Royalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.
That Queen Elizabeth’s funeral was so intricately planned for decades in advance that it would run like clockwork has long been a cliché of British Establishment life.
Operation London Bridge, as the overarching plan has always been known, began to be sketched out from the first days of her reign in the 1950s.
Yet on Thursday evening, less than four days before the most important state occasion seen in Britain in living memory, with the greatest assemblage of foreign heads of state the world has ever known due to take place on British soil, the plans descended into a fancy dress farce as it appeared that Prince Harry had prevailed in an acrimonious row about whether or not he should be allowed to wear his military uniform during at least some of the ceremonies.
The Daily Mirror’s respected royal correspondent Russell Myers reported that Harry will now be allowed to wear his regimental Blues and Royals uniform to a special vigil for the queen on Saturday.
Myers’ quoted “a royal source” as saying: “Common sense has prevailed. It was a ludicrous situation given the Duke of Sussex has served his country and is a highly respected member of the armed forces with everything he has done for veterans.”
It will be interesting to see how Harry plays this victory over the establishment. But one suspects that it is somewhat Pyrrhic and will do little to assuage his irritation and anger at what he sees as the institutionalized cruelty of the palace that, as recently as Wednesday, essentially sought to belittle him and advertise his outcast status by not allowing him to wear a military uniform or offer a royal salute to the queen while processing behind her coffin in London.
For their part, the royals remain nervous about the contents of Harry’s memoir, whether decorum means its publication has been delayed or not. The family feud is on, no matter how many carefully choreographed royal appearances raise hopes of a reconciliation between Harry and Prince William.
“Nothing has really changed,” a family friend of the royals tells The Daily Beast in response to an inquiry about the true state of relations between Prince Harry on one side and his brother and the rest of his family of origin on the other. “The expectation is that once the mourning period is up, Harry and Meghan will go back to California, he will publish his book, and the family here will be left to pick up the pieces.”
Another source told The Daily Beast that there was still “intense” concern among the royal family about Harry’s book containing highly damaging revelations about his father. The source added that while the palace believes it can brush off attacks from Meghan, who is largely discredited in U.K. media that have pounced on a string of inaccuracies in her various interviews—which many of her supporters put this media animus down to racism—an attack by his son on King Charles would have a completely different level of credibility. It would be the ultimate insider takedown.
The palace has, previously, tried to portray Harry’s ban from wearing uniform as a practical, legal matter.
For those not up to date on the arcana of British dress codes, legally in the U.K. only active serving members of the army are allowed to wear uniform. When Harry left the royal family, he was forced to resign his honorary…
Read More: Prince Harry, Prince William, and King Charles Are Still Feuding, Not Reuniting