I cannot help but think of Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

Her long reign was crowned by stoicism, her belief in doing a public duty as well as she could, and living a private life where possible. And keeping it private.

It is for her that I almost grieve again.

A novel about an extraordinary life and its challenges was Elizabeth’s to write. Gold bound. But not for a moment would she have countenanced such a script.

Instead, it was her grandson, Harry, who put pen to paper about a story of privilege without power.

Spare is a book about ignorance on so many levels. Ignorance of the role of the Monarchy. Ignorance of the way the Royal Family works. Ignorance of the succession process. Ignorance of the media. Ignorance of the Taliban and its memory for targets. Ignorance of real hardship.

Spare is a book about jealously and a child who has failed to deal with loss. There are boys in every country who have lost a mother, and mothers who have lost boys. They understand the powerful grief of this and find safe storage for it in their lives.

They don’t look to blame or to finger point. Most look for calm and seek the joy of memories, celebrate the learnings and the privilege of having that person in their life.

Spare is the notation of a man who is California dreaming. A man who has seemingly adopted the self-obsessed, self-centred, victim-driven ways of a person who doesn’t understand that his lot in life, even on a bad day, is beyond the fortune of almost all others.

He has sold his soul and family sanctity for a dime: proud commodities gone and non-returnable.

This is a man who claims to want his family, privacy, and the institution of the British monarchy, yet has trashed his family and laundered their private rights. The standard he has set for his own privacy involves cameras, book deals, a place on centre stage, and a megaphone for his wife.

It seems what he really wants, or maybe what his actress wife wants, is for him to be King and Me-Again to be Queen.

That they will be neither, is the real rub. They are royal support crew. Superfluous to official need.

Unlike all others in the generational ranks of the family, Harry seems unable to understand that the rungs on the family ladder mean something. That they want titles from the institution they abhor, and into which they lob churlish and childish grenades, is beyond comprehension.

And now – for all that we know – why would we want Harry in charge?

Why would we want a drug-taking man-child who seeks advice from a medium channelling the ghosts of his mother to be the constitutional leader to whom we bow? That said, his wife could curtsey to him in ridicule and ignorance as she did the Queen. Meghan: mocking one day, shocking the next. Did the American think that by marrying Harry she would become a Royal Kardashian celebrity with a palace and a crown?

The couple’s adjustment to life outside the palace shadows that of former King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, another American divorcee. It took them some time to understand the implications of their decision to settle on the outside.

Some would have us cheer on Harry and Meghan, despite them swimming in the very shallow end of the pool of decorum and respect. They are victims only of their own selfishness.

In trashing his family in the vilest of ways, Harry has broken what could be most fundamental of human needs between people: trust.

It is the human thread that unites and enables – be it within family, business or even politics. Soldiers are also trained in trust.

Trust is the commodity that raises us up, takes us further, unites, and binds.

If the world learns something from this book, it is about trust.

Harry talks about reconciliation but walks a Woke war.

How is it that he expects his family to sit with him (and his wife) and have an honest conversation knowing that it will become public fodder – the gruel feeding the next cheque for the Californian couple?

William and Charles won’t be able to look left without Harry saying they should have looked right. It won’t matter what they do – it will be wrong according to the Gospel of St Harry and Meghan – and shouted so from their public pulpit.

We should give the Sussexes the privacy they apparently crave. They should have it. Take it. Run away in peace – and quiet – and leave the legacy of Elizabeth II alone.

Harry should allow his father, brother, and then nephew to do what history has shaped for them.

He should spare us his drab, boring, private, and toxic babble.

May those in Buckingham Place continue with the trade of public duty and dignity for which they are loved and respected. And may silence reign supreme.

William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, should keep calm and carry on.

May they be blessed with more children – for each will ensure Harry remains one step further from the throne.

Spare us the thought.

This piece was penned by a guest author to the Flat White section.

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