H says they would make any sacrifice to get peace even give up the Sussex title. So they may be after the removal so they will be Prince and Princess.Can’t stay here, we said.
And, yet…? Brief as it was, that taste of freedom had got us thinking.
What if life could be like that…all the time? What if we could spend at least part of each year somewhere far away, still doing work for the Queen, but beyond the reach of the press? Free. Free from the British press, free from the drama, free from the lies. But also free from the supposed “public interest” that was used to justify the frenzied coverage of us.
The question was…where?
We talked about New Zealand. We talked about South Africa. Half the year in Cape Town maybe? That could work. Away from the drama, but closer to my conservation work—and to eighteen other Commonwealth countries.
I’d run the idea by Granny once before. She’d even signed off on it. And I’d run it by Pa, at Clarence House, the Wasp present. He told me to put it in writing, which I’d done immediately. Within a few days it was in all the papers and caused a huge stink. So now, at the end of December 2019, when I was chatting with Pa on the phone, saying we were more serious than ever about spending part of the year away from Britain,
I wasn’t having it when he said that I must write it down.
Yeah, um, did that once before, Pa. And our plan immediately got leaked and scuppered.
I can’t help you if you don’t put it in writing, darling boy.
These things have to go through government.
For the love of…
So. In the first days of January 2020, I sent him a watermarked letter broadly outlining the idea, with bullet points, and many details.
Throughout the exchanges that followed, all marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL, I hammered the essential theme: we were prepared to make any sacrifice necessary to find some peace and safety, including relinquishing our Sussex titles.
I rang to get his thoughts. He wouldn’t come to the phone.
I soon received a long email from him saying we’d have to sit down and discuss the whole thing in person. He’d like us to come back as soon as possible. You’re in luck, Pa! We’re coming back to Britain in the next few days—to see Granny.
So…when can we meet?
Not before the end of January.
What?
That’s more than a month away.
I’m in Scotland. I can’t get there before then.
I really hope and trust that we will be able to have further conversations without this getting into the public domain and it becoming a circus, I wrote. He responded with what felt like an ominous threat: You’ll be disobeying orders from the monarch and myself if you persist in this course of action before we have a chance to sit down.
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
The monarchy of the Commonwealth and USA, greater than HMQ, KC3 and POW.
Has there been a breakdown of which countries bought Spare yet.
