Our close personal friends Prince Harry and his ballooning wife the Duchess of Sussex wandered through rain-stained Viaduct Harbour in Auckland on Tuesday afternoon as they continued their working holiday of our green and puggy land. They were 23 minutes late. A crowd of about 1000 waited, and waited, and waited; St John ambulance officers were on alert, in case some poor soul keeled over and died of boredom.
But it was wonderful to join hundreds of Aucklanders as we made our way across the Wynyard Crossing drawbridge towards an appointment with the most glamorous representatives of the sovereignty. The mood was merry. The convoy travelled one way, on foot, in prams, on those fantastically annoying Limes.
I can never resist stopping in for a browse at The Container Library on the wharf, and was able to catch up on some ancient royal watching. In volume 1 of his great 1956 work A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill tells the story of King Richard, killed by an archer's bow in 1199. It was a slow but dignified death. Harry's royal ancestor arranged his affairs, said goodbye to his mother, forgave the archer and gave him money. Richard died, and then, Churchill records: "The archer was flayed alive."
Well, he had it coming.