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        <title>Excerpts from "Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry - A Tragedy in Spare Parts"</title>
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                                    <description><![CDATA[<p>Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.</p>
<p>Filius Regi is available on Amazon in <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYGXFQ71'>KDP</a> and <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633070'>paperback</a>.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>First excerpt: The truth about "Prince Harry the soldier": he slept through the Camp Bastion attack.</p>
<p>Harry’s other identity, considering his main one is “Diana’s boy”, is “Harry, the soldier”. After passing his A-levels,<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> Harry decided to join the military, a decision he’ll be hailed for despite the military being a typical career path for male spares in European monarchies. Even his now-disgraced uncle, Andrew of Jeffrey Epstein infamy,<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> had trained as a naval officer at Britannia Royal Naval College, become a pilot, and served in the Falklands War.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a></p>
<p>The military was the one place that could provide Harry with much-needed structure and discipline. In late 2003, he enrolled in a preparatory course in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Assessment Center with the goal of starting the forty-four-week training course in May of 2005.</p>
<p>In April of 2006, Harry graduated from Sandhurst with the rank of Second Lieutenant in Blues and Royals.</p>
<p>In a lifetime of spin and image building, Harry’s desire, and his arguably selfish need, to serve on the front lines remains a fact. In early 2007, plans for his first deployment to Iraq were made. But following insurgents threatening to target British troops just to kill the “handsome prince”,<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a> the Army canceled Harry’s deployment.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> Harry’s reaction showcased that he was not ready to serve; he’d reportedly thrown a tantrum, pointing out the unfairness of having “dragged my sorry arse in Sandhurst for a year” and then not being allowed to "get out on operations”.<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a></p>
<p>Serving isn’t a reward for completing military training. Serving in the military is not self-serving; it should never be considered an opportunity for a person, regardless of their background, to prove themselves. Being on the front lines stops being serving when it starts endangering fellow soldiers’ lives – something both The Queen and Charles acknowledged.<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a> One serves not where and when one wants, but where one is needed and won’t cause harm to the cause one is serving.</p>
<p>This incident highlights two uncomfortable truths: on the front lines, Harry was a liability, and the British Army was aware of it.</p>
<p>And yet, months later, the Ministry of Defense gave in to Harry’s ravenous need for validation and deployed him to Afghanistan. On the fourteenth of December 2007, Harry was secretly flown to Afghanistan amid a media blackout deal, coordinated between the British Ministry of Defense and the major UK news outlets.<a href='#_ftn8'>[8]</a> There, he was stationed at a British-controlled base in Helmand Province, which was part of a wider, NATO-led, multinational combat environment. Harry’s unit frequently coordinated with Gurkha soldiers, Afghan National Army troops, and coalition allies from NATO member states.</p>
<p>Ten weeks later, on the twenty-eighth of February 2008, the Drudge Report, of Monica Lewinsky infamy, broke the news of Harry’s presence in Afghanistan.<a href='#_ftn9'>[9]</a></p>
<p>The Ministry of Defense, terrified and rightfully so that Taliban fighters would actively target Harry’s unit, ordered the prince’s immediate extraction.<a href='#_ftn10'>[10]</a> A lot could be said about the Drudge Report endangering a coalition unit on active duty for clicks and clout,<a href='#_ftn11'>[11]</a> but would it be fair to hold such a publication to higher standards than the British Ministry of Defense?</p>
<p>Indeed, the real issue was always why the need for secrecy wasn't a deterrent for the deployment. Why was one man’s need for validation deemed more important than the lives of the troops?</p>
<p>The military tour was over; the media tour began. A whole campaign hailing the hero prince was rolled out: Harry gave interviews, footage of his tour was released to the public, and he was widely praised as brave and humble.</p>
<p>Harry came out of this experience more confident than ever, viewing himself as a real soldier whose life was ruined, once again, by the British media instead of by a right-wing American publication. He joined the Army Air Corps and started his pilot training in January 2009.</p>
<p>By August 2012, it was time for another Harry scandal, and this time it involved the crown jewels, the ones that should never be on public display. On the twenty-second, TMZ published photos of a completely naked Harry cupping his groin in a Vegas hotel suite during a game of strip billiards.<a href='#_ftn12'>[12]</a> The world exploded. Somehow, the one incident that could have been, and should have been, labeled a youthful indiscretion and addressed in a short statement, then forgotten, became an international scandal.</p>
<p>On the seventh of September, the British Ministry of Defense issued a public statement confirming that Captain Wales had flown into Camp Bastion to begin a four-month tour as an Apache co-pilot gunner.<a href='#_ftn13'>[13]</a></p>
<p>The media’s tone immediately shifted from “drunken naked party prince” to “combat veteran royal risking his life for Queen and Country”.<a href='#_ftn14'>[14]</a></p>
<p>Whether the deployment was planned before the publication of Harry’s naked pictures or concocted in the days after it in yet another effort to save Harry’s reputation, there is no way to know for a fact. And with no hard evidence to back either one of the theories, one can draw one’s own informed conclusion.</p>
<p>A powerful argument for a deployment for optics can be made. Harry’s deployment plans to Iraq were canceled when it became clear that his presence would put the troops at risk. His first deployment to Afghanistan ended when the Drudge Report exposed his presence in Helmand Province. The British Ministry of Defense had then said: “This decision has been taken primarily on the basis that the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier”.<a href='#_ftn15'>[15]</a> This statement clearly indicates that the concerned authorities believed the disclosure of Harry’s presence in an active combat zone posed a threat to the lives of the serving troops. And still, seventeen days after TMZ first published the prince’s naked pictures, the Ministry of Defense was volunteering information about Harry’s presence in an active war zone.</p>
<p>Also, the seventh of September 2012 – when the deployment was announced – was the day after the fifteenth anniversary of Diana’s funeral and of the image of twelve-year-old Harry walking behind his mother’s coffin. On that morning, the British public was emotionally raw, primed to accept the news of Harry’s deployment as heroic without questioning the timing or the reasons it was being announced this time, rather than being kept a secret.</p>
