Meghan sits with Prince Harry and former Prince Andrew in 2019. Photo / Getty Images
Amid the noise, the regret and the recriminations, one branch of the royal family has remained uncharacteristically silent.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have opted not to add their voices to the many who seemingly feel obliged to chime in on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s cataclysmic arrest and period in police custody.
Why? Because for all of Prince Harry’s simmering anger and frustration at being endlessly “lumped together” with his errant uncle, he recognises that, for once, no good can come of pitching in on his family’s shame.
The Duke made his views on Mountbatten-Windsor all too clear in his memoir, Spare.
It was, he indicated, astonishing to him that while he and Meghan were being stripped of their taxpayer-funded security for simply opting out of the institution and choosing to live abroad, Mountbatten-Windsor, who had been accused of sexually assaulting a teenager, faced no such ramifications.
“He was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of the sexual assault of a young woman, and no one had so much as suggested that he lose his security,” Harry wrote.
“Whatever grievances people had against us, sex crimes weren’t on the list.”
Those two short paragraphs do a lot of heavy lifting. Those bitter rivers run deep.
The Duke has long grappled with the fact that Buckingham Palace – both the family and the wider institution – “circled the wagons” on Mountbatten-Windsor despite year upon year of tawdry revelations and accusations concerning his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
By comparison, he believes he was unceremoniously cut loose before being torn to shreds for airing the family’s dirty laundry in a slew of extraordinary television interviews.
Since then, the propensity to lump Harry and Mountbatten-Windsor under one umbrella as “the Dukes of Hazard” has only served to deepen divisions.
The Duke of Sussex had spent 10 years serving his country with distinction. His biggest crimes amounted to little more than an ill-advised fancy dress costume and a few drunken nights out.
Why, then, did the family move so swiftly to cut off his funding and his security while Mountbatten-Windsor remained protected by the institution for years?
It is hardly a secret that Harry, like his brother William, had never been much of a fan of his uncle, despite his fondness for his cousins Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
But he vehemently denied a report that he gave the former Duke of York “a bloody nose” during a fight at a family gathering in 2013.
According to Andrew Lownie’s book, Entitled, Mountbatten-Windsor also once told his nephew that his marriage to Meghan would “not last more than a month”.
He allegedly “accused Meghan of being an opportunist and thought she was too old for Harry, adding that his nephew was making the biggest mistake ever”.
Mountbatten-Windsor is said to have told his nephew he had gone “bonkers”, accusing him of not doing “any due diligence into her past” before proposing in 2017.
In a carefully worded response to the allegations, made last year, the Sussexes’ spokesman said Mountbatten-Windsor and Harry had “never had a physical fight, nor did Andrew ever make the comments he is alleged to have made about the Duchess of Sussex to Prince Harry”.
Whatever has gone before, the Sussexes are under no illusion about the enormity of Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest and what it means for the monarchy’s reputation.
Harry has long railed against injustice. His personal desire for accountability was illustrated by his decision to pursue multiple legal cases against the tabloid press.
His opinions, therefore, speak for themselves.
There is little love lost for Harry and Meghan on this side of the pond.
But whichever side of the fence one sits, it will surely come as a relief that they finally recognise there are occasions when it is better to simply say nothing at all.
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