‘Immensely hurt’: William’s new Harry blow

I’m guessing it wasn’t an Uber but what was it? When Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex left Westminster Abbey last weekend to make his dash to Heathrow, clearly eager to get in a quick spot of Duty Free, it was not, reportedly, in a government or royal vehicle.

“All the other royals and VIPs were taken off in official cars,” an eye witness has told Vanity Fair, “but Harry was left on his own, waiting for his car. It was actually really sad to see him all by himself,”

If ever there was a universe of meaning in one single moment, then vòila!

This was the end of the road or at least the end of this current chapter of the tortured Harry saga that has played out for the 1221 days since Megxit. (Feels like longer, no?)

As Harry zoomed off to make the trip back to California last week it looked like it would be years if not decades before we saw the fifth in line to the throne have to put up with sitting inside the Abbey pretending not to notice the draft.

In the movie version, this is where the sad string music will come up. But … thunder clap sound effects!

Except now a new revelation from inside Prince William’s circle has raised the prospect that things might be about to get even worse for Harry and that the revolutionary duke (current barricade population: two) might never again get a repeat invitation, even from his dear old dad.

The long and agonising saga of whether Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex (the only person in the world with both a coronet and a WME agent) would attend the coronation was only slightly less tortuous and lengthy than a Tolkein prequel. For month on month the would-they/wouldn’t-they was dragged out like a Married At First Sight season finale but only slightly less contrived.

Finally, news from on high! Harry would go but Meghan had a cake to frost so couldn’t make it, an excuse that is about as plausible as that one royal duke who probably said they couldn’t make the Battle of Agincourt because his hair was wet.

Charles after all, every single bit of reporting out of the UK suggested, was dead keen on his son being a part of the biggest day of his life aside from that one time he met the cast of The Goon Show. (It’s his favourite you see.)

William though, ahead of the coronation, seemed about as happy to have his brother there as a women’s rugby club dinner seeing Prince Andrew getting out of a car out the front but he had no choice but to go along with what his Pa wanted.

So everyone politely ignored everyone else, Charles got anointed and Harry added to his British Airways Club points.

But, that was then.

Now the coronation is over and now that Queen Camilla has returned her crown to the vault and finally gotten out of her Spanx with the help of a couple of her official companions (nee ladies-in-waiting), the Harry situation could be about to get a lot more hardine.

The reason? An increasingly powerful Prince William.

The tale of William and Harry, two brothers’ whose falling out is only slightly less epic than that of Cain and Abel or Liam and Noel Gallagher, is one of the biggest royal stories of the 21st century. (That and Princess Anne’s quest to visit every lighthouse in the UK, a stunning feat that strangely news.com.au never wants me to write about.)

On the big day, they both managed to be within metres of one another and not end up rolling around pulling on each other’s ears (the sad state of their hair making it automatically off limits) on top of the 755-year-old Cosmati Pavement.

However, the prince, having essentially won the coronation together with his ridiculously photogenic other-half Kate, the Princess of Wales will now get more of a say in how Buckingham Palace approaches the Sussex Question, according to a new report in The Daily Beast.

Speaking to the Beast’s inimitable Tom Sykes, a friend of the prince’s has said: “It’s very clear that William and Kate are now extremely important members of the institution, so their view on Harry, which is basically the further away the better, will have to be taken into account.

“Put it this way: I don’t think anyone expects Harry to get an invite to William’s coronation.”

While hopefully that predicament is a long way off (do any of us have another royal funeral in us any time soon?), in the intervening years William and Kate’s antipathy towards Harry could kneecap any chances of any wider royal olive branches being extended westwards.

If the Waleses want the Sussexes to remain “the further away the better,” then thus it shall be.

Then again, nor does it sound like Charles, having managed to avoid the PR debacle of his second son refusing to attend his coronation, is in that much of a lather to try and mend things with his huffy son.

A friend of Their Majesties has told Sykes: “The opportunity that was there for Harry to sort this out with the king is gone for now. Of course, Charles would always welcome a reconciliation with Harry and Meghan, he has made that very clear, and his door is always open in that regard.

“But now the coronation is done, I think Charles will want to focus on the job of being king, rather than to continue being distracted by Harry and Meghan drama.”

So, Charles wants to get on with it, ‘it’ being propping up the British wool industry and showing off his dab hand when it comes to spades at ceremonial tree plantings, and William and Kate want Harry to stay on his side of the Atlantic.

Whatever hope there might have been for something, anything to change in the current London-Montecito deadlock would seem to have evaporated right about the time Harry’s flight was wheels up and the King and Queen were celebrating back at the Palace with bubbles and a Valium chaser.

No matter the history-making number of cliches about history being made over the last week; no matter that ancient robes and chairs and even the Stone of Destiny, a real historic object and something out of Dungeons and Dragons, have been dragged out; and no matter that Harry made the effort to be a part of it all, the coronation did not change anything.

Still, neither side seems willing to give an inch.

That same friend of the King’s told Sykes: “Having Harry there was very important for him so, yes, there was pressure there. But he is immensely hurt by what Harry has done in the films and books, and Harry clearly feels aggrieved too, so I think a bit of distance now will suit everyone.”

“Distance” might be a good idea in the short term, letting everyone catch their breath, realign their chakras and to finally finish the abomination of the coronation quiche left in the fridge, but that is hardly a long-term strategy.

Surely eternal pacifist Charles will one day want this mess sorted and will want to come to find some sort of peace with Harry, no matter how much William might stomp his feet.

But in the meantime, William and Kate would seem to hold a lot of the royal cards and Harry is looking more and more like a busted flush.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.