<p>“Safe House”<a href='#_ftn16'>[16]</a></p>
<p>On the tenth, a Taliban spokesperson warned Reuters that they were using all their strength to get rid of Harry<a href='#_ftn17'>[17]</a> and had “informed our commanders in Helmand to do whatever they can to eliminate him.”<a href='#_ftn18'>[18]</a> These threats were not publicly acknowledged by the British Ministry of Defense. And Harry, a declared target of the Taliban whose simple presence endangered the lives of fellow soldiers, was not extracted.</p>
<p>Tragedy struck on the night of the fourteenth of September. Camp Bastion was attacked by fifteen Taliban insurgents, dressed in U.S. Army uniforms, who breached the eastern perimeter fence.<a href='#_ftn19'>[19]</a> During the attack, two U.S. Marines were killed, seventeen UK and American personnel were wounded, six aircraft were destroyed, and support infrastructure was obliterated.<a href='#_ftn20'>[20]</a> The material losses were deemed the worst incurred in a single day since the Vietnam War.<a href='#_ftn21'>[21]</a> Throughout it all, Prince Harry slept.<a href='#_ftn22'>[22]</a></p>
<p>Questions about Harry’s security and his whereabouts during the attacks were immediately raised. British Secretary of State for Defense Philippe Hammond declared that, while Harry faced the same risk in combat as any Apache helicopter pilot, he benefited from “additional security arrangements”.<a href='#_ftn23'>[23]</a>           </p>
<p>These arrangements were enacted “once we knew on Friday night that the perimeter at Bastion had been breached”,<a href='#_ftn24'>[24]</a> and Harry was moved to a secure position under effective guard.<a href='#_ftn25'>[25]</a> American General Sturdevant confirmed that Harry had “a place identified as a safe house in case the base came under attack”.<a href='#_ftn26'>[26]</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Miranda Pell “A-Levels Results of Royal Family Including William, Harry, Kate, Meghan”, Chronicle Live, August 14, 2025.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Max Mada, “Prince Andrew ‘Spent Weeks’ at Epstein Home – Witness”, BBC News, January 6, 2014.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> Mathew Moore, “Prince Harry Will Not Be Deployed to Iraq”, The Telegraph, May 16, 2007.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Moore, “Prince Harry Will Not Be Deployed to Iraq”.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref8'>[8]</a> Bob Satchwell, “Why We Agreed on a Media Blackout on Harry”, The Guardian, February 29, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref9'>[9]</a> “Prince’s Deployment Kept Secret by Media”, CBS News, February 29,</p>
<p>2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref10'>[10]</a> D’arcy Dorna, “Defense Chief Says Prince Harry Being Withdrawn</p>
<p>from Afghanistan for Security Reasons”, Record Online.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref11'>[11]</a> Ben Dowell, “NoW’s Wallis Attacks Drudge Over Harry”, The Guardian, February 29, 2009.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref12'>[12]</a> “Prince Harry Naked Photos During Vegas Rager”, TMZ, August 22,</p>
<p>2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref13'>[13]</a> Max Foster and Laura Smith-Spark, “UK’s Prince Harry Deployed to</p>
<p>Afghanistan”, CNN, September 7, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref14'>[14]</a> “Prince Harry Deployed to Afghanistan”, BBC News, September 7,</p>
<p>2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref15'>[15]</a> Haroon Saddique, “Prince Harry to Be Recalled from Afghanistan”, The Guardian, February 29, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref16'>[16]</a> Jonathan Owen, “Prince Harry Slept Through Entire Camp Bastion Attack”, Independent, October 4, 2024.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref17'>[17]</a> “Afghan Taliban Threaten to Kidnap and Kill Prince Harry”, Reuters, September 10, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref18'>[18]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref19'>[19]</a> John D. Gresham, “Attack on Camp Bastion: The Destruction Of VMA- 211”, Defense Media Network, September 20, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref20'>[20]</a> Richard Taylor-Norton, “Camp Bastion Attack Revealed ‘High Level Complacency’”, The Guardian, April 14, 2014.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref21'>[21]</a> Cpl. Bill Waterstree, “Purple Hearts and Guts of Steel: VMA-211 Marines Recognized for Actions at Camp Bastion”, Marines the Official Website of The United States Marines Corps, August 29, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref22'>[22]</a> Harry Slept Through Taliban Attack That Devastated Camp”, The Nation, October 6, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref23'>[23]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref24'>[24]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref25'>[25]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref26'>[26]</a> Jonathan Owen, “Prince Harry Slept Through Camp Bastion Entire Arrack”, The Independent, October 4, 2013.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Second excerpt: The bald and the beautiful: Prince Harry, Prince William, Diana's facial bone structure, and the forehead of Agassi</p>
<p>The relationship between the two brothers has long been an object of fascination and curiosity. For years, it was believed that Diana’s two sons had a very close, loving, and supportive relationship.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> But in Spare, Harry tells another story.</p>
<p>Harry’s crystallization of his dynamic with William is one of the memoir’s most revealing lines:</p>
<p>“My beloved brother, my arch-nemesis, how had that happened?”<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a></p>
<p>The paradox is deliberate. William is depicted by his own brother as both object of love and object of resentment, both a mirror – “In some ways he was my mirror; in some ways he was my opposite.”<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a> – and a rival – “It was all so obvious, he cared less about finding his own purpose or passion than about winning his lifelong competition with me.”<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a></p>
<p>“My mirror”. Harry doesn’t see William as “other” but as a version of himself that has been elevated. The tension’s not between Harry and William – self and sibling – but between self and idealized self.</p>
<p>Through the prism of the mirror metaphor, William loses his personhood and autonomy – he becomes “another Harry”, one that has more hair, more room space, more sausages, and, crucially, their mother’s bone structure. He is the version of Harry that Harry has always wanted to be.</p>
<p>The mirror also makes William Harry’s nemesis. Harry’s resentment of his brother that clearly stems from a deep-rooted jealousy of the one person who was the closest to their mother<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> - Harry’s glee as he relays William’s “famous resemblance to Mummy”<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a> now “fading”<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a> is shocking – exacerbates the differences between the two brothers and inscribes their dynamic in an Aristotelian frame. When William becomes Nemesis, Harry becomes a tragic hero. This is no longer a brotherly quarrel between two boys who once walked in their mother’s funeral procession – it is a mythic destiny.</p>
