One thing that confuses me - Harry said Charles and William have learned to live with the 'toxic environment' of the royal family.
Who exactly is creating this toxic environment? The Queen? Members of the Household? The grey men? The government?
Surely, given what senior positions they hold, if Charles and William consider something to be toxic, they would have the ability to change it? Or is the royal bureaucracy such an immovable, all-controlling beast that the actual royals themselves have become cogs in its machine - puppets with no influence and no say over how things are done?
It all seems a bit odd.
If you think of the Japanese Imperial Household Agency and their power over the Imperial family.... is it still "odd"?
But I think what was the worst for Harry (and probably even more for his American wife) is the so ingrained fact in the whole system that the heir to the title is someone so much more valuable than the spare and his family. Once Meghan and Harry started to resent that, the environment became "toxic" for real because from then on they fought against the principle that is the base of the whole system. There is only one family member sitting on the throne and as she grew old, she shared a lot of things with her heir. Now Charles is the one to rule the institution, I believe, and he didn't want to accept that Harry needed more independence, more space, probably more money (hence the sentence about "Meghan should continue acting because you can't afford her otherwise").
Harry was born within the system as the second son, but due to his mother's way to raise them and later her death he was not taught to be the "spare" to William the heir. (IMHO, that's what I think). He took his privileges as a prince for something he has a right to, though I think he was given a certain leeway that Andrew didn't have. Andrew was an officer, he was gone for longer periods of time and Sarah had to stay home alone with much less money than Diana. We know how this ended. Charles I think made sure that Harry and Meghan had enough money, but of course Meghan had her own phases of shopping sprees. But I degress. I just wanted to point out that Harry IMHO never had a doubt in his life that Charles would stop giving him money and that his (and his family's )protection would be cared for.
As I said: Harry didn't IMHo realised that while the family is wealthy, it doesn't mean the spare gets more than the share which is set aside for a spare while the bulk goes to the heir.
Coming back to Andrew: he divorced the woman he really loves, IMHO, because there was no other way to get rid of her debts, after she had annoyed the queen and the Duke of E. so much. It may be good to remember that a memeber of the "court/firm" told the paps where they could get the pics of toe-sucking Sarah. She shouldn't have done that with her baby daughters present, IMHO, but well, old story. But still, toxic environment for a spare and his "independant" wife... IMHO Sarah is the friend of Diana's Meghan turned to (hence the name of "Fergie", which is the name Sarah is known by her friends, as I read) Probably the idea of a "secret marriage" came from Sarah, who I suspect had one of those with Andrew after their divorce. But I have no proof of that, it's just a gut feeling. Or why is she still living with Andrew now that the daughters they "wanted to raise together despite the divorce" both are married???
But to listen to Sarah is the wrong way IMHO if you want to stay within the inner cirlce and succeed there.
For me the pressure of the really hostile media on an American with a husband who wanted secretly out as well was the recipe for disaster. Plus Harry simply didn't understand how privileged he actually was, even when he was not as privileged as his brother William. He couldn't understand that the British Metropolitan police sent a group of protection officers with him to Afghanistan, but wouldn't protect his little son in Britain nor him in Canada/the US.
That must have hurt, I can understand that, but it is the same as it is for children of industrialist who don't want to join in the family business.
Ah, another thought: about the question of Meghan's suicidal depression. Once you have that, it is very difficult to say what of your behaviour is based on the mentall illness (which is an illness!) or on the way the patient wants to be treated. If Meghan was looking for advice how to get out of the palace environment into a private sanatorium (maybe even the US) I can imagine why she didn't get support. Getting in secret to a doctor to get pills and talks maybe wasn't what she wanted to do and nothing else was on offer to her.
I have been saying for a long time that I need proof to say something about Meghan and Harry and now I think I found that in this interview. Both IMHO are not used to be told "no" and to arrange their life around that. You can call that duty and service. They just didn't see what it meant to be a member of the BRF. Not just privileges, but service, even if the simple things were hard.
I once was in a similar position (not quite on that level, though, but I had chanpagne, luxurious suites and upgrades on flying as goodies, too!) and couldn't stand what was behind it, so I left. But I did accept that that was the end to the goodies as well! And did I needed them? No, I couldn't afford those little luxuries on my own quite well. So here you won't find sympathy for people praying water on expecting to drink wine and champagne for the rest of their lifes.
It might be a hard way they are going now and again, no sympathy because Harry's aunt Sarah went that way before.
I am just saddened they seem to be another of those (youngish) couples who didn't realise what they had before they gave it up in a snit. Back in the BRF they just had to do their duties and everything was good. Now with Netflix etc. they have to bring something to the audience to get the next contracts... Not sure if that is better.
I hope for their sake that their feeling of being on the winner side they have to have right now is based in reality. Maybe Meghan and Harry are really the guys to bring money to Netflix. I hope so, really I do! Maybe Harry has the TV-talent Edward thought he had. We'll see.
But I'm afraid it is too late for Charles to teach his princely son what it means to be the brother of the future king and not the heir himself.
