How long is it going to take for King Charles III to realise the clear and present threat he and the British monarchy itself are facing from Harry and Meghan?
That’s the question ricocheting around the corridors of Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Kensington Palace as staff, still reeling from the loss of Queen Elizabeth II, try to get to grips with an unprecedented friendly fire attack by the monarch’s own son from his Montecito mansion.
I can reveal a growing gulf between some courtiers, who acknowledge the need to protect the British Royal Family from one of its own out for destruction, and the king himself, who maintains that, while he is deeply saddened by the intrafamily rift, he will not allow counter punches to be thrown against his own flesh and blood.
Indeed, the King, somewhat naively, is said to still hope and believe a rapprochement with his son and daughter-in-law is possible before the coronation on Saturday, May 6.
While such a position is sweet, I believe it underestimates where Harry and Meghan are at themselves.
How long is it going to take for King Charles III to realise the clear and present threat he and the British monarchy itself are facing from Harry and Meghan?
The red carpet was rolled out by Charles and the wider family in the wake of the late Queen’s death, only for the couple to press ahead with the Netflix hit piece and the release of Harry’s autobiography Spare, expected to be even more incendiary, early next year.
The Sussexes have declared war and know there is no going back, no matter how hard Charles tries to open the pathway for communication.
A royal source told me: ‘The message from the king via his senior team continues to be that he is sad rather than angry and hopes that, in time, the issues can be resolved within the family.
‘But that underestimates the mission Harry and Meghan are embarking on, which is about tearing down the institution of the monarchy.
‘Many courtiers believe the king needs to allow the Palace to take a more aggressive response over the next month, with both part two of the Netflix series and the release of Spare, or the damage done, especially internationally, could be hard to counteract.’
Indeed, the King, somewhat naively, is said to still hope and believe a rapprochement with his son and daughter-in-law is possible before the coronation on Saturday, May 6
If last week’s Netflix debut offered a very unpalatable starter, there are growing fears behind Palace walls that this Thursday’s second volume of Harry and Meghan’s ‘truth’ is going to be a poisoned main course laced with a tonne of bitter and sour ingredients.
The release of a combative new trailer this morning certainly suggests as much
Without context, which might come with Thursday’s release, Prince Harry made this potentially reputationally damaging claim, possibly of Palace courtiers or the British media: ‘They were happy to lie to protect my brother. They were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.’
He adds that the Sussexes were on the receiving end of ‘institutional gaslighting’.
And perma-victim Meghan adds: ‘I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves, I was being fed to the wolves.’
Of course, just like in the aftermath of the couple’s Oprah interview and the release of Netflix Volume 1, many of the most rambunctious claims have quickly been proven to be highly misleading.
As Harry admitted, perhaps unwisely on screen, he and Meghan do not have a monopoly on the facts when he said: ‘No one knows the full truth. We know the full truth. The institution knows the full truth. And the media know the full truth because they’ve been in on it.’
There are growing fears behind Palace walls that this Thursday’s second volume of Harry and Meghan’s ‘truth’ is going to be a poisoned main course laced with a tonne of bitter and sour ingredients
Well the institution needs to fight back with facts, too, rather than leaving it to the media, often without the instruments needed to report much of what happened behind-the-scenes.
The royal source added: ‘The time has come for a step-by-step analysis of why what virtually everything Harry and Meghan are saying completely misrepresents the help and support they were given from day one by the institution, but also the right they were given to make their own decisions.’
Charles and William both indicated they might be willing to take a more modern approach to media relations with the decision to cruelly throw the Queen’s most loyal lady in waiting Lady Susan Hussey under the bus within hours of a social media claim by charity boss Ngozi Fulani.
That’s why a wall of silence around Harry and Meghan is unwise; it allows the couple to set the agenda, often unchecked by that pesky little thing called the truth.
They also need to stop hiding behind unleashing their fury at the institution or so-called ‘men in grey suits’ who work for the most senior royals.
Those senior courtiers are still answerable entirely to their principal members of the Royal Family, meaning all the major decisions had to have the sign off of either the Queen herself, Charles or William.
My source added: ‘The idea that these courtiers were making decisions without the sign off from members of the Royal Family is for the birds.’
A wall of silence around Harry and Meghan is unwise; it allows the couple to set the agenda, often unchecked by that pesky little thing called the truth.
When it comes to the media coverage, I was personally involved in the biggest stories of Harry and Meghan’s time in the Royal Family, from Tiaragate to Megxit.
I will wait for Thursday’s episode before speaking out in full, but I can be clear that it’s nonsense to suggest the Royal Family was planting negative stories against the Sussexes. In fact, for many months they did their utmost – and largely succeeded – to keep a host of negative but true stories out of the newspapers, usually at the behest of Harry and Meghan.
But the time has come for Charles and William to understand that the stakes are too high for them to sit out this war of words.
Even at the height of their own toxic battles with the monarchy, neither Princess Diana nor the Duke of Windsor ever pushed such a blatant anti-Commonwealth message that was bound to push the republican cause.
With much of the world’s uber-woke media backing the Sussexes, even if the majority of the public see through their faux victimhood, there needs to be genuine balance provided officially.
Then there’s the coronation itself.
It feels ludicrous for Charles to allow Harry and Meghan to waltz back into the royal fold and take front row seats, risking such an important historic event turning into a sideshow.
The Sussexes should be ordered to stay away, with the new king making it clear his tolerance for this dastardly couple attempting to undo the late Queen’s life work and damage the UK has finally run out.
Sadly, he appears to be inclined to take the soft approach yet again, with potentially great costs to the institution he loves.