Prince Harry was struck by a painful realisation when attending a major royal event following his move to the US, an expert claims, as the Sussexes recieved a frosty reception
When Prince Harry stepped back from royal duties and moved across the Atlantic, he left almost everything he had ever known behind.
Growing up inside the Royal Family, Harry had never known anything outside the strict hierarchies of the monarchy, and his senior position within it. Even Harry’s much-lauded career within the Armed Forces saw him enter into another hierarchical institution, with even stricter rules.
The duke has still attended family events since his departure from official duties, and one major ceremony saw him endure “19 minutes of pain” as it became clear his position in the family had been forever altered, according to a royal expert.
The event in question was the National Service of Thanksgiving, which was part of the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022. It saw Meghan and Harry attend the same event as William and Kate for the first time since their royal exit, and a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey the year before. The service took place in St. Paul’s Cathedral – where William and Harry’s parents had married 41 years earlier.
The couples were on opposite sides of the cathedral, as Kate and William sat in the front row with Prince Charles and Camilla, while Harry and Meghan were beside their cousins Princess Eugenie and Beatrice and husbands Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and Jack Brooksban
Writing for the Mail, Richard Kay claimed that the seating arrangement showed the “public reality of Harry’s slide down the royal pecking order, branding Charles, Camilla, William and Kate the “real stars of the show”.
“As non-working royals, they are now very much in the second division,” he said. “And although spared the indignity of sharing the coach that brought a clutch of minor royals who similarly do not do official duties, such as Princess Michael of Kent’s son Lord Frederick Windsor, they were only just behind them.”
Kay continued: “It was a painful 19 minutes before William and Kate arrived to take their seats. If the reality of his new life had escaped Prince Harry thus far, it must surely have sunk in then.”
Two years have passed since the incident in question, and there have been few signs that the two brothers are any closer to making up than they were when they celebrated 70 years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
Only a few months later, their grandmother died, and the brothers were brought together again in more somber circumstances. However, the release of Harry and Meghan’s six-part Netflix documentary, and Harry’s candid memoir Spare seemed to put further distance between the brothers.
Since Kate’s announcement that she is being treated for cancer, Harry and Meghan are reported to have “reached out” to the Wales family privately and sent a public message of support to Kate – backing her request for privacy as she undergoes treatment and focuses on her recovery. Despite this, the brothers did not meet when Harry recently visited the UK to celebrate 10 years of the Invictus Games and it remains to be seen if they will find a way to mend fences.
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