‘I’M HONOURING MY MOTHER’S LEGACY’:
how Diana inspired her son to follow his heart
When Harry met Meghan everything changed. He was floating on cloud nine, falling hard and fast for this passionate, nurturing, exciting Californian with her brilliant TV career and thriving lifestyle blog. Prince Harry was a young man aching to find love, to start his own family, to stand by his brother with his own wife by his side and find a partner for his very unique line of work.
In those halcyon months before the world knew about their secret romance, Harry and Meghan forged a powerful union and a tender love. Together they planned to take on the world, to inspire and empower, and have a go at fixing many of the problems that troubled their generation. Those closest to Prince Harry saw the change immediately.
At a recent dinner for his most personal passion project, Sentebale, the Lesotho charity he set up with his friend and fellow royal Prince Seeiso to help children affected by AIDS and HIV, Harry said: “I have grown up feeling support from so many of you, and watched as you welcomed Meghan with open arms as you saw me find the love and happiness I had hoped for all my life. Finally, the second son of Diana got hitched, hurray!”
No sooner had they wed (in front of an estimated 1.9 billion global audience), than they got straight to work. “We were excited, we were hopeful, and we were here to serve,” he said.
Harry and Meghan brought their special brand of can-do positivity to the royal arena and for the House of Windsor this was gold dust. The couple became catnip for a new international audience hungry for young leaders they could look up to.
For a honeymoon period the couple became the people’s royals. There was a Diana frisson to their warmth, charisma and their ability to connect with everyone they met.
Then a tall poppy resentment kicked in with a jaw-dropping ferocity. Not everyone bought into their progressive ideas. They were branded hypocrites for jumping on private jets while espousing environmentalism and portrayed as “pushy” and “demanding” by a media that seemed determined to pull them down.
In response the Sussex family opted to connect with their followers directly through their own social media channels, garnering millions of followers. But ironically it was in the social media space that Meghan especially faced the most alarming commentary, fuelled by an ugly racist agenda. Controlling the media is still a work in progress for the couple. “The media is a powerful force, and my hope is one day our collective support for each other can be more powerful because this is so much bigger than just us,” Harry said.
Having watched paparazzi hound his mother, this new attack on his wife was a chilling reminder of desperately sad times. Diana had counselled her sons: “If you find someone you love in life, you must hang onto it and look after it …protect it.” And here her youngest, who a few years earlier had admitted “all I’ve ever wanted to do is make my mother proud”, opted to follow his mother’s advice.
For Meghan, the endless barrage of criticism she and Harry faced was neither “fair” nor accurate. “My wife upholds the same values as I do,” Harry has pleaded. Meghan was at a loss to understand the backlash she was facing.
And then Harry dropped a bombshell.
Just two years into the job, with baby Archie not yet a year old, the Sussex family announced they would quit their roles as “senior royals”. They hoped to broker a deal to work part-time for Her Majesty The Queen, dividing their time between North America and Britain. They would become “financially independent”, earning their own crust while also supporting the monarchy.
In the wake of this momentous announcement, hurt, confusion and anger reigned. “I don’t believe Meghan came into the marriage with a pre-formed idea of changing everything, turning over the apple-cart, but the cultureshock of joining an ancient and venerable institution and having to follow its rules turned out not to be to her taste, and she started to plan an escape-route,” royal biographer Christopher Wilson tells me.
For traditionalists, Harry and Meghan’s demands seemed outlandish and presumptive: from their privileged ivory tower the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were refusing to fulfil their duties to the Crown, it seemed.
“The situation’s unprecedented because Harry has decided to leave the country and will only return occasionally. There is a great deal of anger, especially among the military who were his greatest supporters (and he theirs), that he has just dumped them. The idea that he will be going out making money off a red carpet when he should be turning up on parade hasn’t gone down well,” Wilson explains.
But many others, including those new young fans, felt Harry and Meghan deserved to be free, to choose how they live and work, that it was time the monarchy modernised. “It’s true the House of Windsor has been slow to recognise the need to find an exit-route for those family members who are not royal-central, and the problem can only get worse until the system changes,” comments Wilson.
