{"id":19460,"date":"2021-07-22T11:48:40","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T18:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=19460"},"modified":"2021-07-22T11:48:42","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T18:48:42","slug":"buckingham-palace-shudders-at-prospect-of-more-of-prince-harrys-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2021\/07\/22\/buckingham-palace-shudders-at-prospect-of-more-of-prince-harrys-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"BUCKINGHAM PALACE SHUDDERS AT PROSPECT OF MORE OF PRINCE HARRY\u2019S TRUTH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Past royal efforts are tame in comparison to what Duke of Sussex could unleash on his family<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Harry
The Duke of Sussex at the unveiling of a statue of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, earlier this month. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski\/PA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Caroline Davies<\/a> Tue 20 Jul 2021 09.39 EDT (theguardian.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queen Victoria did it, as did a couple of her granddaughters. And her great-grandson, the Duke of Windsor, famously did so 15 years after his abdication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the Duke of Sussex follows a well-trodden royal path with news that he is penning his \u201caccurate and wholly truthful\u201d memoirs, writing \u201cnot as the prince I was born but as the man I have become\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As shudders, no doubt, convulse Buckingham Palace, the book has a planned publication date in autumn 2022, perfectly timed for the Christmas market, but perhaps not the finale the Queen would have hoped for her platinum jubilee celebrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Past royal memoirs are tame in comparison to what Prince Harry could unleash on his family, if his soul-baring screen interviews with Oprah Winfrey are a yardstick.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His efforts are unlikely to compare with Queen Victoria\u2019s published journals, which were by no means scandalous, though she was dissuaded from writing a book about John Brown, the Scottish ghillie and personal attendant to whom she became close in widowhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victoria\u2019s granddaughters, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, and Princess Marie-Louise, as well as Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, widow of the Queen\u2019s cousin Prince Henry, all produced \u201cterribly interesting\u201d accounts of royal life, said the royal historian Hugo Vickers<\/a>, though all non-controversial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harry\u2019s musings can best be compared to those of the exiled Duke of Windsor; A King\u2019s Story, published in 1951, and an international bestseller still available on Amazon. His wife, Wallis Simpson, also took up the pen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Duke of Windsor\u2019s was not terribly revelatory or scandalous,\u201d said Vickers, adding that it was beautifully ghostwritten. \u201cI don\u2019t think his or the duchess\u2019s caused any more ructions that you would imagine they would.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simpson consulted her former husband when writing her memoirs, though he never wrote his own. \u201cHe said: \u2018As far as I\u2019m concerned the truth lies at the bottom of the well and anyone who wants to go and look for it is welcome to do so.\u2019 So he did not write anything at all, or ever tell his story,\u201d said Vickers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though not especially revelatory, the Duke of Windsor\u2019s account was frowned on given that his mother, Queen Mary, and brother, George VI, were still alive. \u201cBy today\u2019s standards it might be regarded as pretty tame,\u201d said Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine.<\/a> \u201cBut 70 years ago, it was seen as all quite shocking, disrespectful and treacherous. I think he saw it as his opportunity to settle scores and did so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Harry reportedly working with the Pulitzer-winning ghostwriter JR Moehringer and the deadline for a first draft rumoured to be in October, its contents are the subject of much speculation, though experts believe that he will be under pressure to up the ante.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pressure must be on him to come up with something even more sensational that what we learned from the Oprah interview,\u201d said Little. \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to think that Harry would want to redress the balance, as far as he\u2019s concerned, in print, though it\u2019s been done on screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou would think hearts will continue to sink at Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Kensington Palace. I suppose in an ideal world they would have liked a line to be drawn after the Oprah revelations. But clearly that isn\u2019t Harry\u2019s way of doing things. And so this won\u2019t have been great news for Harry\u2019s family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He could revisit the racism allegations<\/a> he has levelled against the royal household. \u201cThen there\u2019s Meghan\u2019s arrival into the spotlight, her becoming girlfriend, then fiancee, then bride. And, of course, he has a lot of demons still about his childhood and the treatment his mother got both at the hand of the establishment and the media. Also, having to leave the army much sooner that he would have liked might also manifest itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little added: \u201cYou would think it is going to be quite a troubled read in a way. You would hope that by the end of it there will be light at the end of the tunnel. He\u2019s been in North America now for 15 months or so, so clearly he feels he\u2019s turned a corner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah, Duchess of York, was fiercely criticised when she wrote My Story, detailing her experience at the hands of the press and the breakdown of her marriage to Prince Andrew. She was accused of cashing in on her royal connections. Harry\u2019s publisher, Penguin Random House<\/a>, have said proceeds are going to charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Duke of Windsor, his memoirs brought him back into the spotlight after years of relative obscurity. And, as with any memoir, there are different versions of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as Buckingham Palace awaits Harry\u2019s book, it will no doubt think back to the Queen\u2019s diplomatic words following the Oprah revelations, when she said: \u201cSome recollections may vary.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Past royal efforts are tame in comparison to what Duke of Sussex could unleash on his family Caroline Davies Tue 20 Jul 2021 09.39 EDT (theguardian.com) Queen Victoria did it, as did a couple of her granddaughters. And her great-grandson, the Duke of Windsor, famously did so 15 years after his… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19461,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19460\/revisions\/19461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}