<p>Every anecdote from their childhood, every tiny inequality – from William’s “larger half” of the room at Balmoral to William receiving an extra serving of sausage at breakfast – becomes a symbol of institutional hierarchy and yet another proof of Harry’s “nullity”: he’s undeserving of space to exist or to enjoy the smallest pleasures of life.</p>
<p>Small material details are often used in oral traditions as symbols of cosmic orders. Harry, consciously or through the magic touch of his ghostwriter, reproduces that structure. Sausage distribution becomes dynastic law enacted at breakfast.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that William’s closeness with Diana has exacerbated Harry’s jealousy. Diana herself had described William as her “soulmate”.<a href='#_ftn8'>[8]</a> Never does Harry explicitly reference this moment when William, the natural heir to the throne, became heir by maternal election, but his knowledge of it haunts his narrative.</p>
<p>Diana’s “soulmate” mistake leads to one of the most cutting passages of the memoir:</p>
<p>“I looked at Willy, really looked at him, maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in: his familial scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me; his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own; his famous resemblance to Mummy, which was fading with time. With age.”<a href='#_ftn9'>[9]</a></p>
<p>This excerpt betrays the root of Harry’s resentment of his brother. The “Spare” didn’t resent the “Heir” only for being the “Heir” but for his resemblance to their mother.</p>
<p>It is a fact that William resembles Diana in a way that’s more than superficial.<a href='#_ftn10'>[10]</a> He’s inherited her facial bone structure, her gaze, her long upper lip, her smile, her long neck and broad shoulders, and her tall, lean frame. Harry, to his apparent dismay, was cut from the Mountbatten-Windsor cloth.<a href='#_ftn11'>[11]</a></p>
<p>In this context, Harry’s observations should be read as a tally of emotional debt being collected. He looks at his brother – his only brother – and doesn’t see a sibling. He sees a dying mirror.</p>
<p>Harry sees this as a win. Finally, William is losing one of his strongest bonds to their mother – it is not a resemblance that is fading, it is Diana who is fading from William.</p>
<p>William was Diana’s favorite. William looked like her. William carries her legacy. And when Harry sees that physical resemblance fading, he feels vindicated. Many have pointed out that William still looks like his mother – he does. Whether Harry truly thought that William was looking less and less like Diana with time or he’d convinced himself of it, the ugliness of the felt vindication remains.</p>
<p>The baldness dig is another show of immaturity. Harry uses words such as “alarming” and “advanced,” but he’s practically screaming, “my horse is bigger than your horse”. The grandeur of the vocabulary only serves to underline the triviality and pettiness of the observation.</p>
<p>The irony of this remark is stark when one considers the book’s cover design. It deliberately echoes the visual language of eight-time Grand Slam winner André Agassi’s memoir Open, written in collaboration with the same ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer.<a href='#_ftn12'>[12]</a> The adoption of Agassi’s minimalist, confrontational cover format<a href='#_ftn13'>[13]</a> can be seen as a strategic bid to elevate Harry’s narrative into the same register of searing confession and cultural impact.</p>
<p>Yet the imitation falters at the precise point where Agassi’s cover achieves its power: Agassi’s photograph is a close-cropped portrait in which his baldness is starkly, almost defiantly, on display – a visual complement to a book offering the reader an unfiltered account of identity stripped bare. By contrast, Harry’s cover photograph<a href='#_ftn14'>[14]</a> is conspicuously cropped at the top, eliminating any view of his thinning hair. The visual strategy – excluding what Agassi foregrounded – undermines Spare’s claim to radical honesty. And, taken in conjunction with Harry’s comments about William’s alarming baldness, underscores the younger prince’s pettiness and hypocrisy.</p>
<p>While Harry writes that William “cared less about finding his purpose than about winning his lifelong competition with me”,<a href='#_ftn15'>[15]</a> Spare comes across as the autobiography of a man narrating his entire existence as a competition with his brother. A competition he is morally winning. William didn’t defend his girlfriend while Harry did defend his;<a href='#_ftn16'>[16]</a> William resorted to physical violence while Harry never did,<a href='#_ftn17'>[17]</a> William never broke free from the Institution, while Harry did.<a href='#_ftn18'>[18]</a> William exists in Spare only as an extension of Harry’s drama – an unavoidable and narratively necessary Nemesis.</p>
<p>William is both the axis of grievance and the condition of Harry’s self-mythologizing. Without William, there is no Nemesis. Without Nemesis, there is no tragic hero – there is no tragedy to tell.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Christine Liwag Dixon, “From Young Boy to Dashing Royal”, The List, December 7, 2016.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, part 2, chap. 83.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Kathleen Walsh, “Prince William was Princess Diana’s ‘Most Trusted Confidant’”, Marie Claire, April 6, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref8'>[8]</a> James Crawford-Smith, “How Diana’s Advice Has Shaped Prince William’s Life as He Turns Forty”, Newsweek, June 21, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref9'>[9]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref10'>[10]</a> Meredith Clark, “Prince William’s Resemblance to Princess Diana in Viral Video Stuns Fans: ‘Spitting Image’”, Independent, November 29, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref11'>[11]</a> Sarah Nathan, “Prince Harry Looks Just Like Grandfather Prince Philip Did in His 30s”, Page Six, April 12, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref12'>[12]</a> Raphaelle Besse Desmoulières, “Who is J.R. Moehringer, Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter”, Le Monde, January 27, 2023.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref13'>[13]</a> Open, Goodreads.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref14'>[14]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Goodreads.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref15'>[15]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 2, Chapter 83.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref16'>[16]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 3, Chapter 20.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref17'>[17]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 3, Chapter 62.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref18'>[18]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 3, Chapter 86.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Third excerpt: Archewell: A self-exiled Prince Harry's attempt to create his own court, crown, and halo, using, once again, his mother Diana's image.</p>