The role of the ‘spare to the heir’ has always been problematic. Prince Andrew and Princess Margaret both felt overlooked. Harry is now sixth in line to the throne with his son, Archie, seventh and he has struggled with his royal role since he was a boy. From his wild party days to the moment his army career was cut short when New Idea magazine revealed the royal was on active service in Afghanistan, Harry has always loathed the spotlight.
He was just 12 when his mother died and blames the paparazzi for taking her from him. In the recent documentary filmed on their tour of southern Africa – Harry & Meghan: An African Journey – Harry unpacked his trauma saying he still had work to do on his mental health. “Everything that she went through and what happened to her is incredibly raw every single day … Every single time I see a camera, every single time I hear a click, every single time I see a flash, it takes me straight back.”
Veteran royal photographer Arthur Edwards watched the devastated Harry crumble. “People talk about
Harry walking behind his mother’s coffin and that was an ordeal. But when he was brought down with his father from Balmoral and they went to look at the flowers and messages on the gates of Kensington Palace I saw his face crease up – he was so tortured and I just couldn’t take the picture.”
You’d have to be made of stone not to appreciate Harry and Meghan’s situation, trapped in a gilded cage with strict rules that they feel prevent them from doing their best work. As a powerful woman used to running her own life, Meghan has found the transition to royal at best challenging and behind the scenes appears to have been trying to change what is a very well-oiled, if archaic, institution.
“I would say that Diana showed many of the same qualities – and in some ways I think both women were admirable,” notes royal biographer Penny Junor. “On the other hand, you could say that what Meghan is doing is the equivalent of being a new recruit in a company you’ve agreed to work for and immediately trying to restructure it! But if it needs to be done, maybe that’s a good thing.”
But would Diana support her son’s move to quit his royal role? “It is tempting to say his mother might have applauded his move – but actually I think she may have been conflicted. She spent her time preparing William for his future role, and Harry’s decision could cause havoc and ultimately be very damaging to his brother,” says Junor.
Christopher Wilson agrees. “I think Diana would be heartbroken to see him in conflict with the royal family like this. She had her difficulties with them, but those largely stemmed from the failed relationship with her husband – if that had been okay, she could have hacked the rest. She believed in the royal family. Without Meghan, Harry would have continued
“What I want to make clear is we’re not walking away.”
doing the job he was born to do. But it’s clear that he loves her more than he loves the job and therefore must follow her wherever she leads. What’s happened is sad, but it would become a tragedy if, like Diana, Harry’s marriage failed.”
For Prince Harry at this crossroads, the most important three women in his life came into sharp focus. There’s Meghan, who he’s determined to protect from the media snarl that crucified his childhood; Diana, whose motherly life lessons and legacy are echoing around his head, and his beloved grandmother The Queen, who always stands by him – but in her statement on January 13 said that while supportive of Harry and Meghan “we would have preferred them to remain full-time working members of the royal family”.
For months there have been reports of a rift between Harry and brother William. Unsubstantiated gossip painted a rather unlikely brotherly spat, but now Harry’s plans are out in the open, the crux of the divide seems more transparent. Prince William would be rightly concerned not to have his brother and family to call on to support the ‘royal firm’ he will one day be leading. And in the meantime there is likely to be more work for the Cambridges to shoulder.
In the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper royal correspondent Roya Nikkhah reported that William had told a friend, “I’ve put my arm around my brother all our lives and I can’t do that anymore; we’re separate entities. I’m sad about that. All we can do, and all I can do, is try and support them and hope that the time comes when we’re all singing from the same page. I want everyone to play on the team.”
Photographer Arthur Edwards has known Harry from the day he was born and like many who love him had been crossing his fingers for a resolution. “I thought the Queen might talk him out of it,” he sighs.
But in their statement the Sussex duo was firm and resolute. They had a plan. Their future was in the balance and they needed to take charge. Harry and Meghan’s public statement had blindsided Palace advisors, Her Majesty, Prince Charles and Prince William. Talks about the couple’s future had been going on behind doors for months but there was still a lot to thrash out. For reasons that haven’t been confirmed, the Sussex duo took the initiative to force the issue.
