Harry’s pot shot over protection
The surprising anxieties expressed in his interview reveal much about Prince Harry’s true motivations, says Camilla Tominey
It was Diana, Princess of Wales, who first coined the term the “grey men” to define the palace aides she claimed were watching her every move. We now know that the deceitful tactics of Panorama presenter Martin Bashir, which included falsifying bank statements suggesting her closest aides were betraying her, had made Diana paranoid.
Indeed, as Prince William pointed out last May in the wake of Lord Dyson’s investigation into Bashir and the BBC’s subsequent cover-up of his nefarious methods, that bombshell 1995 interview not only fuelled her “fear, paranoia and isolation”, but also worsened his parents’ relationship.
Nearly 25 years after Diana’s death and Harry is once again invoking the image of palace “suits” in yet another eyebrow-raising interview, this time with the US network NBC News.
In their joint interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan had already accused these faceless courtiers of failing to support the couple.
But this week heralded another bombshell on American TV from the Duke of Sussex.
The prince, who has a long military history and fought an underhand war with the paparazzi, suggested even the Queen may be in peril.
He had popped in on the monarch, who turned 96 on Thursday, in order to “make sure she’s protected and got the right people around her”, he told Hoda Kotb, his interviewer.
His words will no doubt provide a field day for American conspiracy theorists. But without elaborating on to whom he was referring, more seasoned royal-watchers surmised that he was once again taking aim at the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Edward Young, whom he singled out on Oprah for giving Her Majesty “some really bad advice” in the lead up to his departure from official royal duties.
Blaming his grandmother’s aides for her allegedly uninviting him and Meghan from lunch at her Sandringham
Estate in January 2020, he said he was told “do not come up here” to the Queen’s residence by Sir Edward shortly after Her Majesty personally invited him and Meghan to visit and discuss their intention to step back from “The Firm”.
He added, conspiratorially, that the Queen herself then told him there was “something in her diary” that meant she was busy when they had expected to come — but that he didn’t “push” her because he “kind of knew what was going on”.
Harry appeared reluctant to agree with Ms Winfrey that “the Queen gets to do what the Queen wants to do”.
He said: “No — when you’re head of ‘The Firm’, there is [sic] people around you that give you advice. And what has also made me really sad is that sometimes that advice has been really bad.”
Hence why palace insiders felt a sense of deja vu following this week’s outburst. As one close observer put it, tongue firmly in cheek: “Who does he think are the right kind of people? Oprah as the new press secretary, Ellen [DeGeneres] as head of personal protection, and Elton [ John] as the new Mistress of the Robes?”
While one source suggested Harry’s comments will have “infuriated” the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge, the consensus is that the barbs weren’t aimed at family.
“‘If in doubt, blame the staff’ appears to be Harry’s mantra,” said another.
The somewhat agog reaction echoes the feeling around Harry’s rather patronising comments to Oprah, which prompted a well-placed source to point out at the time: “The Queen is not some sort of puppet. The Queen is the monarch. The head of the monarchy. The head of the Royal family. Her Majesty is the institution. It’s not run by a sinister organisation, which is what the Sussexes seemed to be suggesting.”
SO WHAT is really behind Harry’s latest intervention? Despite a supposedly “amicable” meeting with the Queen and Charles and Camilla last Thursday at Windsor Castle, it seems there is still unfinished business for the 37-year-old royal.
During the interview with Ms Kotb, who co-presents NBC’s flagship breakfast show, Today, with Savannah Guthrie, he said “of course” he missed his family during the pandemic, but stopped short of warm words about anyone other than the Queen. Describing how they “have a really special relationship”, he praised her “sense of humour and her ability to see the humour in so many different things” before adding: “We talk about things that we can’t talk about with anybody else.”
Asked outright whether he missed his father and brother, he avoided the question to insist he was focusing on the athletes of the Invictus Games, which have been held over the past week the Netherlands.
As on Oprah, Harry once again seems to be trying to make a distinction between the Queen — who the couple have been at pains to say is blameless — and the institution of monarchy itself. This attempt at divide and rule in the House of Windsor is understood to have riled royal relatives who remain suspicious of the couple praising the Queen in one breath, while trashing the rest of the family in another.
According to one source: “What the visit to Windsor Castle last week demonstrates is that this was more about topping up their royal credentials than checking up on Granny.”
It is not known whether their “private” meeting with the Queen, which lasted just half an hour, will feature on the streaming platform in a forthcoming documentary about the Paralympics-style competition for wounded ex-service personnel.
The Duke also said there were “lots” of issues to overcome before introducing son Archie, 2, and 10-month-old daughter Lilibet to their great-grandmother, casting doubt on the Sussexes’ presence at the forthcoming Platinum Jubilee.
Amid an ongoing row over the decision to strip them of their Metropolitan Police security post- “Megxit”, he revealed they have not yet decided whether to return to Britain for the festivities in June.
It comes after it emerged that they have been invited to appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony during the celebrations, but can have no formal role. This means they will be able to appear at family events, which include the traditional balcony appearance, as well as a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral. However, as non-working members of the monarchy, they cannot take part in Trooping the Colour or play any central role in the various events.
Could this have prompted a rethink?
Harry once again seems to be trying to make a distinction between the Queen — who the couple have been at pains to say is blameless — and the institution of monarchy itself.
Although the couple would be able to bask on the balcony, their lesser status compared to the likes of William and Kate — and even the Earl and Countess of Wessex — might dissuade them from taking part.
Regardless of his concerns over whether the Queen is being adequately “protected”, Prince Harry’s fears for his immediate family’s safety have come to dominate his relationship with the place he called home until two years ago.
The Sussexes are thought to be spending “hundreds of thousands” on private bodyguards at their £11 million mansion in Montecito, California — and claim they are not safe in Britain without armed guards, with Harry even offering to pay for the royalty protection they once enjoyed at taxpayers’ expense. The Telegraph understands that when they first moved to the US via Canada, the couple sought quotes for their security, which appeared to over-estimate their need for protection. According to one well-placed insider, “they apparently asked for double what they needed”.
Little wonder, then, that Harry once again chose to reference his mother in the interview — having complained in 2019 that Meghan was suffering the same fate as the late princess at the hands of a press he still blames for Diana’s death.
“My deepest fear is history repeating itself,” he said in a statement responding to Meghan’s decision to sue The Mail on Sunday for breach of privacy, copyright and data protection. “I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother, and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.”
Telling Kotb that he felt his mother’s presence “in almost everything that I do now”, he said: “For me, it’s constant. It has been over the past two years, more so than ever before.
“It’s almost as though she’s done her bit with my brother, and now she’s very much helping me get set up. He’s got his kids, I’ve got my kids. Circumstances are obviously different, but I feel her presence in almost everything that I do now.”
Like his late mother, Harry views himself as a free spirit, who along with Meghan, has epitomised Diana’s “us against the world” mentality.
A royal who proudly declared she didn’t “go by the rule book”, the late Princess once declared that “instinct” was her “best adviser”.
In his attempt to emulate his mother, Harry’s comments on the Queen are intended to send a message to the world that blood will always be thicker than water.
Yet in sidelining his father and his brother, he once again forgets at his peril Diana’s most salient lesson of all. As the princess herself repeatedly stated: “Family is the most important thing in the world”.