Aberdeen — Just prior to boarding a flight at Aberdeen on Friday, the morning after his grandmother Queen Elizabeth’s death, Prince Harry placed his arm around the shoulder of an airport employee who had expressed her condolences as she accompanied him across the tarmac.
It was a moment of warmth and informality typical of Harry, whose affable demeanor had long made him one of the most popular royals — until his choice to step back from royal duties caused an ongoing rift in the family.
Harry was the last person to arrive at Balmoral Castle on Thursday, when the queen’s closest relatives rushed to be with her in her dying hours, and the first to leave on Friday, indicating that he is no longer a member of the family’s inner circle.
In happier times, Harry and his grandmother enjoyed a close, playful relationship, which the general public caught a glimpse of in 2016 when they appeared in a humorous video reacting to a mic drop taunt from Barack and Michelle Obama ahead of the Invictus Games, a competition Harry has promoted for disabled veterans.
But it was a complete coincidence that Harry was in Britain when Elizabeth passed away, and prior to her passing, there were no arrangements revealed for him to meet his family on his visit from the United States, where he resides with his American wife Meghan.
Observers will be on the lookout for signs of a thaw as the pomp and formality of Elizabeth’s funeral unfolds, now that the family patriarch has passed away.
How the royal family interacts with Harry, Meghan, and their children will be a central topic of the post-Elizabeth era – one of the familial dramas that have made the House of Windsor a source of ongoing global fascination.
The monarch’s grandchildren immediately become princes and princesses of the realm, thus now that Harry’s father, Charles, is king, his children, Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 1, get these prestigious titles. Lilibet was given the childhood nickname of the queen.
However, this novelty is unlikely to restore peace in Harry’s relationships with Prince Charles or his older brother Prince William, who is now the heir apparent.
After the death of their mother Diana in a car accident in 1997, when William was 15 and Harry was 12, the brothers were close for many years, but their relationship has been strained since Harry and Meghan began to distance themselves in January 2020.
“RECOLLECTIONS MAY VARY”
Initially, the pair stated that they intended to divide their time between the United Kingdom and the United States and to create a “progressive new role” for themselves inside the monarchy.
However, Elizabeth, Charles, and William declared that there was no room in the Firm, as the royal family is commonly referred to, for part-timers.
Instead, the pair relocated permanently to California and, following a 12-month review period, gave up their royal patronages and departed the elite club of people addressed as “Your Royal Highness” for good.
In an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, Meghan said that her despair during her time as a working royal brought her to the brink of suicide.
During her pregnancy with Archie, she revealed that her family was concerned about the complexion of her unborn child. Her mother is African-American and her father is white.
The interview, which was broadcast on CBS in a blaze of global media, generated reams of newsprint but only a short statement from Buckingham Palace, which stated icily that “some recollections may differ” but that the issues addressed were “worrying.”
Since then, Harry and Meghan have engaged in ventures including as podcasts and television programs while simultaneously suing British tabloids, some of which have published a continual stream of anti-Meghan tales.
Harry’s publisher, Penguin Random House, revealed in July 2021 that he was writing a “intimate and passionate” memoir about his life, to be released in late 2022, putting royals in London into a state of fear.
Depending on its contents and, more importantly, his father’s and brother’s reaction, the release of Harry’s book might either be a time of reconciliation or another source of contention between the two parties.