Could Harry and Meghan be granted their wish? Could they have their cake and eat it too? For 10 heart-in-mouth days it almost looked as if they might prevail.
The Queen’s first media statement sounded promising. “We understand their desire to take a different approach, but these are complicated issues that will take time to work through,” said Her Majesty.
Meghan returned to the luxurious mansion on Canada’s Vancouver Island where the couple had been holed up since late November to rejoin baby Archie while Harry was called to a family summit at Sandringham. News following the meeting was positive. The Queen said “we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family” and a “period of transition was discussed”.
But on Saturday January 18, Harry and Meghan’s half-in half-out solution was quashed. They were out, and “required to step back from Royal duties, including official military appointments. The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family … they will continue to maintain their private patronages.”
Harry greeted Her Majesty’s edict “with great sadness that it has come to this”.
He said that his and Meghan’s choice to challenge the status quo was “not one I made lightly … I know I haven’t always got it right, but as far as this goes, there really was no other option”. He added, “What I want to make clear is we’re not walking away … Our hope was to continue serving the Queen, the Commonwealth, and my military associations, but without public funding. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible.”
This is a watershed moment for the House of Windsor. The “stiff upper lip” Meghan had admitted she struggled with showed its mettle. While the couple retains the Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles, the royal in their trademarked ‘SussexRoyal’ branding, the cornerstone of their new empire, may now need to be amended.
In a poignant personal statement The Queen said “Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved members of my family … I want to thank them for their dedicated work across this country, the Commonwealth and beyond, and am particularly proud of how Meghan has so quickly become one of the family”. And in support and acknowledgement of their battles with the limelight added: “I recognise the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life.”
“It’s a very sad day for me because I thought Harry was the greatest kid of all to work with,” says Arthur Edwards. “He was always fun, unpredictable; you couldn’t take your eyes off him. He seemed to enjoy the role of Duke of Sussex. But then the last couple of years he’s just become completely withdrawn, moody and sad. He’s lost the spark that made him the popular member of the royal family, certainly as far as our readers are concerned.”
There are many questions about Harry and Meghan’s future life which it is now thought will be mostly in Canada and the US. Will the couple still have a security retinue and if so who will pay for it? Buckingham Palace won’t comment on the details of security arrangements and while Canadians are happy to host the couple they don’t want to pay for them from public money.
“When past royal tours have taken place here in Canada, there are always complaints after we get the bill,” says Jamie Samhan, royal commentator and online editor for Entertainment Tonight Canada. “Since they say that they want to be financially independent, most Canadians expect them to stick to that.”
I am advised that Harry will still head up the Invictus Games, but losing his military positions will cut deep. And then there is concern over the sort of commercial deals that the duo will be brokering. “I think that the earning potential of the Sussexes is huge – especially in the US – but I think that marketing using their titles is problematic, to say the least.
“The Queen’s ‘brand’ is that of a tireless, self-sacrificing public servant who embodies the state.
And this is in direct conflict with any commercial enterprise, in my view,” says Lynne Bell, Canadian Royal correspondent for Majesty magazine
While they are now free to work where they choose, the Sussexes have pledged “to uphold the values of Her Majesty” and with a TV show with Oprah in the works and a trademark that has listed everything from socks to magazines, it remains to be seen what Harry and Meghan have in mind.
As for the Queen, there is no question the monarch is protecting the reputation and future of the Crown in refusing the couple a part-time royal role, but it would no doubt have been a tough call to make, and the future of a slimmed down monarchy concentrating on Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children seems inevitable – although there is to be a review in a year’s time.
I ask Penny Junor whether this split has damaged Harry’s very special relationship with his grandmother.
“I would think not,” she says. “He has caused a rumpus of one sort or another so many times during his life and she has always taken it in her stride. She is a wise old owl and I imagine she is sad to be losing him but sympathetic to his situation and possibly worried about his wellbeing.”
Harry said: “I will always have the utmost respect for my grandmother, my commander-in-chief, and I am incredibly grateful to her and the rest of my family, for the support they have shown Meghan and I.
“I will continue to be the same man who holds his country dear and dedicates his life to supporting the causes, charities and military communities that are so important to me.” In his new life he explained: “We are taking a leap of faith”.