Alexander Larman

If I was the producer of Good Morning America, I would feel disappointed by today’s appearance of Prince Harry on my show. The Duke of Sussex came on television for his first major broadcast interview of the year, and it was inevitable that the major topic of interest was not going to be his time in Canada to mark the Invictus Games competitors’ training, or his family life in Montecito, or indeed the forthcoming paperback publication of Spare. Instead, it is his father’s health, which saw Harry drop everything and return to Britain last week for a private meeting with the King estimated to have lasted between 30 and 45 minutes.

In one of the many quotations spuriously attributed to Winston Churchill, the former prime minister was supposed to have said ‘success is the ability to go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.’ It is a piece of advice – regardless of its origin – that the Duchess of Sussex seems to have absorbed wholesale, given the announcement that, after her short-lived and largely unloved podcast series Archetypes came to an end with Spotify, she is to return to the fray once again, this time in association with the independent company Lemonada Media. Meghan has thrown herself into business with an organisation that describes itself as an ‘award-winning, independent, audio-first podcast network, with a mission to make life suck less.

In this most eventful of weeks for the Royal Family, the unanticipated return of Prince Harry to Britain has created new drama. Indeed, so unexpected have the tidings of the last few days been that the sudden arrival of the Duke of Sussex at his father’s side yesterday – a seismic and unprecedented event, given the current state of relations between Harry and the rest of the Royal Family – has barely been given the attention that it deserves. The meeting between the King and his younger son is said to have lasted around half an hour and to have taken place at Clarence House, before Charles headed off to Sandringham and Harry – who, notoriously, has no permanent residence in Britain – headed to the luxurious confines of a five-star hotel.

Amidst the news of King Charles’s cancer diagnosis, there have been any number of reactions, including the sincere sorrow and compassion felt by most of his subjects. Yet, for all of his wealth and privilege – as a certain sneering part of the internet felt the need to point out, few would envy the King the sorrows and turbulence of the past years. This has included the loss of both of his parents, estrangement from his youngest son and now the revelation of a serious illness.  Nevertheless, adversity can lead to reconciliation. So it was that almost immediately after the tidings of Charles’s cancer broke, it was revealed that Prince Harry had spoken to his father and would be returning to Britain ‘in the coming days’ so that he could see him in person.

After a catastrophic 2023, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have taken some time to regroup and rethink. Now they have decided to grace us with their decision on to how to re-enter the public sphere in glory once again. Send for Netflix! Not that they’ve put it quite like that. Instead, Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, has announced that their $100 million (£78 million), five year deal with Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Productions will continue through 2024. Speaking at an industry event in Hollywood, Bajaria commented that the pair 'have a bunch [of projects] in development'. These are expected to include a mixture of features, potentially including an adaptation of the romance novel Meet Me At The Lake to which the couple bought the rights last year.

In the annals of those connected with the contemporary Royal Family, it is hard not to see the journalist and broadcaster Martin Bashir as occupying the position of chief pantomime villain. He was launched to fame (some would say notoriety) when he interviewed Princess Diana for Panorama in 1995, eliciting the admission from her that 'there were three of us in this marriage'. The show was met with mixed reactions. Prince William later suggested that it was a 'major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse'. Bashir left Britain for a lucrative career in the United States, and, from a professional perspective, all seemed to be going smoothly for him.

What is it like to be Prince Harry? Spare gave us a peerless insight into the unhappy, loveless life of a frustrated young man who was saved from a downward spiral into depression and addiction by the intervention of a saintly actress from Suits – for which we must all surely be grateful. But it increasingly seems as if everything that Harry does in the public domain is dictated by a mixture of hubris and aggression. Every photoshoot and every public statement is tinged with some underlying meaning. His latest stunt is no exception. On Tuesday night, Harry and Meghan were photographed with Andrew Holness, the prime minister of Jamaica, at the premiere of the Bob Marley film, One Love.

Say what you like about Prince Edward, but he has never usually been one for stepping into the limelight – in contrast to his siblings and nephews. Yet, during the course of his two-day official visit to South Africa, the Duke of Edinburgh made some remarks that attracted international media interest. Speaking at the British High Commission in Pretoria on Monday, Edward – commonly acknowledged as the most low-key senior member of the Royal Family – said: 'I know the world is not in a happy place at the moment. If I can be quite frank, men aren’t doing a very good job at the moment. So therefore I am not particularly happy about standing up here and speaking [as one].

As flies are to wanton boys – and this particular boy is as wanton as it gets – so Prince Harry is to court cases. Most Spectator readers would avoid the stern and unforgiving – not to say financially ruinous – environs of the Old Bailey for all they were worth, but the endlessly litigious Duke of Sussex has been haunting its halls with the grim determination of a man who knows that right is very much on his side. Until now, it would appear. The news that Harry has withdrawn his libel suit against the Mail on Sunday has been greeted with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. That this most litigious of royal figures would deign to take his tanks off the lawn is something commentators regard as unprecedented, and embarrassing.

It was a detail that most novelists or screenwriters would have rejected as being too much. Shortly after yesterday’s announcement that the Princess of Wales will be hospitalised for up to a fortnight after abdominal surgery at the London Clinic, a second proclamation was made. We learnt that King Charles is to attend hospital next week for treatment of an enlarged prostate. One day, two senior royals, two health conditions. Yet what makes the events newsworthy beyond mere gossip and speculation are the differences – and similarities – in how the stories have made it into the public domain.

The Royal Family may have hoped that 2024 would begin in a quieter fashion than last year did, but if so, they must be disappointed. Once again, the reason for their unease is a revelatory book, this time Robert Hardman’s new biography Charles III: The Inside Story. First came the disclosure that the Queen was incensed by Harry and Meghan naming their daughter Lilibet. Today’s story is that Prince William – not a man noted for his interest in ecclesiastical matters, it must be said – is considering breaking with the Church of England when he becomes monarch. It seems incredible that the new monarch would ever wish to disassociate the Royal Family from the church Once, this story would have been truly jaw-dropping in its implications.