<p>On the last day of the year, the Sussexes launched their Archewell website, positioning it as a spiritual reset button and an invitation to a grieving, exhausted, and isolated global population to follow their story of rebirth.</p>
<p>The website, as it was launched on the thirty-first of December 2020,<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> was defined by four elements: sepia pictures of young Harry with Diana, and young Meghan with Doria; a defining statement – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – a link to external charities and causes; and a newsletter signup box. There were no programs, no plans, no specific goals.</p>
<p>The central quote – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – might read like a sacred text, but it is ideological, exclusionary, and calculated.</p>
<p>Harry – his mother’s son – anchors himself to Diana. He is her son, not hers and Charles’. Meghan, on the other hand, presents herself as the maternal bridge between the legacy and the future. She is not Doria’s daughter, she’s not Harry's partner, and most importantly, she’s not a woman, a person, in her own right. She is the mother of their son – the mother of Diana’s grandson.</p>
<p>The quote creates a closed cycle where Diana is the myth, Harry is the heir, Archie is the legacy, and Meghan is the vessel. It leaves no room for Meghan’s own origin, Doria’s contribution – visually present through her picture but narratively erased – Harry’s adulthood, fatherhood, partnership, community, queer families, chosen families. Essentially, it is monarchical mythology dressed in progressive beige.</p>
<p>The main page signed off as “Harry &amp; Meghan.” The use of first names implies raw authenticity and emotional directness. However, every other page on the site referred to them by the titles given to them by The Queen, which are tied to the Institution they supposedly fled, based on hereditary aristocracy, and are irrelevant to American legal structures. The message is clear: they rejected the system but kept the rank it gave them. In other words, they didn’t want to serve the crown but wanted the status that being part of that Institution afforded them.</p>
<p>The website’s visitors were prompted to share how they activate compassion in the world. It might sound caring and warm, but there was no privacy policy explained and no follow-up mechanism, which allows the argument that the invitation was about data mining and audience mirroring.</p>
<p>The core sentence requires further dissection. It sounds like family language, but it is lineage branding. It describes a dynastic position, a biological chain, a closed loop of meaning. This single sentence performs a complete act of gender reduction: Harry is only the son of a dead woman, and Meghan is only a mother. No one is a person – everyone is a role. It is a sanctification of domesticity packaged as empowerment. It reasserts that women are nurturers, men are legacy holders, and parenthood is heteronormative, biological, and binary.</p>
<p>Not one did the site feature the word “father.” Harry’s identity is permanently retroactive – always a son, never a dad. Neither Prince Charles nor Thomas Markle is acknowledged.</p>
<p>As for Doria, she’s visible, but she’s not named, not referred to in a sentence, or even acknowledged as a mother. She’s a prop. Diana is the emotional cornerstone; Doria is the visual moral support. Only one mother is the narrative – and it’s not the black one.</p>
<p>Archewell launched itself as a compassionate, modern, inclusive alternative to outdated power systems. But it revealed itself to be a brand based on inherited grief and not earned service, culturally conservative, and narratively monarchist.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Archewell archived launching page.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Fourth excerpt: The inspiration behind Meghan Markle's claim of marrying Prince Harry three days before their wedding day: Rachel Zane from Suits did it first.</p>
<p>(In Harry and Meghan’s hen coop)</p>
<p>[…]</p>
<p>Oprah: What are you most excited about in the new life? What are you most excited about? Here, chick, chick, chick, chick.</p>
<p>Meghan: I think just being able to live authentically.</p>
<p>Oprah: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Meghan: Right? Like this kind of stuff. It’s so, it’s so basic, but it’s really fulfilling. Just getting back down to basics. I was thinking about it - even at our wedding, you know, three days before our wedding, we got married…</p>
<p>Oprah: Ah!</p>
<p>Meghan: No one knows that. But we called the archbishop, and we just said, ‘Look, this, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us’. So, like, the vows we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that was the piece that…</p>
<p>Harry: Just the three of us.</p>
<p>Oprah: Really?</p>
<p>Harry: Just the three of us.</p>
<p>Meghan: Just the three of us.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a></p>
<p>In that exchange, Meghan claims that she and Harry were married – “we got married” – by the Archbishop of Canterbury three days before their official wedding.</p>
<p>In an interview given to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the Archbishop of Canterbury clarified that “the legal wedding was on Saturday. I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offense if I had signed it knowing it was false”.<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> He added that he “won’t say what happened at any earlier meetings”.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a></p>
<p>This rebuttal by the archbishop was not needed to establish that Meghan and Harry were not being truthful when they claimed they were wed three days before their televised wedding ceremony.</p>
<p>In fact, under the Marriage Act 1949<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a> – which still governs Anglican marriage – Church of England and Church in Wales weddings can only take place in a church, a chapel licensed for marriages, or, in specific historical exceptions, in a churchyard. Harry and Meghan’s Nottingham Cottage’s backyard – “our backyard” – was not consecrated by a bishop for public worship, not licensed for the solemnization of marriage, and not legally recognized as a venue – whether privately, temporarily, or for convenience.</p>
<p>Moreover, an Anglican wedding requires two witnesses. In the exchange with Oprah, Meghan said it was just the two of them – Harry and Meghan – and the archbishop. Harry confirmed it, saying, “Just the three of us,” and repeated it once. Then, Meghan herself repeated it one more time. There is no legally contracted wedding without witnesses.</p>
<p>Whatever happened – if anything – in that backyard three days before the legal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was not a marriage ceremony. It’s not a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of law: they did not get married “three days before” their wedding.</p>
