bitchy | Wyatt: ‘The royal left standing who has the most star power is Prince Harry’

Petronella Wyatt is a Telegraph columnist and general delusional-monarchist on demand. It’s been a minute since she’s written something about the Windsors. The last pieces (that I saw) were Wyatt’s musings on how the Sussexes’ titles shouldn’t be removed, that it was all a trap, and this very weird piece about how the Princess of Wales “saved” William and the monarchy. Well, Wyatt is back at it with this new Telegraph column: “I never thought I’d say this, but it’s time to bring Prince Harry home.” Just Harry, mind you. It seems that even delusional monarchists can see the writing on the wall, that the left-behind Windsors are not getting it done. Some highlights:

A minor republican awakening: These days, even Tories like myself are finding it hard to defend the hereditary principle. Personally, I have no taste for republicanism, due to my incapacity for envy. That emotion or weakness is quite absent from my makeup. In the face of other people’s good fortune, I am as inert as a deaf person at a recital. But a Starmer government will find the fact that the Royal family has more money and more privilege than the rest of us interesting. I increasingly feel that the future of the Royal family may depend on its ability to cheer the public, and what it lacks now is the requisite joyfulness.

The Windsors need pizzazz: The King and the Princess of Wales are effectively hors de combat, poor Camilla is 76, life bears heavily on William, and no one fancies a Pizza Express. The Windsors are in grave need of some pizazz. Readers may succumb to the screaming abdabs, but the royal left standing who has most star power is Harry. It is easy to blame him and his puerile book for the continuing rift with his father and brother, but some courtiers of my acquaintance hold William equally liable.

Prince William is equally to blame: Recently, I spoke to a former palace official who used to work for both princes before the good times stopped rolling. “There is a public misconception about William and Harry,” he told me. “It is William who was often the difficult one, and it is William who is preventing his father from having a proper reconciliation with Harry.” He continued, “This isn’t helpful at a point in time when the country would be buoyed up by seeing them together again, as would the King.” It wasn’t helpful last week when the only family member to greet Harry with warmth was Earl Spencer. When it comes to his brother, William’s disgruntlement can at times seem mildly pathological.

The youthful Sussexes! Yet where William is concerned, Byronic unhappiness has taken hold. I realise Harry has at times taken joy out of William’s life, and that he and Meghan can be a cause of irritation. It remains tempting to call the pair one-trick phoneys. But isn’t that what most royalling is all about? Phoney good will and faked enjoyment? Moreover, the Sussexes have youth and glamour, and the young regard them as a religion with no dilution of agnosticism.

Oh, even Wyatt understands that William & Charles look cruel: To many, Charles and William’s continued coldness towards Harry is beginning to look inhuman. It is important to remember that the Royal family is a microcosm for every family in Britain, and that a divided family, like a divided political party, has an intrinsic weakness. Affection of parents for children, and of children for parents and siblings, is capable of being one of the greatest sources of stability, as well as happiness.

The Sussexes are successful & the Windsors need H&M’s shine: Whether we like it or not, the Sussexes’ Nigerian tour has been a triumph and I cannot help but feel that a visible reconciliation between William and Harry would strengthen the unity of the House of Windsor and reassure the public of its commitment. The legacy of the Royal family is deeply intertwined with personal relationships. Entente would not only honour the past but also pave the way for a consolidated future, ensuring that the family’s values and traditions are preserved for generations.

A happy ending, water under the bridge? By nature, I think the King would be reunion friendly. According to royal sources, he comprehends that reconciliation is the best solution for both of them and that everyone likes an MGM happy ending that would jerk tears from Caligula’s eyes. As for being unkind about the family; isn’t it time to see that as water under Tower Bridge, as the late Queen might have done? …I thought I’d never say this, but it may be time to bring Harry home on probation, and for William to clasp his prodigal brother to his bosom, even if he has been a bit of an asp.

[From The Telegraph]

While Wyatt calls Charles and William “inhuman,” she completely skirts past everything that’s happened in the past week, with Charles’s very loud tantrum and one-sided briefing war/gaslighting campaign against Harry. She’s blanking on the fact that Charles and William scrambled to set up that extremely gross Army Air handover event, in which William gleefully cosplayed his brother in an attempt to “snub” and “humiliate” Harry. My point is that everything shifted in recent days/weeks and we’re no longer in the default storyline of “of course Charles wants reconciliation, it’s William who can’t get past it.” Charles and William are consumed with hatred and jealousy. Besides which, the Sussexes are not playing this stupid f–king game anymore. This whole “bring Harry back” thing is a fantasy – even if Charles and William were willing to reconcile (they are not), the Sussexes have showed the world that they don’t need the monarchy whatsoever.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.