Yes, Wills and Harry have suffered. But will the public respect a king who lets his emotions all hang out?

PRINCE William says he and his wife want their children to ‘grow up feeling able to talk about their emotions and feelings’. He concedes there ‘may be a time and a place for the stiff upper lip, but not at the expense of your health’.

His comments follow revelations made by his brother Harry in another interview during which the younger Prince spoke frankly about how he sought counselling after two years of ‘total chaos’ in his late 20s brought about by the death of their mother Princess Diana in 1997.

Almost no one, I think, would criticise Prince Harry for his heartfelt confession. Deprived of his mother at 12 after she had been killed in a most horrific accident, and with a father who was perhaps not as understanding as he might have been, the young Harry’s predicament was truly dreadful.

In what is plainly an intervention stage-managed by their advisers, the Princes sensibly and reasonably preach the virtues of being open and honest about emotions, and not brushing them under the carpet.

The latter is what Harry did with, according to his own account, dire consequences. He says that as a young man he often came ‘very close to a complete breakdown’ and had so much rage inside him that he felt like ‘punching someone’.

Yet despite the Princes’ understandable and in some respects admirable emotional candour, I find myself wondering about William’s premise that the days of the stiff upper lip are over and that emotional frankness — or, one might almost say, emotional incontinence — is the order of the day.

The phrase ‘stiff upper lip’ conveys the stoicism, absence of self-pity and determination to get on with life that was once celebrated by British people of all classes, and is still respected by most of those aged over 50 or so.

Pupils — not just boys — in the 19th century were imbued with these values as they were taught about the fortitude and resignation of the Ancient Greeks. A modern imperial race was expected to exhibit similar qualities.

BUT actually, stiff upper lip conveys an essentially Christian acceptance of adversity, as well as a recognition that life is often unfair. In his not untroubled acquiescence in his impending excruciating Crucifixion, Christ heroically epitomised these qualities.

One perfect mortal exemplar of that fortitude was Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates, the story of whose heroism thrilled countless schoolboys. Beset with gangrene and frostbite during a doomed Antarctic expedition in 1912, he walked from his tent into a snowstorm in the belief his continued existence jeopardised the lives of his companions.

Think of the Christian nurse Edith Cavell, who having saved hundreds during World War I, was shot by a German firing squad. She met her death without bitterness or rancour, sustained by her faith. In her last words she said she was ‘glad to die’ for her country.

More colourfully, recall pilot Douglas Bader who, despite losing both legs, persuaded the RAF to allow him back into the cockpit. In 1941, he bailed out of his stricken Spitfire, leaving a prosthetic leg. Imprisoned by the Germans, he made repeated attempts to escape.

The stiff upper lip takes many forms. Our own dear Queen is a living model — as, indeed, is her husband, the imperturbable and perennially optimistic Duke of Edinburgh.

Her Majesty took on the burdens of monarchy at a relatively early age without apparent self-pity or complaint. Whatever grief she must have felt at the death of her beloved father, she did not express it in public.

The war generation were like that. They went through a lot — privation, rationing, bombing and, in some cases, personal loss — and on the whole they endured these setbacks quietly and patiently.

I suppose the mask began to slip in the Sixties, when an American inspired culture of loudly expressing one’s emotions, and sometimes presenting oneself as a victim of forces beyond one’s control, began to take hold. Even so, it has taken another generation for widespread emoting to become the norm.

As I say, William and Harry are perhaps in an exceptional category, having lost their mother at an early and highly impressionable age. They may justifiably feel that sharing their pain has helped them, and so may help others.

But it is surely a misconception to think any re-occurring fear, concern or anxiety amounts to a form of mental illness — which seemed almost to be the implication of what Prince Harry was saying.

All of us, however seemingly normal, have our demons, resulting from unfortunate experiences, often when we are young. Happy are those who can share those demons with loving spouses or other relatives, who may be able to assuage them. The Princes may not have enjoyed that benefit.

Quietly communicating one’s troubles is usually a good idea — not so much with the wider world, as the Princes are doing, but with relatives, close friends and, when needed, specialists.

Yet the truth is that many setbacks and losses have to be borne. They cannot be talked away. And accepting their continuing effect on our lives does not amount to a form of weakness.

Moreover, the true adherent to the philosophy of the stiff upper lip understands that however bad one’s own difficulties may seem, there is always someone else whose problems are worse.

It’s obvious that the Princes’ comments, officially on behalf of the mental health charity Heads Together, have been at least partly orchestrated by their advisers. The hope is it will all play well with the younger generation for whom the stiff upper lip is an alien idea. They may be right.

But my guess is many in the older generation just won’t get it. The idea that one has to put up with the horrors that life throws at us is embedded deep in our experience.

I suspect that even some younger people will have groaned inwardly as an awkward Prince William discussed mental health issues in a video- call with the grotesque pop star Lady Gaga. It seemed on her part just another self- serving publicity stunt. Was it wise, or necessary, for our future king to engage in such a contrived gimmick?

The efforts of the two Princes are undoubtedly well meant. The irony is, of course, that both young men, who greatly value their privacy, will discover that sharing their tribulations so frankly with a wider audience will only increase a tendency for them to be regarded as public property.

AND despite the immediate gushing reaction — Sir Simon Wessely, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said rather idiotically of Harry’s disclosures that ‘in 25 minutes he has achieved more than I have in 25 years’ — I fear their openness may not be universally welcomed even among those at whom it was aimed.

William and Harry have, perhaps rashly, ignored the famous injunction of the 19thcentury constitutionalist Walter Bagehot not to ‘let daylight in upon the magic’ of monarchy. In other words, that too much exposure weakens the royal brand that depends on a degree of mystique to maintain its popularity.

Might it be that, in the end, even those who relish candour and emotional confessions in their own lives will be disconcerted to discover the two young Princes are just like them — and all too human?