<p>Defenders of the duchess contend that she meant that the archbishop delivered them a private benediction three days before their wedding. This version uses the archbishop's refusal to “say what happened at any earlier meetings” as proof that some dramatic vow exchange in the backyard did happen. But Meghan did not claim that she and Harry had a private exchange of vows; she claimed that they got “married” in private. She used the word “married”. Neither Meghan nor Harry offered a clarification; they simply repeated, “just the three of us.”</p>
<p>A marriage and a benediction aren’t the same, and the law does not confuse the two. Indeed, a marriage creates obligations, protections, and duties enforceable by law, whereas a benediction does not create any legally enforceable responsibilities, protections, or duties.</p>
<p>Whether the Sussexes did or did not receive the archbishop’s benediction in private doesn’t really matter. A benediction is not a marriage. And whatever did or did not happen three days before the “spectacle”, Harry and Meghan are guilty of altering reality for narrative impact.</p>
<p> The transmission of knowledge depends fundamentally on trust. Considering that knowledge derived from testimony is pervasive in everyday life, and one cannot independently verify every single claim one is told, speakers are granted default credibility until they give a reason for it to be withdrawn. It is an epistemic contract between speaker and listener, built on the presumption of honesty. When the speaker knowingly violates this contract, the presumption of honesty crumbles.</p>
<p>The collapse of the presumption of honesty is triggered not by the nature of the lie but by the intentional violation of the duty to be reliable.</p>
<p>When an audience accepts a testimony, it chooses to believe that the speaker is both sincere in stating what they believe and competent in having formed that belief. There’s a double assumption of sincerity and competence to this choice. When the speaker lies, they violate the sincerity condition, resulting in a categorical shift from a trustworthy informant to a compromised informant. Once someone has demonstrated an inclination to deceive, they fall into a credibility deficit. The default trust necessary to be believed is lost. Once someone demonstrates a capacity for intentional deception, the listener’s trust is lost, as they start entertaining the possibility that any other assertion may also be false. Results: global skepticism toward the speaker, rather than topic-specific skepticism.</p>
<p>Even the smallest of lies justifies broad and sustained doubt toward the speaker’s future claims. It is neither about moral outrage nor about disproving each subsequent statement by the same speaker: it is about recognizing that the foundation for believing those statements has already been voluntarily destroyed by the speaker themselves.</p>
<p>Surprisingly enough – or maybe not – it wasn’t the first time Meghan spoke of a small private wedding that never was. Once upon a career, Meghan portrayed Rachel Zane, a paralegal in pencil skirts, in the American legal drama television series “Suits”. In the series’ fifth season, Rachel Zane testifies in a mock trial at the law firm where she works.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Harvey Specter: Miss Zane, if you got married six weeks after dating the defendant, why are you engaged to him right now?</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Rachel Zane: Because we did it on a whim, and we’d planned to have an annulment. But once we fell more in love, we thought that it might be wonderful to reveal it to our families after we were married again.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Harvey Specter: And how exactly did it go when you got married the first time?</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Rachel Zane: We were in Las Vegas …</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Harvey Specter: Yeah! Yeah! I don’t give a shit where you were. What color was your dress? What color was the cake?</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">[…]</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Rachel Zane: The dress was white, and the cake was vanilla with a buttercream frosting. It was a small ceremony at around 10 PM. And I remember the man who married us like it was yesterday because it was the most special day of my life.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Harvey Specter: When you came up with this story, did Mr. Ross at least give you the courtesy of letting you make up your own memories of your supposedly sacred day?</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Harvey Specter: And I’ve got one more question. Did you vow to remain faithful to Mr. Ross throughout your marriage?</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Rachel Zane: Yes, I did!</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Harvey Specter: Yeah! Then I guess when you cheated on him with Logan Sanders, it means you lied to him at that non-existent ceremony, just like you’re lying to all of us right now.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a></p>
<p>Meghan performed the “Suits” scene as sixth on the call sheet, and the Oprah scene as the wife of the sixth in line to the British Crown.</p>
<p>The Suits scene and the Montecito scene share key structural similarities.</p>
<p>Both scenes invent a private ritual and lace it with emotional specificity – “the cake was vanilla with butter cream frosting” in the fictional scene; “we have the vows framed in our room” in the Oprah interview – with the intention of overwriting public reality.</p>
<p>While Rachel directly describes the secret wedding as “the most special day”, Meghan indirectly frames it as such, using wording such as “authenticity” and “just the three of us”. The second wedding becomes more of a show than an honest exchange of eternal vows: Meghan literally calls it a “spectacle for the world,” while Rachel is more subtle, implying the second wedding would be to celebrate with family and friends.</p>
<p>An argument can be made that Meghan learned how to invent private ceremonies to assert emotional power and control the public narrative, as well as how to deliver the story with sincere affect and detailed memory cues, from Rachel Zane. And when she needed a beautiful romantic story to tell Oprah, she just recycled a scene from the one show that put her on the map. Then, she called it authenticity.</p>
<p>Meghan’s demonstrably false claim about a secret marriage is proof of the duchess’s ability to candidly recount a moment that never happened. It invites diligent scrutiny of her other, more emotionally charged stories, like claims of helplessness, institutional racism, or suicidal ideation. Indeed, when a testimony framed as a moment of candidness and vulnerability contains a demonstrable falsehood, the entire edifice of that testimony stands compromised. It does not negate every pain or claim, but it justifies the necessity of questioning and thoroughly investigating every other claim.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> “Mark My Words: Meghan Markle Oprah Interview: Read Full Transcript of Duchess and Prince Harry’s Bombshell Confession”, The Sun, January 31, 2024.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Lucy Campbell, “Archbishop of Canterbury: Harry and Meghan’s Legal Wedding on Saturday”, The Guardian, March 30, 2021.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> “Marriage Act 1949”, Legislation.gov.uk.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Suits Official, “Harvey Exposes Rachel for Cheating on Mike, Suits”,</p>
