The royal family will be bracing itself for revelations from the Duke of Sussex’s memoirs which could plunge the monarchy into crisis.
With the King just weeks into his new role as head of state, his son Harry is likely to bring up their troubled relationship, airing potentially damaging matters.
Harry, in his interview with Oprah Winfrey, said Charles stopped taking his calls when he was trying to discuss stepping down as a working royal in 2019.
Father and son appear to have been at odds for some time and the duke could also discuss his strained bonds with his brother the Prince of Wales who he has described as being on a different path.
“My father and my brother, they are trapped. They don’t get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that.” Harry told Winfrey during their televised interview.
The duke also appeared to agree with Winfrey’s suggestion the royal family were “jealous” of the positive public reaction to Meghan during the Sussexes’ tour of Australia and the south Pacific in 2018.
In his memoir called Spare, Harry could also shed more light on his wife’s experiences within “the firm” as the royal family is sometimes known.
The duchess has spoken about how when pregnant with son Archie she contemplated suicide as she struggled to cope with life as a working royal, and how she received no help from the institution of the monarchy.
Harry’s most damning claim in recent years is that a member of his family – not the late Queen or Duke of Edinburgh – made a racist comment about his son.
The un-named royal was worried how dark the skin tone of Archie might be before he was born, and if identified in the book it would be very problematic for the royals.
One of the central issues for Harry is likely to be the break-up of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage, Charles relationship with the Queen Consort – then Camilla Parker Bowles, and Diana’s death in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Brothers Harry and William have rarely spoken about how they coped as their parents’ marriage disintegrated in the 1980s and then became public knowledge in the early 1990s.
Harry has spoken of trying to block out the death of his mother, but his perspective of that period dubbed “the War of the Waleses” will open up old wounds for the royal family if he chooses to reveal his experiences.
It also remains to be seen if the duke will revisit his indiscretions when a young man, like his decision to go to a fancy dress party in the guise of a Nazi soldier from the Afrika Korps complete with swastika emblazoned on his arm, which caused widespread outrage.
As a 17-year-old he was also involved in under-age drinking and taking cannabis.
