Over the weekend, the Times’ Roya Nikkhah had a piece about “the Highgrove Summit.” That’s my ragebait nickname for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex taking their children to Highgrove, where they all spent time with King Charles and Queen Camilla. Nikkhah seemingly got an extensive briefing from Charles’ staffers, some of whom are wary of Harry and Meghan, and some of whom are more realistic, let’s say. Clearly, the old-school royalists are shocked that Charles actually capitulated in such a huge way, just days after Charles took a “hardline” and refused to give Prince Harry housing in a royal residence. Well, I covered the Times piece earlier, and then I read Tom Sykes’ analysis of the Times piece and everything he saw as he stalked Prince Harry’s Invictus event in Birmingham on Friday. There are a few interesting morsels of gossip in here, plus some very Prince William-specific rage-tantrums. Highlights:
The prodigal son: I have previously reported that the King has drawn inspiration from the parable of the Prodigal Son. But the prodigal son rehearses his apology on the road: “Father, I have sinned.” The repentance comes first; the fatted calf comes second. Harry has skipped the apology and Charles went straight to the calf bit.
Charles incentivized and rewarded Harry’s behavior!! If you set out to design an incentive structure to teach Prince Harry that intransigence works, you could not improve on what the King did this week. If you wanted to encourage a renegade son to keep behaving exactly as he has been behaving, this is precisely how you would do it.
Doves vs. hawks in Buckingham Palace: As I have explained before, there are two camps in the King’s court: the hawks, led by Clive Alderton, who agree with William that Harry should not be allowed anywhere near the King and regard it as their duty to protect the sovereign from his own softer instincts; and the doves, clustered around Theo Rycroft, the man being lined up to succeed Alderton when he goes — which could be within a couple of years…By Friday, the doves — led, ultimately, by the King himself — had won. But the hawks’ fingerprints are everywhere… I would not be surprised to see departures from the King’s staff over the coming months as a result of all this. Some aides are very, very unhappy.
Won’t anyone think about poor Peggy??? While all this unfolded, the heir to the throne was playing polo at Guards Polo Club in Windsor, the Princess of Wales in the stands, the pair of them laying on more public displays of affection than we have seen in years. The brothers have not spoken since the late Queen’s funeral. George, Charlotte and Louis have no relationship whatsoever with their Californian cousins.
William is appalled!! As I reported this week, William is appalled by what he regards as his father’s betrayal. His dismay is understandable. Consider what William has actually asked of his father in twenty years: very little, while giving a great deal, including his tacit public blessing to Project Queen Camilla — not one word against her in public, whatever may have been said in private. The one thing he has asked was that Harry and Andrew be kept at arm’s length from the monarchy: the exiled Duke of Windsor as template.
William blames Harry & Meghan for Kate’s health issues: It was William’s wife who was monetized, William who was accused of assault in Spare, William’s family that absorbed it all during Catherine’s cancer treatment — and those close to him, while careful never to say Harry caused her illness, will tell you William perceives a causal link between the stress his brother inflicted and what happened to his wife.
Political capital: Charles is spending political capital he does not have. Ipsos has support for the very concept of a royal family falling from 65 per cent at the start of his reign to 55 per cent now. YouGov’s January tracker has Harry at 31 per cent positive and 60 per cent negative; Meghan at 19 positive and 66 per cent negative, the worst figure the pollster has ever recorded for her. Two-thirds of the country actively dislikes the Duchess of Sussex. There is no public appetite for this reconciliation and no mandate for it.
The undoing of the Sandringham Summit: This is not an isolated incident; it is the systematic undoing of the Sandringham Summit. It is the unwinding of Megxit itself. And the engine of it all is the King’s recovery. When everyone thought Charles was dying, he did not have the strength — or the standing — to attempt this. Now that his treatment is going well and he believes he has been gifted time, he is taking back control, and the message to his heir is unmistakable: you may not like it, son, but this is my family and this is how I am going to run it.
An impatient heir: History is full of impatient heirs waiting in the wings. What history has never seen is a monarch who faced death, was rescued by medical science, and came back determined to wrestle power back from an heir who had acquired a taste for it — and who believes, not without reason, that his father is running the institution in a way that will damage it by the time it lands on him. The conflict between Charles and William is at the core of everything happening in the royal family right now, and Harry is currently the proxy battle.
It kind of pisses me off that Sykes’ commentary is often unhinged, because he occasionally has some interesting analysis when he focuses more on what’s happening between Charles and William. There is one thing unacknowledged amid all of this talk about reconciliation, grumpy courtiers, impatient heirs and political capital – the difference between short-term tantrums and the long-term strategies of a monarchy caught in a years-long dysfunctional cycle.
Even through pro-William royal commentary, you can spot William’s huge blind spot: William truly believes that if only everyone in the monarchy would simply agree to ignore and/or smear the Sussexes, then everything would be perfect. The reason Charles continues to meet with Harry is not because of sentimentality or any real emotional connection between father and son. It’s because Charles is smart enough to see the bigger picture, and he doesn’t want his defining legacy to be “a deadbeat father who treated his son like crap.” The fact that the Sussexes not only survived the royal onslaught but lived to tell their stories and now thrive on their own terms… well, all of that is a huge embarrassment for the Windsors. Charles knows that. William doesn’t.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