<p>YouTube Video, 4’22, January 29, 2023, author’s transcription.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Fifth excerpt: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's accusation of racism against the royal family: recycling Mohamed Fayed's accusations. It's always about Diana.</p>
<p>After Diana and Dodi Fayed’s tragic, untimely death, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father, alleged that Diana was pregnant with his son’s child, and accused the Royal Family and MI6 of killing them to prevent the birth of the future King’s mixed-race sibling. These sensational claims received extensive tabloid coverage during the late 1990s and the early 2000s.</p>
<p>Fayed Senior claimed that, hours before the accident, Diana had phoned him and told him that she was expecting a child with Dodi and that they were going to announce their engagement on the first of September 1997.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a></p>
<p>He publicly accused MI6 of orchestrating a hit on Diana because they “could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be the stepfather of the future King of England”.<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> He also claimed that Diana had confided in him that Prince Philip and Prince Charles were trying to get rid of her.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a></p>
<p>In January 2004, John Burton, former Coroner of the Queen’s Household, who attended Diana’s only postmortem examination, broke his silence and told the Times newspaper that Diana was not pregnant at the time of her death and that he had “seen into her womb”.<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a></p>
<p>The three-year-long Scotland Yard’s Operation Paget, which concluded in December 2006, investigated all conspiracy claims, including pregnancy and espionage plots. It found no evidence of pregnancy or of a murder plot. Its report concluded that Diana had died from a tragic car accident, and listed driver intoxication and speeding paparazzi as key factors.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a></p>
<p>In April of 2008, a jury in a UK inquest found that the deaths of Diana, Dodi, and Henri Paul were “unlawful killing” by grossly negligent driving. The Coroner, Scott Baker, emphasized that “not a shred of evidence” was found to support MI6 involvement.<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a></p>
<p>Interestingly enough, in August of 2001 - four years after the deaths of Dodi and Diana - Mohammad Fayed had turned to the US media to “seek the support of the American people”, confirming, in no uncertain terms, that “the death was the result of a murder with racism at the core”.<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a></p>
<p>Almost twenty years later, Diana’s son and his wife – the woman so similar to his mum – appeared on an American TV show to blanket accuse the British Royal Family of racism and of refusing to provide security for a biracial child.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> “Al Fayed Attacks UK Royals as ‘Dracula Family’”, CNN.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Emily Burack, “Mohamad Al Fayed Conspiracy Theories About The Royal Family Explained”, Town &amp; Country, December 20, 2023.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> “Al Fayed Attacks UK Royals as ‘Dracula Family’”</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> “Coroner: Diana Was Not Pregnant”, CNN, January 7, 2004.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Lynsey Eidell, “What Was Operation Paget? All About the 3-Year Inquiry into Princess Diana’s Death”, People, December 14, 2023.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> Stephen Bates, “After 11 Years, Diana the Verdict: Killed by a Combination of Henri Paul and Paparazzi”, The Guardian, April 8, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> “Diana Conspiracy Theory Pursued Again”, ABC News, August 30,</p>
<p>2001.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Sixth excerpt: Yes, Lilibet was Queen Elizabeth II's childhood nickname, but, in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's daughter's name, there is another message and it isn't Diana.</p>
<p>On the fourth of June 2021, Meghan gave birth to her and Harry’s second child, a daughter they named Lilibet Diana.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> It is relevant here to look closely at how William and Harry named their respective daughters, as in those names lie the clearest markers of their divergence: one bound to lineage, the other to rupture.</p>
<p>William and Catherine’s only daughter bears the name Charlotte Elizabeth Diana,<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> while Harry’s bears the name Lilibet. Both young princesses carry a tribute to their late paternal grandmother – Diana – and to Queen Elizabeth II – Elizabeth in Charlotte’s name, and its diminutive, Lilibet, in Lily’s.</p>
<p>But the symmetry breaks with the girls’ first names. Charlotte is the feminine form of Charles, a deliberate nod to her paternal grandfather. It anchors her identity in continuity with her paternal grandparents and with her mother, Catherine, as well, since Elizabeth is also Catherine’s middle name.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a> Princess Charlotte’s name, therefore, is a dense, multi-layered gesture toward family, tradition, and royal legitimacy.</p>
<p>By stark contrast, Lilibet Diana carries no such reference to Charles. The absence is conspicuous. There is no obligation to honor a father when naming a daughter – or a son. Yet given the circumstances – the fractured relationship between Charles and Harry at the time of her birth and the symbolic weight of names in royal culture – the omission is telling. Where William’s choice reconciles the past and the present by weaving together Charles, Elizabeth, and Diana, Harry’s choice avoids Charles entirely. The difference is emblematic of the divergent paths of Diana’s two boys.</p>
<p>There is also the spin in Lily’s name. It is fair to assume that, by choosing Lilibet instead of Elizabeth, the Sussexes sought to reframe the then-reigning Queen as simply a great-grandmother. The private childhood nickname was meant to distance the Sussexes from the questions that arose about them naming their daughter after the matriarch of the very institution they’d accused of racism and life endangerment.<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a> It was, in effect, a branding choice – an attempt to keep the link with the Windsors but under the pretense of familial loyalty rather than a dynastic one. The calculation backfired when public and media reaction fixated not on the intended warmth but on the perceived audacity: the Sussexes had stolen the Queen’s childhood nickname.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> The outrage drowned out the marketing play they had strategized, and, instead of humanizing, the choice was read as presumptuous.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Dulcie Lee, “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Announce Birth of Baby Girl”, BBC News, June 6, 2021.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> “The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Name Their Baby”, The Royal Family, May 4, 2015.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> “The Princess of Wales”, The Royal Family.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> Nylah Burton, “Harry and Meghan’s Baby Name Proves They Are Not the Heroes You Thought They Were. And That’s Ok”, The Independent, June 7, 2021.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Tim Teeman and Tim Sykes, “Queen Elizabeth Felt Harry and Meghan Had ‘Taken’ Her Name, Aides Said”, Daily Beast, Jan 15, 2024.</p>
