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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/t...rift-vzgpppf68

Whatever one’s views on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the extracts we publish today from a new book that details their rift with the royal family make for uncomfortable reading. Few will have been unmoved by the wedding of the royal couple two years ago. The country had watched Harry mature after the early loss of his mother into an apparently upstanding young man who had served on the front line in the armed services and brought passion to his charitable causes. His marriage to Meghan, a glamorous American actress of mixed-race heritage, was overwhelmingly welcomed and seemed likely to promise a new era of modernity for the monarchy. That those early hopes should have given way to the bitter divisions and recriminations detailed in Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the making of a royal family is first and foremost a source of sadness.

Two things stand out from the extracts. The first is that the couple’s ambitions were always going to be hard to reconcile with the responsibilities of the monarchy. The book talks of Harry and Meghan’s popularity “propelling the monarchy to new heights around the world” and the couple’s frustration that the “men in grey suits” sometimes forced them to “take a back seat” to other family members. This was apparently particularly galling when an analysis of the online popularity of the Cambridges and Sussexes showed that Harry and Meghan accounted for 83 per cent of the world’s interest in the two couples. Yet this obsession with the power of their own celebrity shows a striking lack of awareness of what Britain expects of its royals. The monarchy is not a brand that requires global promotion but a core part of the constitution whose value lies in its stability. That requires the restraint of its members.

What also stands out is the impetuous way that Harry and Meghan handled their exit. Whatever their frustrations, their attempt to bounce the Queen into yielding to their demands for half-in-half-out royal status by publishing their plans on their Sussex Royal website without consultation was deeply discourteous. The book notes that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were “devastated” by the couple’s behaviour, which also appears to have deepened the rift with the Cambridges. Besides, Harry and Meghan had not anticipated any of the complexities that arose from their demand to be allowed to earn private money while remaining royals. The result has been a much deeper rupture than the Sussexes had contemplated. Or indeed might have been necessary had they approached the situation more judiciously.

The consequences for them and the monarchy are troubling. There is little doubt now that the psychodrama that followed Harry’s own mother’s rift with the royal family will extend into a new generation. Indeed it was a similar book by the journalist Andrew Morton in 1992, which lifted the lid on Princess Diana’s unhappiness at her treatment by the palace, that turned that split into what at times appeared to be an existential threat to the monarchy. This book, which similarly appears to have been written with co-operation from Harry and Meghan, can only deepen the rift. And with the couple now ensconced in a multi-millionaire rapper’s home in Los Angeles, determined to earn their living as global celebrities, they are certain to remain in the public eye. Indeed, further drama is assured as the couple pursue two ill-judged legal cases against the press.

The country is fortunate that the core institution of the monarchy looks robust enough to withstand these challenges. The Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William continue to do their duty and to conduct themselves with the dignity and restraint that the public expects. Nonetheless, the royals are diminished by this rift. It is hard not to look back to the hopes aroused by Meghan’s arrival and think what might have been.