with his ailing father, presumably because it would hamper his chances of winning a case that has cost an estimated £1.5million to bring to court.
The difference in these two worlds is so striking. It’s barely believable how far Harry has fallen from consistently being the most popular member of the royal family, adored by everyone from the lads in the pub, the troops he served with and your granny. Far from denying anyone the right to fight for what they believe in, especially when it comes to the safety and security of their family, but surely Harry realises by now that his path of resistance against his family, the government or generally anyone who has irked him that week is a tiring practice.
His own father and brother have become so exasperated with his various crusades and petulant attitude they have found it far more cathartic to cut all ties. On any level this is a sad state of affairs. In a parallel universe Harry would have been front and centre, flying the flag for the UK and the monarchy but now finds himself on a path increasingly difficult to turn back from.
“Various crusades and petulant attitude” is wild because they’re talking about Harry’s incredibly successful lawsuits against the British press AND his years-long fight to ensure the safety of his wife and children. Instead of just saying why they’re so mad – the reason being that Harry’s security fight exposes Charles’s evil and dangerous schemes – they’re yammering about Harry’s popularity.
“Harry has not seen his father for 14 months despite coming to the UK on numerous occasions, forgoing the offer of being put up in a royal residence where he might be able to catch up with his ailing father…” Remember that? That happened last year, when Charles furiously briefed about ten different stories about whether Harry requested a room, whether Harry was rejected and whether Charles was too busy. There was a cockup somewhere and it wasn’t on Harry’s side. And why is Harry’s security fight being tied to whether he’s seen his father again?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.
