Prince Harry: the trials of royalty
In grim times, there is nothing like a “royal rumpus to lighten the mood”, said James Moore in The Independent. And so all hail Prince Harry, for providing another “humdinger”. In a Newsweek interview, the fifth in line to the throne spoke movingly about the traumatic experience of being made, aged 12, to walk behind his mother’s coffin, in front of millions of people, during her funeral, and of his determination to build on her charitable legacy, to be a force for good. But it was his remarks about “The Firm” that made the headlines. Musing on his life in a “goldfish bowl”, he said: “Is there any one of the Royal Family who wants to be king or queen? I don’t think so.” The younger generation, he said, will do their duty; and they’ll try to modernise the monarchy to ensure its survival – but “we’re not doing this for ourselves, but for the greater good of the people”.
The trouble with the Princes, said Max Hastings in the Daily Mail, is that they live surrounded by people who have all the wealth and privilege that they do, but none of the responsibility. Their aristocratic friends can play polo without being pursued by paparazzi; they can “dad dance” on skiing holidays without anyone wondering about their “duties”. But the Princes might consider that if they hadn’t been born royal, they might not have been toffs but properly ordinary – and lucky, with their qualifications, to have homes or jobs of their own, let alone film star girlfriends, and holidays in the Caribbean.
I don’t blame Harry for wanting more freedom, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. The Queen has given her life to duty, but to the young, royal or not, “the idea of subsuming oneself” to a set of abstract hierarchies “feels fatally unconvincing”. The Princes do not want to efface themselves; they want to be themselves. “Fair enough, that’s what we all want.” But if they’re not keen on doing their duty, what are they for? Royals “have to command something greater than fellow-feeling, something more like fealty”, or they’re just flesh and blood. In which case, why do we fund them? The problem facing Harry is this: “You cannot be a modern royal by wearing deck shoes and using Snapchat. To be modern, you must cease to be royal.”