It’s fair to say that, after an unimpressive first day on the witness stand in his case against the Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), Prince Harry rallied somewhat Wednesday. This may well have been because he now had the measure of his interrogator, Andrew Green KC, and was able to respond with greater detail and fluency. It may also have helped that he was subsequently cross-examined by his own barrister, David Sherborne.
Nonetheless, the duke’s state of mind can most clearly be discerned by one of his final statements in the witness box. Sherborne asked him how the experience of being so publicly interrogated had been. With commendable understatement, Harry replied, “It’s a lot.”
It seems clear that the King is hoping that, eventually, Harry will cease to be an object of fascination in his home country
“A lot” must be rather how the rest of the British royal family are feeling. Harry is the first member of “the Firm” to be cross-examined in the High Court for 132 years. With this trial, he has resumed his accustomed position on the front page of the nation’s newspapers, even — or perhaps especially — the ones that he has initiated legal action against.
Yet if ardent royalists, committed republicans or those in between were expecting any kind of public statement or reaction from the monarchy about Harry’s antics, they would be disappointed. The royal family’s social media feed has a wide variety of stories about its members’ activities. There is the King attending a Handel concert series at Wigmore Hall, the Prince of Wales joining sportsmen at Maidenhead Rugby Club and the Duke of Edinburgh visiting a primary school in Brixton. But when it comes to the rather less PR-friendly antics of the man who remains fifth in line to the throne, despite everything, there is nothing but omertà.
Since Harry and Meghan staged their quasi-abdication at the beginning of 2020, the royal family has not known what the best way to deal with the troublesome prince is. Initially there were statements of love and support. But these gave way, after the notorious Oprah Winfrey interview with the duke and duchess, to the rather steelier and more pointed comment that “recollections may vary” — it still remains the most memorable and pithy statement about any of Harry’s activities.
This year has seen the publication of Spare, the King’s coronation — with Harry, to his credit, behaving impeccably — and now this high-profile, precedent-setting legal case. Throughout, the attitude of the royal family seems to be to make no comment, and hope that the situation resolves itself without giving it additional publicity.
This may or may not prove to be a wise course of action. King Charles’s new operation is, so far, a remarkably leak-free one. Helpful though it might be to have courtiers feeding supportive stories to the newspapers about what he thinks about his estranged son’s behavior, these have been conspicuously absent, which has allowed speculation to fill the place of evidence. (You can only imagine a few veteran journalists quietly wishing that they could hack phones at points like this, and thereby obtain the real, unvarnished truth of what the royal family are privately saying about Harry.)
Yet in the absence of any public statements, it seems clear that the King and his family are hoping that, eventually, Harry will return to Montecito, resume his life as an expatriate celebrity, and cease to be an object of fascination in his home country.
On paper, this seems both wise and conciliatory, and opens the door to an eventual rapprochement, whether public or private. But with the endless events that have taken place over the past few years, only the most optimistic (or deluded) would bet against there being a few more plot twists left to come. It has been, indeed, a lot.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