]]></description>
                                                            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.</p>
<p>Filius Regi is available on Amazon in <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYGXFQ71'>KDP</a> and <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633070'>paperback</a>.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>First excerpt: The truth about "Prince Harry the soldier": he slept through the Camp Bastion attack.</p>
<p>Harry’s other identity, considering his main one is “Diana’s boy”, is “Harry, the soldier”. After passing his A-levels,<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> Harry decided to join the military, a decision he’ll be hailed for despite the military being a typical career path for male spares in European monarchies. Even his now-disgraced uncle, Andrew of Jeffrey Epstein infamy,<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> had trained as a naval officer at Britannia Royal Naval College, become a pilot, and served in the Falklands War.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a></p>
<p>The military was the one place that could provide Harry with much-needed structure and discipline. In late 2003, he enrolled in a preparatory course in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Assessment Center with the goal of starting the forty-four-week training course in May of 2005.</p>
<p>In April of 2006, Harry graduated from Sandhurst with the rank of Second Lieutenant in Blues and Royals.</p>
<p>In a lifetime of spin and image building, Harry’s desire, and his arguably selfish need, to serve on the front lines remains a fact. In early 2007, plans for his first deployment to Iraq were made. But following insurgents threatening to target British troops just to kill the “handsome prince”,<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a> the Army canceled Harry’s deployment.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> Harry’s reaction showcased that he was not ready to serve; he’d reportedly thrown a tantrum, pointing out the unfairness of having “dragged my sorry arse in Sandhurst for a year” and then not being allowed to "get out on operations”.<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a></p>
<p>Serving isn’t a reward for completing military training. Serving in the military is not self-serving; it should never be considered an opportunity for a person, regardless of their background, to prove themselves. Being on the front lines stops being serving when it starts endangering fellow soldiers’ lives – something both The Queen and Charles acknowledged.<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a> One serves not where and when one wants, but where one is needed and won’t cause harm to the cause one is serving.</p>
<p>This incident highlights two uncomfortable truths: on the front lines, Harry was a liability, and the British Army was aware of it.</p>
<p>And yet, months later, the Ministry of Defense gave in to Harry’s ravenous need for validation and deployed him to Afghanistan. On the fourteenth of December 2007, Harry was secretly flown to Afghanistan amid a media blackout deal, coordinated between the British Ministry of Defense and the major UK news outlets.<a href='#_ftn8'>[8]</a> There, he was stationed at a British-controlled base in Helmand Province, which was part of a wider, NATO-led, multinational combat environment. Harry’s unit frequently coordinated with Gurkha soldiers, Afghan National Army troops, and coalition allies from NATO member states.</p>
<p>Ten weeks later, on the twenty-eighth of February 2008, the Drudge Report, of Monica Lewinsky infamy, broke the news of Harry’s presence in Afghanistan.<a href='#_ftn9'>[9]</a></p>
<p>The Ministry of Defense, terrified and rightfully so that Taliban fighters would actively target Harry’s unit, ordered the prince’s immediate extraction.<a href='#_ftn10'>[10]</a> A lot could be said about the Drudge Report endangering a coalition unit on active duty for clicks and clout,<a href='#_ftn11'>[11]</a> but would it be fair to hold such a publication to higher standards than the British Ministry of Defense?</p>
<p>Indeed, the real issue was always why the need for secrecy wasn't a deterrent for the deployment. Why was one man’s need for validation deemed more important than the lives of the troops?</p>
<p>The military tour was over; the media tour began. A whole campaign hailing the hero prince was rolled out: Harry gave interviews, footage of his tour was released to the public, and he was widely praised as brave and humble.</p>
<p>Harry came out of this experience more confident than ever, viewing himself as a real soldier whose life was ruined, once again, by the British media instead of by a right-wing American publication. He joined the Army Air Corps and started his pilot training in January 2009.</p>
<p>By August 2012, it was time for another Harry scandal, and this time it involved the crown jewels, the ones that should never be on public display. On the twenty-second, TMZ published photos of a completely naked Harry cupping his groin in a Vegas hotel suite during a game of strip billiards.<a href='#_ftn12'>[12]</a> The world exploded. Somehow, the one incident that could have been, and should have been, labeled a youthful indiscretion and addressed in a short statement, then forgotten, became an international scandal.</p>
<p>On the seventh of September, the British Ministry of Defense issued a public statement confirming that Captain Wales had flown into Camp Bastion to begin a four-month tour as an Apache co-pilot gunner.<a href='#_ftn13'>[13]</a></p>
<p>The media’s tone immediately shifted from “drunken naked party prince” to “combat veteran royal risking his life for Queen and Country”.<a href='#_ftn14'>[14]</a></p>
<p>Whether the deployment was planned before the publication of Harry’s naked pictures or concocted in the days after it in yet another effort to save Harry’s reputation, there is no way to know for a fact. And with no hard evidence to back either one of the theories, one can draw one’s own informed conclusion.</p>
<p>A powerful argument for a deployment for optics can be made. Harry’s deployment plans to Iraq were canceled when it became clear that his presence would put the troops at risk. His first deployment to Afghanistan ended when the Drudge Report exposed his presence in Helmand Province. The British Ministry of Defense had then said: “This decision has been taken primarily on the basis that the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier”.<a href='#_ftn15'>[15]</a> This statement clearly indicates that the concerned authorities believed the disclosure of Harry’s presence in an active combat zone posed a threat to the lives of the serving troops. And still, seventeen days after TMZ first published the prince’s naked pictures, the Ministry of Defense was volunteering information about Harry’s presence in an active war zone.</p>
