At royal residences across the country, family sentiments should be delicate after this first Christmas without a queen.
Sorrows must be reckoned along with blessings, the gilded hardness of transitory reign weighed against the ambiguity of the future.
However, the Windsors can congratulate themselves on another successful holiday season that has passed without any major events or upsets and…. Oh, oh.
Just when it seemed safe to raise the royal gaze to the immaculate New Year’s horizon, the Duke of Sussex began maneuvering to promote his new autobiography, Spare.
Just when it seemed safe to raise the royal eye, the Duke of Sussex began maneuvering to promote his new autobiography, Spare.
And the prospect of the stubborn, bitter Prince Harry reheating his spleen cup once more should send shivers through the House of Windsor.
Only a few excerpts from two upcoming TV interviews have been released: a snippet of a conversation with Anderson Cooper for CBS in America and a couple of offers with Tom Bradby for ITV in the UK. However, a lot can be gleaned from these teasers. Mood, strategy and intention, as well as the depth of illusion and a hint of annoyance? It’s all there.
And what’s immediately clear is that when the book is published next week and the interviews are broadcast in full, the royals shouldn’t be expecting a lot of laughter. Or even a slap, a thank you, a belated gift of condolence or apology.
Even dressed in his nice sweater and smart shirt, Harry radiates pure menace.
His voice is even, but his eyes are cold and glassy. Sometimes he even sounds like someone who has joined a cult or perhaps stepped on the bridge of the starship Enterprise.
Referring to interviews and his memoirs, “Harry exudes pure menace”, according to Jan Moir.
“There comes a point where silence becomes betrayal,” he told Cooper in a moment of high drama. What was he talking about? Lack of response from Vulcans on the planet Targ?
No, he was talking about how he felt the royal family had failed to protect him and Meghan from — well, what? Negative publicity in newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet seems to be the answer. “They showed absolutely no willingness to reconcile,” he told Bradby, speaking of the lack of desire on the part of his family to be friends with him again.
It was hard not to laugh at that. The Duke of Sussex (and the Duchess, let’s be honest) has spent the better part of the last three years in public and has repeatedly criticized his family for cruelty, neglect, racism, lies, jealousy, and worse.
And some things that have been said can never be retold, so it’s no surprise that the King and Prince of Wales are in no mood to reach out to their chief tormentor with open arms, even if he can’t figure out why.
Harry is like the surly arsonist who personally doused the barns with gasoline and lit the match that burned the family farm to the ground while telling the world that their crops were rotten anyway. And then he is surprised and offended when his scorched and devoted relatives are offended by his extremely incendiary behavior. What does he expect?
Every action has consequences, and every position of power carries its own unique responsibility. And for someone who upholds the virtues of therapy, Prince Harry’s lack of understanding of his own behavior is staggering.
