The royalists’ only constant, at this point, is that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are Terrible No Matter What. Everything that was done to Harry and Meghan, and everything that is still being done to them, is all of their fault because they’re Terrible No Matter What. It doesn’t matter that King Charles and Prince William gleefully pushed out the Sussexes and ripped away their security. It doesn’t matter that Meghan was targeted for years in a Wales-lead hate campaign built on lies and racism. It doesn’t even matter that the heir and his wife are now living their own half-in, half-out arrangement built on months of vacations and “me time.” It’s all because Harry and Meghan are Terrible No Matter What. I bring this up because it looks like every columnist employed by the Daily Mail has been called upon to give their hot take on the “secret peace summit.” Amanda Platell’s piece is that William and Kate will never forgive Harry and Meghan. And by god, Platell is going to rewrite history to make the Sussexes into villains!
Could the ‘peace summit’ in London involving the King’s trusted Press Secretary and two of the Sussexes’ key media executives really herald the distant possibility of an end to the bitter feud between Harry and Meghan and the rest of the Royal Family? Friends say that despite all the pain Harry has caused him, King Charles is a ‘deeply loving and forgiving father’, so a small step towards a rapprochement between father and son certainly seems plausible.
The trouble is that, while Charles may forgive Harry, hell will freeze over before William does too. Or for that matter, Kate. And here is why. Let’s roll back the years to February 2018 when William and Kate and Harry and Meghan were photographed together for the first time and hailed by the Press as ‘The Fab Four’. We all had such high hopes that we were witnessing a new generation of working royals and a harmonious, modern vision of the future. It was just two years later in 2020 that the Sussexes decided to step down as working royals, abandoning honour, duty, Harry’s family and these shores for riches in California.
The immediate result was huge gaps in the meticulously planned royal calendar which is worked out not just months but years ahead. With the Sussexes abandoning ship, there were suddenly gaping holes in the schedule. Following the death of her beloved Prince Philip, the late Queen continued in frail health to soldier on with her public duties. Meanwhile, Princess Anne increased her already huge workload, as did the Edinburghs Sophie and Edward. William and Kate stepped up, too, despite the pressures of parenting young children George, Charlotte and Louis.
William’s passionate wish was that they would never experience the dysfunctional family life he had endured. Even though George is heir to the throne, he wanted to give his children as normal and stable a family upbringing as possible, with Mum and Dad at home as much as they could be. Yet such hopes were dented by the petulant departure of Harry and Meghan. That is a hurt that does not heal.
And then came the double-whammy. First, the King shockingly revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer. Then the news one month later that Kate too had cancer and was removing herself from public duties for treatment and to take time to heal with her family. Where was Harry’s conscience then? Did he not regret abandoning his brother when the Royal Family needed him most? As Kate endured her chemotherapy, William was still having to carry out his public engagements when all he probably wanted to do was to be at home. If Harry and Meghan had been around they could have shouldered some of the load – but that prospect was denied William with their selfish departure. Unforgivable.
I don’t know how Harry sleeps at night knowing he has not just betrayed his brother with his constant stream of vitriol about the royals, but has also been absent at the time of William’s greatest need – coping with both his father and his wife’s cancer ordeals while ploughing on with his royal duties.
…William will never forgive him. Those close to the Prince of Wales say he is beyond anger and never even talks about the brother he was once so close to. Harry has ceased to exist for William, who is now said now to be completely ‘indifferent’ towards him.
So… William was incandescent with rage that Harry and Meghan weren’t there to work while he and Kate raised their children? And then William was mad that Harry didn’t abandon his wife and children to race back to the UK last year to lift William’s burden? What the hell are we doing here? At what point does someone ask: why is William so mad that Harry’s not around to do William’s work? While I think William is profoundly incapable and pathologically incompetent, those are not actual medical conditions. He’s able-bodied, college-educated and he has a staff of 60 to organize his bare-minimum schedule. And yet, year after year, we witness a 40-something man-child throw tantrum after tantrum about his brother not being under his control. It’s all Harry’s fault! How dare Harry and Meghan be so happy and successful, they should be BEGGING Peg for forgiveness, he orders them to beg! William refuses to do his job unless Harry comes back and supplicates himself before the future king! You guys… something is really wrong here.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
