COMMENT
Hostilities flared up last week between Prince Harry and Queen Camilla. Or rather, the Duke of Sussex apparently launched an unprovoked volley in the direction of a 75-year-old woman. In an irony that will no doubt escape this self-proclaimed feminist and Lochinvar of the New World, Harry, I hear, preferred not to be in the same room with his stepmother when he spoke to the King about his cancer diagnosis, following the most precipitous and historic mercy mission to Blighty since Lend Lease. As olive branches go, it’s a massive opportunity missed by the Prince of Petulance – though it’s likely our laidback Queen wouldn’t have minded either way.
I have often thought that Prince Harry is the most sedulous flycatcher in recent history. But his quarry has become Brittaniae Regiae Feminiae. Aside from Harry’s word being about as trustworthy as a cowboy builder, the Duke should know better than to disrespect the distaff side. Remember the howls and lamentations when Meghan was excluded from any family conference. But the trouble with Harry is that he fights like a coward, refusing to stand up to a comparable foe, and on the rare occasion he meets one, he takes refuge in a dog bowl. In short, Prince Valiant he is not.
Harry, despite his one trick phoney Californian posturing, is the typical Anglo-Saxon who has stuck to his hereditary guns. He is so violently blowhard, and in this fact lies the cause of the ridiculous figure he commonly cuts in the eyes of others. He brags and blusters so incessantly that if he actually had the combined virtues of Jesus Christ, Aristotle and El Cid he would still go beyond the facts and so appear a mere Bombastes Furioso. This has taken on an almost pathological character and is probably no more than a protective mechanism erected to conceal an inescapable sense of inferiority.
!["Evil stepmother": Prince Harry used the language of a 12-year-old to describe Camilla. Photo / Getty Images](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/DWL5TT7PCFFB7DDGFRUZAJLJHE.jpg?auth=09ef6c898bbc1ae1765dc5d61b83d91d2ccf9af17be868c5eb8ac1f4a9027b09&width=16&height=11&quality=70&smart=true)