It has not been the homecoming Harry had hoped for. No protection, no bed – and now no damages from the newspapers he alleged had “made his wife’s life a misery.”
It has, in fact, turned out to be a humiliating week so far for the Prince. Losing his lawsuit against Associated Newspapers – publishers of the Mail and the Mail on Sunday – must seem like a body blow to a man who proclaimed he was on a mission to “reform the press”.
In his book, Spare, he said he was out to prove that the press were more than liars, they were lawbreakers, and he was going to see some of them thrown into jail.
Instead, he will now presumably be facing staggering costs after a lengthy and futile court case.
Harry may take some comfort in the fact that, in two previous lawsuits against British newspapers, he has met with some limited success. But this was a comprehensive defeat, with not a single one of his 14 examples of alleged illegal newsgathering being proved.
Will it do anything to help heal the rift with his family here?
The King, who, according to Harry, once warned his son that pursuing the press was “a suicide mission”, could be forgiven for feeling a little smug.
If, after the farcical kerfuffle over whether Harry would bring his family to the UK and then over where he could lay his angry head, there is, after all, to be a meeting between father and son, this court ruling will only add to the tension.
Because I don’t think the Prince has changed his view that journalists need “to get their jollies” by tormenting what he himself called “one very large, very ancient, very dysfunctional family”.
After all that’s happened this week, that family description seems particularly apt.