Prince Harry’s Past Just Came Back to Haunt Him After This Unexpected Royal Baby Arrival
Breakfast, August 20, 1992 was the most awkward meal in royal history.
Sarah Ferguson was staying with Queen Elizabeth at Balmoral when photos of her toes sucked by her ‘financial adviser’ were slathered across the front page and she had to front her mother-in-law over the marmalade.
It’s not in quite the same league, but you have to wonder if there might be any reddish faces the next time that Prince Harry breaks bread with his cousin Princess Eugenie.
This week the royal family grew by one teeny weeny member with the arrival of Eugenie’s third child, a so far unnamed daughter, who is now 15th in line to the throne. (Sorry Princess Anne, it’s measly 19th spot for you now.)
The princess and husband Jack Brooksbank were jubilant, Buckingham Palace was so excited they deigned to use two whole emojis and the sweltering UK took a break from standing sweatily in front of the fan to collectively go, awwww.
Where things get sticky is when we cast our minds back to 2019 and Harry had a go at being a cub reporter.
At the time, he and wife Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex were still in the royal tent, if clearly chaffing against their part in the three-ring circus. Meghan, being a woman of indomitable energy and disinclined to spend her days drudgily opening Women’s Institute morning teas, was offered the chance to guest edit British Vogue. Who better to interview legendary ethologist Dame Jane Goodall for the issue than passionate environmentalist Harry?
Princess Eugenie has given birth to the royal family’s newest mini member. Picture: Princess Eugenie/Instagram
Only when Vogue hit the newsstand there was one exchange between the two that immediately made headlines. During the duke and Dame Jane’s conversation things had turned to the subject of having children when she interjected (supposedly with a laugh) “Not too many!” To which Harry replied, “Two, maximum!”
Given that, at that time, Prince William and Kate, The Prince and Princess of Wales had only recently welcomed third child Prince Louis, much hay was made of this foot-in-gob situation.
Now, this week, Eugenie, the Sussexes’ biggest ally inside the royal family, has become the latest member of the royal family to decide to have a bigger family.
Eugenie and husband Jack are the only relatives who have visited the Sussexes in the US and stayed with them in Montecito, during which the princess attended the Superbowl with Harry. Also, Eugenie was the only one of his family to appear in the Sussexes Netflix series.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex in Birmingham, England. Picture: Aaron Chown – Pool/Getty Images
Princess Eugenie of York and Jack Brooksbank in Ascot, England. Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images
That cousinly closeness has even seen Harry and Meghan go so far as to buy a holiday house in the same luxury development in Portugal where the York-Brooksbanks live and where Jack is marketing chief.
In 2023, the duke and duchess first stayed at the 300-home community on the Melides coast (it’s supposedly the ‘Iberian Hamptons’) where the York-Brooksbanks spend much of the year before Harry and Meghan purchased their own $11 million-plus home there the following year.
For the Sussexes, it gave them not only a European bolthole, an easy hop, skip and a jump from the motherland, but meant they could spend time with Eugenie and her family. For devoted parents Harry and Meghan, to be able to offer their kids, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, the chance to enjoy sandy beach breaks with their Brooksbanks cousins must have been a particular lure.
Only in July, the Duchess of Sussex posted a series of photos of the family’s trip to Europe which included a number showing them enjoying A-grade family time at their Portuguese place, all frolicking in the waves and sun-soaked joie de vivre.
Meghan Markle shared holiday photos. Picture: Instagram/Meghan Markle
Meanwhile, back in the UK, larger families have become the royal order of the day.
There are of course the Waleses, with three sprogs, but added to that we have Zara and Mike Tindall, with Mia, Lena and Lucas, and Princess Beatrice and her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, with his Wolfie and their daughters Sienna and Athena. When Peter Phillips married his second wife Harriet in June, they created a blended family with three daughters.
The “too many” conversation hardly compares in the awkward department for Harry and the Windsors when you remember the grubbiest of laundry he flapped about for the world to see via Netflix and Spare, but this all comes at a time when the Sussexes appear to be inching their way back towards Britain.
In July the whole family was in the UK where the Sussexes were invited to King Charles’ private Highgrove estate to do some making nice over finger sandwiches and Darjeeling.
Since then the mood music has been that a gently, gently, tentative reconciliation between London and Montecito is afoot, a father intent on rebuilding bridges with his adored son, one hand-hewn plank at a time.
Meghan Markle put up images of the family enjoying summer on Instagram. Picture: Instagram/Meghan Markle
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took their two children, Archie and Lilibet, to visit the childhood home of the Duke of Sussex’s late mother, Princess Diana, during their recent European vacation, it has been revealed. Picture: Instagram/Meghan Markle
Meghan Markle put up images of the family enjoying summer on Instagram. Picture: Instagram/Meghan Markle
Helping the pro-Sussex cause is the departure of Sir Clive Alderton, Charles’ outgoing private secretary who was reportedly far – far – from a supporter of the King putting out the welcome mat for his son and daughter-in-law. Harry, for his part, made no bones about his feelings about Sir Clive in Spare, calling him ‘The Wasp’ and writing that he would “stab with his outsized stinger”.
Sir Clive also sat on Ravec, the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, the ten-person Metropolitan Police body that makes decisions about which public figures get official protection. It was Ravec in 2020 who stripped the Sussexes of their bodyguards, a decision Harry has been fighting for years.
Further helping the Sussexes’ case is that the hot money is on former diplomat and deputy private secretary Theo Rycroft to take the reins, and Rycroft is reportedly dead keen on helping patch things up between not only Harry and Charles but William too. How long until the trio are doing trust falls in the new Sandringham yew maze and authentically sharing their feelings round the corner from Queen Camilla’s go-to summertime G & T gazebo?
Because what is family, really, but people who will always not only love you but forgive you? And forgive you even when you do something embarrassing, say the wrong thing, or make a six -art series about how rubbish being royal can be? Europe might be on fire this summer, but there have never been more green shoots for Harry and the royal family.
Daniela Elser is an editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
