Harry got angry. Harry’s revenge. Harry’s truth. The memoirs of the Duke of Sussex’s spear have finally arrived in bookstores, and their pages are filled with accusations, anger and grief.
Harry’s brother, Prince of Wales, Harry’s “back-up” heir, depicted on it Taking the brothers’ competitiveness to “Olympiad” levels, they throw tantrums at Harry, who encroaches on their territory: Africa.
“I left you two old warriors, so why don’t you let me have elephants and African rhinos?” It is said that William may love, as the two quarreled over their reasons. And he even ordered Harry to shave his beard for his wedding, because William wasn’t allowed to have one. “Birdgate,” Harry said of the days-long feud.
His father, the King, is largely well-meaning despite his distraction, and generally forgives his son’s transgressions while gently urging him to learn from his mistakes. But he fails in the eyes of his youngest son in being so afraid of confronting the press – “the same lousy bastards who portrayed him as a buffoon”, his “tormentors, hecklers” – who are now the “tormenters and bullies” of Meghan.
Harry’s stepmother, Camilla, the Queen’s consort, is accused of playing “the long game, a campaign aimed at marriage and ultimately the crown” with the spin doctor who is said to have persuaded Charles to hire the leak of her conversations with William. When she eventually married Charles, “Funnily enough, I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Perhaps it would have been less serious if she had been happy,” Harry wrote.
But when Camilla suggests one way the Sussexes could escape the “red hot whirlpool” of press onslaught is for Harry to become Governor-General of Bermuda, Harry writes: “Right. Right, I thought, and an added bonus to that plan is to get us out of the picture.”
Competition seems to be looming within the royal palaces. When Harry suggested that Meghan give up acting and accompany him on royal duties, Charles, who funded his children, is said to have replied: “Okay. I see. Well, dear boy, you know there’s not enough money to go around.” Harry wrote that he had already had to pay for William and Kate, among the millions he receives annually from the Duchy of Cornwall. But it was clear that it wasn’t about the money, he continues, “What he really couldn’t take” was someone “come in and overwhelm him and Camila.”
The picture he paints is of the royals who all step up to top the court’s annual Christmas Eve rotating list of the most engagements. “The family tolerated and even turned to the tribunal’s circular nonsense for the same reason they accepted the ravages and plunder of the press: fear. Fear of the public. Fear of the future. Fear of the day when the nation will say, ‘OK, shut it up,'” he wrote.
He suggested that the then Duchess of Cambridge change the spelling of her name, Katherine, to Katherine with a K “because there were already two royal ciphers with a C and a crown above: Charles and Camilla. It would be very puzzling to have someone else.”
Pa and Camilla also didn’t like that “William and Kate get so much publicity.” Harry cites one example of Kate attending a tennis club on a day Charles also attended. “Just make sure the Duchess isn’t holding a tennis racket in any of the photos,” Charles’ press team instructed, knowing such a photo would wipe “Ba and Camilla off the front pages.”
Harry criticizes the press. So venomous in his description of Rebecca Brooks, after a “drug-shaming” story about him hit the front pages. He doesn’t name it – he just writes “Anagram for Rehabber Kooks”. In response to the drug story, Harry claims, Charles’ team rolls Harry “right under the bus”, making up a story about Harry being taken to visit rehab; So it would “enhance” Charles’ reputation, which has been “deteriorating” since Diana’s death. “No more unfaithful husband, Pa will now be presented to the world as the depraved single father dealing with the child of a drug addict.”
Harry claims a small victory over his opponent: the royal routine of media reporters. He only wanted a single royal correspondent inside the chapel at his wedding [Rupert] Murdoch himself apologized for the phone hack.” He warned the palace that it would spark an “all-out” war. But Harry won.
Fingers are pointed in all directions over the leaked stories. As papers began to write about the tensions between Cambridge and Sussex, the four met to discuss their origin. Finally William admits that he mentioned the “discord” between the pair while having dinner with “Pa and Camilla”. Harry writes: “I put my hand to my face. Meg froze. And a heavy silence fell. So now we knew. I told you, Willie. You…of all people…should have known…””The inevitable subtext It is from him that the leaks emanated from Charles’ office.
Sources close to Camila are said to have Refusal They leaked details of any private conversations.
Harry, upon taking up the press, said he said to his father and brother: ‘I may learn to tolerate the press, even to forgive offending them, perhaps, but my family’s complicity, it will take a little longer to overcome. Pa’s office, Willie’s office, empower these demons, if not Explicit cooperation.
The palace courtiers do not escape his loathing, “the bee, the fly and the wasp,” who is understood to be the chief courtier of Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and Clarence House.
The Duke of York is briefly mentioned, buried in the depths of the book. It’s the first time a member of the royal family has commented Andrew disaster. Harry writes that when he and Meghan discussed the threat of losing their security, they thought: “Not in this climate of hate. Not after what happened to my mum. Also, not in the wake of my Uncle Andrew. He was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of sexually assaulting a young woman, and no one had What indicates that he is losing his security.Whatever people’s grievances are against us, [accusations of] Sex crimes were not on the list.”
But it is William who bears the brunt of his attacks: William, whom Harry says, ignored him at Eton; William who “complained” when Harry founded his Invictus Games that he would exhaust all the money in their joint royal enterprise; William who refused Harry to be his best man for fear he would go off script in the speech; William who instead suggested “Tetbury” when Harry proposed to Westminster Abbey or St Paul’s Cathedral for his wedding to Meghan. Tetbury? The little church near Highgrove? Seriously, Willie? How many seats does this place have? “
Harry attended Sandhurst before William, as the latter had gone to university. In Harry’s “death”, William is saluted. “He couldn’t revert to his usual attitude when we shared a foundation, and he couldn’t pretend not to know me — or he’d be rebellious. For one brief moment, Spear outsmarted the heir,” Harry wrote.
There was also competition for their mother. On the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death, at her grave in Althorp, William said he believed their mother was there guiding him and was helping him “start a family” and that she was also helping Harry. I nod. “I totally agree, I feel as if she helped me find Meg.” Willie took a step back. I’m not sure about that. I won’t say that! “
The book opens with a scene set in Windsor, at the time of the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, in which Harry goes to see his father and brother to seek understanding over his decision to leave the royal fold. He sees the two walking towards him. They looked “bleak, almost menacing, shoulder to shoulder, tightly aligned, at a steady pace – in league”. It was strange now.
The meeting does not go well. He looks around his perimeter in the gardens of Frogmore House and in the Gothic ruin. He writes that it is no more gothic than the Millennium Wheel.
“Stagecraft – like a lot here, I think.”