\u201cIt won\u2019t last,\u201d my schoolfriend Albert told me, as we staggered down London\u2019s Embankment one summer evening in 2018, a few pints into his birthday pub crawl. I wasn\u2019t sure as to what he was referring. The evening twilight? His youthful good looks? Our ability to walk in a straight line? He expanded: \u201cHarry and Meghan. She\u2019s not right for him. They\u2019ll be divorced within five years. Just you wait.\u201d Then he burped.<\/p>\n
I was surprised by Albert\u2019s comments. I, like tens of millions of other viewers, had been taken in by the royal wedding weeks before. Yes, the presence of Oprah Winfrey and an over-enthusiastic American preacher had been a little gauche. But as Harry \u2018n\u2019 Meghan tied the knot in glorious Windsor sunshine, a troubled prince seemed to have found permanent peace with a gorgeous wife.<\/p>\n
Being teenagers, Albert and I had a particular affinity with young Harry. Blessed with the nation\u2019s sympathy after his mother\u2019s death, Harry seemed the endearing antithesis to his older brother\u2019s prudishness. Naked romps in Las Vegas, Nazi armbands at parties, courting a stream of blondes\u2026 he was a Prince Hal for the 21st century, the nation\u2019s endlessly entertaining Hooray Harry.<\/p>\n
But, like the young Henry V, Harry\u2019s coming of age was his most endearing. Shipped off to Afghanistan, the nice-but-dim younger son who had battled his way to passing grades at Eton was transformed into a model young soldier. But, once out of the army, rather than settle down with a Chelsy Davy or a Cressida Bonas, Harry found himself adrift. Unlike Henry V, Harry did not have the delights of conquering the French and a diplomatic marriage to keep him busy. Cue the arrival of Meghan Markle and the rest \u2013 as they say \u2013 is history.<\/p>\n
Eight years on, however, and Albert\u2019s pessimism has been confounded. Even in self-imposed exile in California, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex remain married. But their world has been transformed. The split from Buckingham Palace amid allegations of racism and bullying; a tell-all memoir; umpteen interviews, Netflix shows and brand relaunches\u2026 The pair might not have wanted to remain royals. But they have served the House of Windsor by providing the world\u2019s longest-running soap opera with a bitter drama that only Harry\u2019s late mother could have matched.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s quasi-royal tour of Australia seemed to show the pair on top form \u2013 a far more successful outing than England\u2019s cricketers managed only a few months before. Harry was shown comforting survivors of the Bondi Beach shooting while Meghan pronounced to some young crowd that she had been the \u201cmost trolled person in the world<\/a>\u201d during a roundtable on social media and mental health.\u00a0<\/p>\n Harry was a victim of peak woke<\/p>\n But behind the rictus grins deployed for their Aussie fans, the world of the Sussexes appears to be a bleak one. As laid out by Tom Bower in his latest palace pot-boiler Betrayal, the King\u2019s youngest son and his Yankee bride find themselves strapped for cash, fighting for relevance and running out of allies and importance in both a homeland that has moved on from them and an adopted country that has grown sick of their antics. A Vanity Fair profile<\/a> last year, entitled \u201cAmerican Hustle,\u201d painted a grim picture of a pair fighting to pay their bills through an ever-growing number of failed business ventures, Netflix flops and popular apathy.\u00a0<\/p>\n But while Meghan\u2019s fate is unlikely to elicit much sympathy in a Britain that has long since written her off, Harry\u2019s fate does. He seems lonely, cut off from his family and friends, still trotting out tired clich\u00e9s about his mental health and estranged from the charities that once gave him purpose. When he was photographed<\/a> last year ringing various London doorbells to try to find an old friend, it perfectly embodied a lost, young man unable to find his way home.\u00a0<\/p>\n