This week, the Duke of Sussex, self-proclaimed feminist and Lochinvar of Montecito, launched an unprovoked attack on a 75-year-old woman. In an irony that will no doubt escape him, Harry accused his stepmother, Camilla of being ‘dangerous’ and a ‘villain’. The Queen Consort, he said, in a series of television interviews, began a ‘campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the crown’, and briefed journalist friends in an attempt to ‘rehabilitate her image’.
Harry has proved he does not possess a laser-like intelligence but even he might have thought twice before attacking a divorced woman for trying to marry a prince. Consider the howls if anyone accused Meghan of ‘campaigning’ to marry into the royal family. Moreover, considering that his beef is with the monarchy for being an outdated and oppressive closed shop, it seems counterproductive to pick on an outsider.
He might also consider that Camilla has endured violent mob hatred in a way Meghan never has. Perhaps that was only to be expected, given the affair and Diana’s media influence, but Camilla could not go about her daily business without being harangued and insulted. I remember her being pelted with stale bread. It’s perhaps true to say that at one point she was the most hated woman in Britain, but throughout that time her innate dignity ensured that she remained silent and uncomplaining.
Was she scheming behind closed doors? I have known Camilla since I was 18 and I can vouch for the fact that she is quite incapable of machinations of any kind and that this has sometimes been to her detriment. When her aide Amanda MacManus, for instance, repeated a harmless indiscretion about William that found its way into a tabloid, Camilla was quite clear that MacManus must accept her P45. Camilla knew that the boys’ interests came before hers.
Nor is she some villainous vamp or temptress. Harry, perhaps under the influence of his actress wife and Hollywood, has cast Camilla as a sinuous bad girl in a film noir, the equal of Ava Gardner in The Killers, or Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. In Harry’s script, Camilla is accused of contributing to events that culminated in Diana’s death, and then manoeuvring to marry Charles.
After Diana’s death, and while I was deputy editor of this magazine, I sometimes breakfasted with Mark Bolland, who was then Charles’s deputy private secretary. I received the impression that it was Charles who desired to marry Camilla, whereas she was content with a less formal arrangement. I never heard it said that Camilla had any desire to become Queen Consort. Compare this to the desperate way in which the Sussexes cling to their titles. If they want to repudiate the monarchy, why not simply renounce them, as they’re repeatedly asked. So far they have failed to give a satisfactory answer.
There are people who are devoid of ambition and snobbery, and everything I know of Camilla suggests that she is one of them. It is my belief that though she was happy in her role as supporting actress, Charles cajoled her into marrying him because he could not and did not want to function without her.
As for Harry and William, her friends said that she was acutely anxious about meeting the boys. Dealing with stepchildren who regard you as Messalina and Lady Macbeth combined is no picnic, but she has been wise and conciliatory throughout.
Is Harry’s anger and spite the product of envy? His father’s marriage to Camilla is, as Harry concedes, ‘very happy’, and Harry seems to have a problem with other people’s happiness. He has spent the past year trying to make his closest relatives miserable. Perhaps he is also envious of the fact that the Queen Consort is increasingly popular both in the UK and America. Her life of quiet royal service contrasts deeply with Harry’s self-serving existence.
Harry asserts continually that he is now a better and more fulfilled person, whereas he was once ‘a bigot’. But nice people don’t attack women – especially not women who have suffered greatly. Could it be that under his shiny new skin, Prince Harry remains the sexist buffoon of his youth?
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