What’s driving Prince Harry to increasingly follow in the Duke of Windsor’s ill-fated footsteps?
The two men, each in their generation the pin-up boys of the Royal Family, both fled the country when duty called.
In the case of David – the famously glamorous Prince of Wales before his short reign as King Edward VIII – it could be said he didn’t know what he was doing.
But Harry? Just a peek into the pages of any royal history book would have warned him of the disorientation, despair, and loss of status that comes to a senior royal who runs away.
His great-great uncle endured it after his 1936 abdication, and now with the news that Harry may be wanting a partial return to the royal fold, we see history repeating itself.
Maybe it’s no surprise – the two royals share too much in common, even though one was born to be king and the other just a spare.
Both adored, both wayward, both under the spell of an American divorcee, Harry, Duke of Sussex and David, Duke of Windsor, are separated by almost 100 years of history but their stories have an eerie similarity.
The Duke of Sussex and the Duke of Windsor are separated by almost 100 years of history but their stories have an eerie similarity. Above: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle photographed for Time100 Talks in 2020; the former King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson
David joined the Grenadier Guards aged 20 and Prince Harry was around the same age when he joined the British Army
Both princes were thrown into the combat zone at an early age, David into the First World War and Harry into Afghanistan
Both thrown into the combat zone at an early age – David with his duties in the First World War, Harry actually fighting in Afghanistan – they discovered a cameraderie in the armed services they could not find at home.
David joined the Grenadier Guards aged 20 in 1914 and hoped to see service on the Western Front.
But he was blocked by war minister Lord Kitchener who feared the propaganda coup if the future king were killed or captured by the Germans.
He did though witness trench warfare at first hand and had a narrow escape when an enemy shell hit his car.
Harry spent ten years in the Army, serving with distinction and ending as an Apache helicopter commander in Afghanistan.
Though afterwards he blotted his copybook by claiming to have killed 25 Taliban soldiers, which fellow veterans denounced as bad taste.
War hero Colonel Tim Collins snapped: ‘We don’t do notches on the rifle butt’.
Their army service gave both men a desire to help the underdog. In the 1930s, David called for unemployed miners in south Wales to be looked after in their poverty.
Harry focusing in on the plight of injured and disabled soldiers by creating the Invictus Games.
It made them both even more glamorous as they wowed the public with their unstuffy hands-on approach and their concern for those who needed help.
But both used drink, and women, to escape the pressures of the supposedly glamorous life they led.
The Army gave both men the desire to help the underdog. David called for unemployed miners in South Wales to be looked after in their poverty and Harry focusing on the plight of wounded veterans
But both men used drink, and women, to escape the pressures of the supposedly glamorous life they led
Both found solace from their woes in women with a stronger personality – David with Wallis Simpson, a highly ambitious American divorceee, and Harry with Meghan Markle, who could be described similarly
Harry was memorably pictured naked in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2012 enjoying a drunken game of strip pool with a group of women.
Later he wrote that he was filled with ‘shame and guilt’ after the photos were published.
David more privately but just as disgracefully drank and bedded women throughout his 1928 tour of British East Africa – though unlike Harry he never expressed any remorse.
Surrounded as they were by obsequious courtiers and hangers-on, both rarely heard the word ‘No’ uttered in their presence, and as a result developed the belief that whatever they did must be right.
That worked while they remained working royals, but led to difficulties when they emerged from behind the palace railings and were forced to face the real world.
Both allowed their well-developed persecution complexes to render them unattractive to the public and to friends.
The Duke was perpetually worrying about money and refusing to pay bills, Harry disproportionately concerned about what he claimed was press intrusion.
Both found solace from their woes in women with a stronger personality – Windsor with Wallis Simpson, a highly ambitious American divorcee, and Harry with Meghan Markle, who could be described similarly.
Both women imposed their will and their thinking on the husband.
Pretty soon the first Duchess grew bored with life as an exiled royal, which begs the question – will the second Duchess follow suit?
Both men allowed this love for their chosen other halves to dominate their thoughts, to the exclusion of sensible reasoning.
But both women had felt cold-shouldered by the royals as a whole and by courtiers in particular, and fostered in their husbands the belief there was a better world away from their royal destiny.
In both cases this had the effect of wrecking the mens’ public appeal, and they fled into self-imposed exile.
Soon both men were to discover that what to them seemed like a logical step was seen by others as treachery.
Each then came to rely on the company of their wife’s friends and acquaintances – feeling a fish out of water as they sat out their exile in Paris and California among people they didn’t really know.
Both then were inspired to write a book of memoirs – for big money, which caused huge scandals and further alienated them from the royal family and the public.
Both released statements informing the public they were stepping down from royal duties
Both men wrote memoirs – for big money – which caused huge rifts within the Royal Family
Windsor came to be hated by his sibling Bertie, who was forced to take up the throne as King George VI when his elder brother deserted it and, in so doing, brought about his early death at the age of 56. In Harry’s case he alienated the most powerful force in the Royal Family, the future king
To his dying day in 1971, at the age of 75, the Duke of Windsor longed to be invited back into the royal fold.
He was incapable of seeing the damage done, and the bitter disappointment he’d caused to the millions who were once his fans.
Similarly we now learn that Harry may wish to return to Britain and possibly take up some royal duties.
This latest development is just the latest example of his following his great-great-uncle’s footsteps and is likely to meet with a very similar result.
And for one crucial reason: each man seemingly went out of his way to estrange himself from the one person who could have brought them in from the cold – their brother.
Windsor was hated by his sibling Bertie, who was forced to take up the throne as King George VI when his elder brother deserted it and, in so doing, helped bring about his early death at the age of 56.
In Harry’s case his actions alienated the most powerful force in today’s royal family, the future king, Prince William.
It would appear Harry learned nothing from his forbear’s example.
Tragically both men shared an astonishing failure to understand what royal duty means – that something is expected from you in return for the honours, riches and adulation bestowed upon you.
Even in the royal world, nothing comes for free.
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