Farewell to a Prince – how will Harry get on without us?

As the Duke of Sussex performs his final royal duty and begins a new life abroad, Harry Mount explains what he will miss the most

So farewell then to the Sussexes. Yesterday, Harry and Meghan performed their last official engagement, attending the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey, alongside the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William.

At the end of March, they will step down as working royals and start life – as what, precisely? They’ll be half-celebs, half-royals. They won’t use their HRH titles but will still possess them, ready to be revived, should they decide they’ve made the most terrible mistake and want to come back to the royal fold again one day.

There were signs of real, wistful sadness in Prince Harry’s expression on Saturday when he and Meghan attended the Mountbatten Festival of Music at the Royal Albert Hall.

Harry was there for the last time in his capacity as Captain General of the Royal Marines, in his splendid, bright red mess dress uniform, wearing the medals he thoroughly earned on his two tours of Afghanistan.

His Invictus Games for wounded veterans will continue. And it’s rumoured that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are about to set up a new charity aimed at tackling homelessness and medical issues among former service personnel.

But Harry’s formal links with the Armed Services – such as the rank of

Captain General of the Royal Marines, passed on from his grandfather Prince Philip in 2017 – will disappear with the end of his life as a working royal.

That break with the Army will hit Prince Harry more than any other loss in his new, self-imposed exile in North America. In a young life that was scarred by the separation and divorce of his parents, and then the unutterable tragedy of his mother’s death in a car crash, the Army was his saviour.

Ever since he was a child, we have seen Harry revelling in his military links, whether it was as a two-year-old in his mini Paras fatigues and maroon beret or standing to attention as a boy when they changed the guard at Buckingham Palace.

Now, with his ceremonial military connections ending, he will probably never wear military uniform again for formal duties (although, like all veterans, he will always be entitled to wear those medals). That will be a terrible wrench for him, not least because he looked terrific in uniform.

When I met Prince Harry in Turkey in 2015, for the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign, he cut an impressive, towering figure. He was extremely effective that day at talking to the descendants of those who had fought at Gallipoli (my greatgrandfather was among them, killed there in 1915). He had memorised all the potted histories of our ancestors and was solicitous in talking to everyone and carefully listening to our stories.

Harry was a natural at the chattingto-the-people side of being a royal. But he was even more effective as a soldier, braving those two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

We all crave a role in life. And the difficulty of being a young royal – unless you’re Prince William or Prince George, both in the direct line of succession – is that you don’t really have a meaty role unless you have a job.

Yes, minor royals are crucial in backing up the Firm, and in being the vital public figurehead of hundreds of charities. But, for a young, troubled, non-cerebral, extremely active man like Prince Harry, that wouldn’t have made for much of a life. Thus those moments when he lashed out at the press, downed too many Flaming Lamborghinis and, in a disastrously misguided move, dressed up as a Nazi for a fancy dress party.

The Army – the real, fighting Army – gave Harry, as the only other royal apart from Prince Andrew to serve on active duty, the ultimate role.

Yes, as we saw last week in that marvellous photograph of the Sussexes, hand in hand in the rain, they are both gifted at injecting glamour; at flashing eyes and teeth in Hollywood superstar mode. But it was the Army that fulfilled Harry’s childhood dreams, gave him the instant camaraderie of a band of brothers and provided a serious raison d’être that was literally a matter of life and death.

In its lighter moments, the Army, with its robust approach to banter and booze, also chimed with Prince Harry’s natural disposition as the cheeky, wisecracking royal. He has the ability – not always present in his relations – of being able to joke or make the sort of self-deprecating remark that blows away the awkwardness of so many royal occasions.

As Harry and Meghan head back to North America, we are not only saying goodbye to the 35-year-old prince. We are remembering him as that cheeky little boy.

For that’s the remarkable thing about the Royal family: we grow up with them as the backdrop to our lives. I vividly remember, at the age of 10, Harry’s parents getting married in 1981, at St Paul’s Cathedral. I remember Harry being born, when I was 13 at a new school – and being teased for having the same name as the new prince.

Many Telegraph readers will have

similar memories: of seeing their lives through the prism of the royal events going on in the background. Prince Harry’s absence will leave a yawning gap.

As Harry and Meghan head west over the Atlantic, he will doubtless miss his commander-in-chief – aka Granny. How full of sweet sorrow Harry’s long farewell lunch with the Queen last week at Windsor Castle must have been. The Queen is 94 next month; Prince Philip, 99 in June, has not been in the best of health. One of Harry’s great sadnesses must be that he will have fewer opportunities left to see his beloved grandparents in their remaining years.

Anyone leaving their home country to start a new life abroad always creates a huge void that was once filled with family and friends. Harry, of course, has a new wife and son to fill that void. But he has an extra big void to fill, in the tragic absence of his mother.

“Harry has always had a lot to deal with,” a long-retired senior courtier told me recently. “There was, of course, the terrible death of his mother when he was only 12. And his father has had to be away a lot, too, because of his duties as the Prince of Wales. And so Harry has, at heart, often been rudderless. That’s why it makes sense that, when he married, he married such a powerful, confident figure.”

With his farewell to military duties this weekend, Harry is moving further away from the Army – the hallowed institution that provided that rudder for a decade, throughout his 20s.

Here’s hoping that his new North American life, with his adored wife and baby son, will give him the peace of mind and sense of purpose he has always craved.

These last two months, since the Sussexes announced their retirement from royal duties, must have been extremely traumatic for both of them. Given the manner of his mother’s death, it is entirely understandable if Harry never changes his prickly attitude to us members of the press.

But he has always been a natural with – and loved by – the British people. If the Sussexes do want to come home one day, they will be welcomed with open arms.

Harry Mount’s How England Made the English (Penguin) is available at books. telegraph.co.uk for £9.99

Anyone leaving their home country creates a void that was once filled with loved ones