Will Prince Harry ever be truly happy?
Leaving royal life behind is unlikely to give the duke the contentment he has spent his life searching for, writes Ingrid Seward, editor in chief of Majesty magazine
Within a fortnight of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announcing that they would be “stepping back” as senior royals, it was decided that the couple would be stepping down from royal life entirely. For Prince Harry, it seems things have not gone entirely to plan — again.
Speaking for the first time since negotiations with the British queen and the Prince of Wales were finalised at Sandringham, he elaborated on the “progressive” arrangement envisioned by him and his wife, the one he hoped would have left them “half-in, half-out” of the royal show, representing the queen but free to live abroad and to pursue commercial interests.
Instead, the Sussexes are being removed from all royal duties, with Prince Harry — a former army captain who has undertaken two tours of Afghanistan — being stripped of his military appointments and the couple paying rent on Frogmore Cottage, their grade II-listed home in Windsor, once they’ve repaid the £2.4m (R45.4m) cost of its refurbishment.
The Sussexes’ plan may have looked good on paper, but it was never something Her Majesty could countenance.
If you take public funding and use the HRH title, you don’t go around touting for private work
as the duke did last summer when, during a red carpet meetand-greet at the premiere of The Lion King, he was caught on camera lobbying the head of Disney for film voice-overs for his wife.
While the couple have ended up with an arrangement the duchess craves — a home in North America with a base in the UK, careers as A-list professionals and the freedom to take ambassadorial roles for charitable causes of their choice
— it is unlikely to bestow the sort of privacy that the duke has longed for ever since the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.
The duke must have been delighted that not a single photograph of the Sussexes was taken by the paparazzi on their six-week break in Canada over Christmas.
In fact, the only image from
While the couple have ended up with an arrangement the duchess craves ... it is unlikely to bestow the sort of privacy that the duke has longed for ever since the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales
the holiday — of the Duke cuddling his son, Archie — was released on New Year’s Eve through the couple’s official Instagram account.
But this grip may have to loosen when the Sussexes enter the next phase of their working lives. For their success will depend, to a great extent, on public exposure.
Last month, they sought to register “Sussex Royal” as a global trademark, although it is now unclear whether this will survive the spring, when they give up using their HRH titles.
And never again will the couple enjoy the extraordinary luxuries reserved for royalty. Prince Harry hasn’t got quite what he wanted. It is a theme that has echoed throughout his life.
For decades, his happiness has been like an intermittent radio signal, crackling on and off, but rarely staying on full power for long. As a boy he was blessed with the natural larkiness of the naughty younger brother, a foil to the more sensible, dutiful William.
He has long made jokes about being ginger with an outspokenness born of a sure-fire confidence in his looks, rather than an insecurity about them.
But his happy-go-lucky nature was damaged by two appalling hammer blows.
First, the unhappy marriage, separation and divorce of his parents; and then the death of his mother when he was 12.
His years spent at Eton were underpinned by that tragedy.
Prince Harry failed to shine academically but he did develop deep, lasting friendships there, and the school provided shelter from the press.
His happiest time was in the army, where he headed after school and stayed for a decade until 2015. There, he found purpose, with control and respect of — and from — his brother officers. He was delighted to be allowed on the front line in Afghanistan. Again, as with
Eton, the ministry of defence kept the press at arm’s length.
I met him in Turkey in April 2015, at the centenary of the commemorations of the Gallipoli campaign.
He was just about to end his army career, and you couldn’t have met a more self-assured and happy young man.
He chatted away to the descendants of those who had fought at Gallipoli; he kept a smile on his face, a joke on his lips and a sure knowledge of his brief.
Today, it is easy to forget that there was a long period where Harry could do no wrong.
There were the natural wildnesses and excesses that came with being a young, royal army officer. There was the young Harry, stupidly dressing up as a Nazi; getting into scuffles with paparazzi; downing the Flaming Lamborghinis in nightclubs; playing strip billiards in Las Vegas.
In 2017, in a watershed moment that kick-started a national conversation about mental health, Prince Harry joined The Telegraph’s Bryony Gordon on her Mad World podcast to talk about how he sought counselling after 20 years of bottling up the grief over his mother’s death. A year later, with the discovery of love in the shape of Meghan Markle, he seemed truly happy at his wedding, and the pair were unequivocally taken to the nation’s hearts.
However, the honeymoon period was surprisingly shortlived. Confusion over Archie’s birth last year, followed by the secrecy surrounding his christening, were taken as signs of petulance. When the couple were followed around Africa by a documentary team last year, their sadness and irritation was palpable.
The sudden six-week holiday over Christmas showed that their unexplained dissatisfaction had reached turning point. Not to go to Sandringham for Christmas was a break with royal protocol.
They were already semi-detached. When Gordon visited the royal couple last year, she described how they “seemed subdued and sad. They lacked the energy or sparkle I had seen in them previously. All the hope that Prince Harry had expressed when we spoke about his mental health in 2017 appeared to have evaporated.”
She said it seemed like Harry was “living out the trauma he had experienced as a 12-yearold walking behind his mother’s coffin on global television — again and again and again.” That increasing lack of purpose seems to have gnawed away at him, just as his brother’s destiny has grown more and more substantial. Only last year, the Duke of Cambridge was learning the ropes of the Duchy of Cornwall, a hugely important role he will take over when his father becomes king.
Certainly, Harry’s status as the “spare” to the heir makes him increasingly expendable; he has moved further away from the Biggest Job, a potential king.
What will Harry do with all that spare time? He has always been happy with a pint in his hand surrounded by boisterous mates, and he won’t have ready access to that in Canada.
With this latest gambit, the Unhappy Prince risks being unhappier than ever.
While his brother went to university, got a steady girlfriend and played by the rules (as is expected of the heir), Harry fizzed with frustration and aimlessness. That he is finally striking out on his own, then, comes as no surprise.
However, I’m not sure living outside of the only structure he has ever known will suit him as much as he believes it will.
But for now, and with his grandmother’s blessing, off he goes into the bundu.