Parents often tell their children not to come crying to them if they tell them to do something and they get hurt. Making mistakes is a key part of life, and it seems as if Prince Harry has made a humongous one – perhaps the biggest of his life. According to reports, he greatly misses the UK and the role he once held here before leaving the Royal Family with his wife, Meghan Markle, in January 2020. The sad thing about his decision following a summit with the late Queen Elizabeth II is that he was really good as a working royal, and the Firm was bound to be poorer without him.
Together with Meghan, Prince William and Princess Catherine, he represented a secure future for the monarchy, which would remain popular with the public. Instead, he abandoned his duties and, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey and in his memoir Spare, started launching artillery at his family from across the Atlantic.
According to reports, his and Meghan’s life is not going as well as they’d hoped in California due to purported difficulties in their relationships with Netflix and Spotify.
Now, after a quasi-royal tour of Australia and a by many counts successful visit to the UK, Harry seems to be longing for a return to his previous existence.
Being a member of the Royal Family must be fantastic.
You are very wealthy, and spend your time doing lots of interesting, fun and important things.
If we could draft in the Men in Black and have our minds wiped with a neuraliser, it might be possible to bring the Sussexes back and reassimilate them into the fold as if nothing had happened.
But that, of course, is not going to happen.
Prince William, the King’s heir, is believed to be very angry with his brother and estranged from him.
When he accedes to the throne, Harry could be locked out forever, unless the new monarch’s stance on the issue changes.
The current sovereign clearly wants to see his second son and his grandchildren, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
There has been an apparent rapprochement of sorts, with a meeting between Charles and the Queen and Harry and Meghan with their children taking place at Highgrove taking place recently.
But the situation remains fragile, and improved relations could easily fall into chaos once again.
Harry may have realised that he made a mistake, but it does not seem likely that there is a way back for him in the long term, and things certainly cannot return to how they were after the nation rejoiced at his wedding to Meghan at Windsor Castle in 2018.