Stop whingeing and act like a prince

READING the bitter recriminations in Finding Freedom, the biography – no, hagiography – of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, it is astonishing to think their fairytale wedding was only two years ago.

On that glorious day, the nation rejoiced as Prince Harry, who under the public gaze transformed from a confused little boy walking behind his mother’s coffin into an Afghan war hero, married glamorous Hollywood actress Meghan Markle.

On to a monarchy in danger of appearing antiquated and stuffy, this captivating couple sprinkled modernity.

How desperately sad, then, that the dream has soured. The new book, which appears to have their tacit approval, is in large parts little more than a selfaggrandising, self-pitying whinge.

Even more distasteful, it is a barelydisguised exercise in grievance-settling against other royals. To treat the Queen, who has served Britain so devotedly, with such hurtful disregard is shameful.

What a striking contrast they are to her. During the pandemic, while Harry and his wife pontificated on woke obsessions from their opulent Los Angeles bolthole, the monarch dutifully galvanised Britain.

Of course, it’s no secret the prince felt smothered by sovereignty’s strictures. But surely, it wouldn’t have been too arduous to adhere to his grandmother’s lifelong principle: ‘Never complain, never explain.’

When the couple quit royal life, the Queen made clear the door would always be open.

Can Harry not see that with each solipsistic, spleen-venting outburst of victimhood, the key turns more tightly in the lock?