I JUMPED INTO THE car and was immediately told that a strongly worded denial had been put out by the Palace, squashing that morning’s bullying story. The denial was signed by none other than…me. And Willy. My name attached by faceless others to words I’d never even seen—let alone approved? I was
stunned.
I went back to Frogmore. From there, remotely, over the next few days, I took part in the drafting of a final statement, which went out January 18, 2020.
The Palace announced that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had agreed to “step back,” that we’d no longer “formally” represent the Queen, that our HRH titles would be in “abeyance” during this transitional year—and that we’d offered to reimburse the Sovereign Grant for refurbishments to Frogmore Cottage.
A firm “no comment” on the status of our security.
I flew back to Vancouver. Delicious reunion with Meg, Archie and the dogs. And yet, for a few days, I didn’t feel fully back. Part of me was still in Britain. Still at Sandringham. I spent hours glued to my phone, and the internet, monitoring the fallout. The ire directed at us by the papers and the trolls was alarming.
“Make no mistake, it’s an insult,” cried the Daily Mail, which convened a “Fleet Street jury” to consider our “crimes.” Among them was the Queen’s express secretary, who concluded, with his fellow jurors, that we should hereafter “expect no mercy.”
I shook my head. No mercy. The language of war?
Clearly this was more than simple anger. These men and women saw me as an existential threat. If our leaving posed a threat to the monarchy, as some were saying, then it posed a threat to all those covering the monarchy for a living.
Hence, we had to be destroyed.
One of this lot, who’d written a book about me and thus provably depended on me to pay her rent, went on live TV to explain confidently that Meg and I had departed from Britain without so much as a by-your-leave to Granny. We’d discussed it with no one, she said, not even Pa. She announced these falsehoods with such unfaltering certainty that even I was tempted to believe her, and thus her version of events quickly became “the truth” in many circles. Harry blindsided the Queen! That was the narrative that took hold. I could feel it oozing into history books, and I could imagine boys and girls at Ludgrove, decades hence, having that hogwash rammed down their throats.
I sat up late, brooding on it all, going over the progression of events and asking myself: What’s the matter with these people? What makes them like this?
Is it all just about the money?
Isn’t it always? All my life I’ve heard people saying the monarchy was expensive, anachronistic, and Meg and I were now served up as proof. Our wedding was cited as Exhibit A. It cost millions, and thereafter we’d up and left. Ingrates.
But the family paid for the actual wedding, and a huge portion of the remaining cost was for security, much of which was made necessary by the press stirring up racism and class resentment. And the security experts themselves told us the snipers and sniffer dogs weren’t just for us: they were to prevent a shooter from strafing the crowds on the Long Walk, or a suicide bomber blowing up the parade route.
Maybe money sits at the heart of every controversy about monarchy. Britain has long had trouble making up its mind. Many support the Crown, but many also feel anxious about the cost. That anxiety is increased by the fact that the cost is unknowable. Depends on who’s crunching the numbers. Does the Crown cost taxpayers? Yes. Does it also pay a fortune into government coffers? Also yes. Does the Crown generate tourism income that benefits all? Of course. Does it also rest upon lands obtained and secured when the system was unjust and wealth was generated by exploited workers and thuggery, annexation and enslaved people?
Can anyone deny it?
According to the last study I saw, the monarchy costs the average taxpayer the price of a pint each year. In light of its many good works that seems a pretty sound investment. But no one wants to hear a prince argue for the existence of a monarchy, any more than they want to hear a prince argue against it. I leave cost-benefit analyses to others.
My emotions are complicated on this subject, naturally, but my bottom-line position isn’t. I’ll forever support my Queen, my Commander in Chief, my Granny. Even after she’s gone. My problem has never been with the monarchy, nor the concept of monarchy. It’s been with the press and the sick relationship that’s evolved between it and the Palace. I love my Mother Country, and I love my family, and I always will. I just wish, at the second-darkest moment of my life, they’d both been there for me.
And I believe they’ll look back one day and wish they had too.
