Daniela Elser: Prince Harry’s allegations about William reveal a huge contradiction

Prince Harry, Prince William, Meghan Duchess of Sussex and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge leave the annual Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey in 2020. Photo / AP

OPINION:

William Shakespeare would have had a field day with the House of Windsor.

Ol’ Will plumbed the depths of British history for his various plays, including some 11th Century regicide for Macbeth and Richard III managing to lose the throne for the Yorkists, but oh just imagine what he would have made of the current crop of princely mischief and mayhem.

On Thursday, the Guardian newspaper managed to get its socks-and-sandals on something that the collective cheque books of the tabloid press had failed to nab, namely a copy of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex’s forthcoming memoir Spare. (Someone needs to go and ask the security at the “guarded sites across the world” where the Daily Mail had previously reported they were keeping copies of the book “secure” some tough questions.)

The headline-dominating revelation is that Prince William allegedly physically assaulted Harry in 2019 during an altercation at Harry and wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s Kensington Palace home, Nottingham Cottage.

During the altercation, William called the duchess “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”, which Harry said was his brother “parrot[ing] the press narrative” about the former Suits star.

Harry writes that his brother then “set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”

Kate, the Princess of Wales, Prince William, Prince of Wales, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex walk to meet members of the public at Windsor Castle, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Photo / AP

Let’s just pause here so I can spell out what should be obvious – violence is never okay. Thumping anyone is never, ever acceptable and in this situation there is a person in the unequivocal right and one in the wrong. There is no grey area when it comes to violence.

But based on what we have learned about Spare today, more broadly this is the story of a betrayal worthy of the Bard and his sharpened quills; of a son and brother who has decided to expose his family in the most egregious way imaginable, all while busily trying to cast himself as a dove-ish force for truth and reconciliation.

All families fight and many families fall out (and hopefully fall back in) but no one else aside from our troubled prince has then decided to parlay that hurt and acrimony into a $31 million book deal. (A couple of those millions will be going to charity.)

Harry’s decision to tell the world about William’s attack on him stands in ludicrous contrast to the line he would appear to peddle in one of the two upcoming TV interviews he has done to shill for Spare, with a trailer showing him telling ITV’s Tom Bradby, “I would like to get my father back, I would like to have my brother back”.

They are very nice conciliatory words, uttered by a sincere-sounding man in a nicely pressed shirt, but on Thursday that sound bite has taken on a truly delusional quality.

How can Harry think that he is going to ever get any of his relationships with his family “back” if he is busy stoking the flames of acrimony and sowing such monumental division, all it must be pointed out, in return for a large sum of money?

What is even more extraordinary is that it is not just his father and brother whose confidences he would appear to have broken with this book.

According to the Guardian: “Whether describing his memories and love for Diana, who was killed in a car crash in Paris in August 1997, or his similar love for his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died last year, Harry is unsparing in his recounting of intensely private scenes and conversations.”

William and Harry walk beside each other after viewing the floral tributes for the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Windsor Castle. Photo / AP

Harry has for years railed against having his privacy breached by the press and yet now is showing zero qualms about exposing his loved ones in allegedly exactly the same fashion to the world.

The duke might be busy sharing with self-righteous gusto but what would his grandmother the Queen have made of him “unsparingly” telling the world about intimate family discussions? Is it okay that Harry has, it sounds like, laid bare personal moments, moments that the other person involved would have expected were entirely private?

Don’t forget here, Harry wrote this book while Queen Elizabeth was alive and there have been no confirmed reports that the book was reworked in any substantial way after her death in September.

Beyond all of this, reading the Guardian’s account, I couldn’t help but think, is this it? While the assault claim casts William in a horrible, aggressive light, it is hardly any sort of smoking gun that will rock the monarchy or meaningfully affect public opinion.

While the book reportedly “extensively” covers the miscarriage that the Duchess of Sussex suffered in 2020, “her thoughts of suicide, and suggestions of racism within royal circles”, this is ground that has been covered at length.

While I don’t wish to take away from either Harry or Meghan’s suffering here, let’s be real – we’ve had eight hours of TV viewing covering this ground, via their 2021 interview and their six-part Netflix series.

Rather, at this point, it is only starting to look like Harry is willing to milk every last drop of sympathy and profit from the couple’s turbulent 20 months from their “fairytale” wedding to their Brothers Grimm-worthy exit.

William, Kate, Meghan and Harry attend Christmas Day Church service at Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham estate in 2018. Photo / Getty Images

And that’s the thing – as of Monday it will be three years or 36 months exactly since they shockingly quit royal life. That is nearly twice the length of time – those 20 months – that the Sussexes actually logged as a working royal duo.

How many more years are they going to spend mining that very limited time period for personal and financial gain?

Today, Spare looks less like an exercise in personal catharsis and more like a pointscoring and money-making ploy.

At the heart of so much of the Sussex story is not whether Harry and Meghan have been wronged by the royal family (which I believe, to some extent, they have) but how they have chosen to respond – by turning their experiences into a “global event” as Netflix energetically billed their TV series and peevishly appearing on screens to enumerate the royal family’s sins.

If Harry were truly sincere about wanting his father and brother “back”, why isn’t he in some north London family therapist’s office right now doing some sort of trust exercises with William (I’m imagining there is a blindfold and an Enya soundtrack involved) rather than being interviewed by 60 Minutes?

Also, let us just appreciate the irony here of Harry going on primetime TV to say he wanted bridges mended after that is exactly what Meghan’s estranged father Thomas Markle has repeatedly done himself.

Spare will be a bestseller (it is already number two on Amazon-based on pre-orders) and will probably earn those involved millions and millions; but at what cost? When will the PR bloodletting stop?

We have now had three very long years of the Sad Tale of Harry and Meghan™, how much longer can the couple think that their self-perpetuating, seemingly unquenchable sense of victimhood will hold the same psychological and public space?

According to the Guardian, Spare includes details of “an anguished meeting” that took place at Windsor Castle after Prince Philip’s funeral in 2021 involving Charles, William and Harry. The now King, Harry reportedly writes, was “looking up at our flushed faces” before he said “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.”

Sorry Your Majesty. Doesn’t look like there is a scotch egg’s chance in hell of that happening any time soon.

Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.