‘POISON’ at the PALACE
What was really behind Meghan and Harry’s exit to North America?
The news exploded like a bombshell. Fresh from a six-week holiday over Christmas, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made an announcement that rocked not just the Royals, but the world.
They no longer wanted to be senior working family members, and intended not only to step down from frontline royal duties – but to relocate to North America. Controversially, the Queen, Prince Charles and other members of the family were given only 10 minutes’ notice before the news broke on social media.
After an emergency summit with the Queen was immediately put in place, and the incredibly unusual step of her issuing a statement in which she offered her support to the pair, but admitted she would have ‘preferred’ them to stay, Harry boarded a plane and jetted to Canada, ready to begin his new life with his wife and baby son, Archie.
On 20 January, in his last public appearance as a working Royal, Harry told the audience at a charity event that he felt his hand had been forced. ‘ What I want to make clear is we’re not walking away, and we certainly aren’t walking away from you,’ he said. ‘Our hope was to continue serving the Queen, the Commonwealth, and my military associations without public funding. Unfortunately that wasn’t possible.’
So what could have become so unbearable that Harry would turn his back on his family, his birthright and, some might say, his duty?
Without a doubt, Harry has been angered by what he sees as negative press directed towards himself and Meghan. But, as many have argued, some of that has been criticism of their perceived extravagance and double standards – such as lecturing about climate change while using private jets and accepting £2.4 million of public money to renovate their Windsor-based residence, Frogmore Cottage. (Although they have agreed that this will now be repaid).
But there were also painful problems closer to home. According to Tom Bradby, the journalist who made the explosive ITV documentary following Harry and Meghan in Africa, relations within the House of Windsor – meaning the family – have become ‘poisonous’.
‘Harry and Meghan find some other members of the family (with the exception of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh), jealous and, at times, unfriendly,’ he wrote in a newspaper article. Bradby described the interview the couple gave in Africa, in which they discussed their unhappiness, as something of a tipping point. Following this, the royal family knew action had to be taken and the pair, who Bradby described as ‘ bruised’ and ‘vulnerable’, could not carry on the way they were.
Certainly, the stressed, anxious figures we saw on screen were a far cry from the blissfully happy and excited young, newly-engaged couple who spoke with enthusiasm about the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead.
But what is no longer in any doubt is the long-rumoured rift between the formerly close brothers. Harry revealed in the infamous documentary that he and William were ‘on different paths’ and William is said to have sadly told a friend,
‘Harry and Meghan find some family members jealous and unfriendly’
‘I’ve put my arm around my brother all our lives and I can’t do that any more; we’re separate entities.’
Attempts at patching up their differences failed. ‘My understanding is that William did try, but the impression I have, for the moment at least, is that things have gone too far to be retrieved,’ said Bradby.
Certainly, for Meghan, who described herself as ‘surviving rather than living’, life as a Royal turned out to be more of a nightmare than a fairy tale. A friend of hers told a newspaper, ‘She told her inner circle of friends that her soul was being crushed and the decision to leave was a matter of life or death – meaning the death of her spirit.’
And Harry, who admits he is still traumatised by the death of his mother when he was just 12, would move mountains to protect his wife. ‘He feared staying in the UK too long would lead to Meghan having a meltdown. That is why things moved so quickly,’ said a source.
Yet with the prospect of an ugly court case, in which Meghan’s estranged father, Thomas, could give evidence in the Sussexes’ claim against a national newspaper for publishing parts of a letter she had sent to him, there are fears that the couple’s troubles are far from over.