<p>Also, the seventh of September 2012 – when the deployment was announced – was the day after the fifteenth anniversary of Diana’s funeral and of the image of twelve-year-old Harry walking behind his mother’s coffin. On that morning, the British public was emotionally raw, primed to accept the news of Harry’s deployment as heroic without questioning the timing or the reasons it was being announced this time, rather than being kept a secret.</p>
<p>“Safe House”<a href='#_ftn16'>[16]</a></p>
<p>On the tenth, a Taliban spokesperson warned Reuters that they were using all their strength to get rid of Harry<a href='#_ftn17'>[17]</a> and had “informed our commanders in Helmand to do whatever they can to eliminate him.”<a href='#_ftn18'>[18]</a> These threats were not publicly acknowledged by the British Ministry of Defense. And Harry, a declared target of the Taliban whose simple presence endangered the lives of fellow soldiers, was not extracted.</p>
<p>Tragedy struck on the night of the fourteenth of September. Camp Bastion was attacked by fifteen Taliban insurgents, dressed in U.S. Army uniforms, who breached the eastern perimeter fence.<a href='#_ftn19'>[19]</a> During the attack, two U.S. Marines were killed, seventeen UK and American personnel were wounded, six aircraft were destroyed, and support infrastructure was obliterated.<a href='#_ftn20'>[20]</a> The material losses were deemed the worst incurred in a single day since the Vietnam War.<a href='#_ftn21'>[21]</a> Throughout it all, Prince Harry slept.<a href='#_ftn22'>[22]</a></p>
<p>Questions about Harry’s security and his whereabouts during the attacks were immediately raised. British Secretary of State for Defense Philippe Hammond declared that, while Harry faced the same risk in combat as any Apache helicopter pilot, he benefited from “additional security arrangements”.<a href='#_ftn23'>[23]</a>           </p>
<p>These arrangements were enacted “once we knew on Friday night that the perimeter at Bastion had been breached”,<a href='#_ftn24'>[24]</a> and Harry was moved to a secure position under effective guard.<a href='#_ftn25'>[25]</a> American General Sturdevant confirmed that Harry had “a place identified as a safe house in case the base came under attack”.<a href='#_ftn26'>[26]</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Miranda Pell “A-Levels Results of Royal Family Including William, Harry, Kate, Meghan”, <em>Chronicle Live</em>, August 14, 2025.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Max Mada, “Prince Andrew ‘Spent Weeks’ at Epstein Home – Witness”, <em>BBC News</em>, January 6, 2014.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> Mathew Moore, “Prince Harry Will Not Be Deployed to Iraq”, <em>The Telegraph</em>, May 16, 2007.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Moore, “Prince Harry Will Not Be Deployed to Iraq”.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> <em>Ibid</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref8'>[8]</a> Bob Satchwell, “Why We Agreed on a Media Blackout on Harry”, <em>The Guardian</em>, February 29, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref9'>[9]</a> “Prince’s Deployment Kept Secret by Media”, <em>CBS News</em>, February 29,</p>
<p>2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref10'>[10]</a> D’arcy Dorna, “Defense Chief Says Prince Harry Being Withdrawn</p>
<p>from Afghanistan for Security Reasons”, <em>Record Online</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref11'>[11]</a> Ben Dowell, “NoW’s Wallis Attacks Drudge Over Harry”, <em>The Guardian</em>, February 29, 2009.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref12'>[12]</a> “Prince Harry Naked Photos During Vegas Rager”, <em>TMZ</em>, August 22,</p>
<p>2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref13'>[13]</a> Max Foster and Laura Smith-Spark, “UK’s Prince Harry Deployed to</p>
<p>Afghanistan”, <em>CNN</em>, September 7, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref14'>[14]</a> “Prince Harry Deployed to Afghanistan”, <em>BBC News</em>, September 7,</p>
<p>2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref15'>[15]</a> Haroon Saddique, “Prince Harry to Be Recalled from Afghanistan”, <em>The Guardian</em>, February 29, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref16'>[16]</a> Jonathan Owen, “Prince Harry Slept Through Entire Camp Bastion Attack”, <em>Independent</em>, October 4, 2024.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref17'>[17]</a> “Afghan Taliban Threaten to Kidnap and Kill Prince Harry”, <em>Reuters</em>, September 10, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref18'>[18]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref19'>[19]</a> John D. Gresham, “Attack on Camp Bastion: The Destruction Of VMA- 211”, <em>Defense Media Network</em>, September 20, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref20'>[20]</a> Richard Taylor-Norton, “Camp Bastion Attack Revealed ‘High Level Complacency’”, <em>The Guardian</em>, April 14, 2014.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref21'>[21]</a> Cpl. Bill Waterstree, “Purple Hearts and Guts of Steel: VMA-211 Marines Recognized for Actions at Camp Bastion”, <em>Marines the Official Website of The United States Marines Corps</em>, August 29, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref22'>[22]</a> Harry Slept Through Taliban Attack That Devastated Camp<em>”, The Nation</em>, October 6, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref23'>[23]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref24'>[24]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref25'>[25]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref26'>[26]</a> Jonathan Owen, “Prince Harry Slept Through Camp Bastion Entire Arrack”, <em>The Independent</em>, October 4, 2013.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Second excerpt: The bald and the beautiful: Prince Harry, Prince William, Diana's facial bone structure, and the forehead of Agassi</p>
<p>The relationship between the two brothers has long been an object of fascination and curiosity. For years, it was believed that Diana’s two sons had a very close, loving, and supportive relationship.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> But in Spare, Harry tells another story.</p>
<p>Harry’s crystallization of his dynamic with William is one of the memoir’s most revealing lines:</p>
<p>“My beloved brother, my arch-nemesis, how had that happened?”<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a></p>
<p>The paradox is deliberate. William is depicted by his own brother as both object of love and object of resentment, both a mirror – “In some ways he was my mirror; in some ways he was my opposite.”<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a> – and a rival – “It was all so obvious, he cared less about finding his own purpose or passion than about winning his lifelong competition with me.”<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a></p>
<p>“My mirror”. Harry doesn’t see William as “other” but as a version of himself that has been elevated. The tension’s not between Harry and William – self and sibling – but between self and idealized self.</p>
<p>Through the prism of the mirror metaphor, William loses his personhood and autonomy – he becomes “another Harry”, one that has more hair, more room space, more sausages, and, crucially, their mother’s bone structure. He is the version of Harry that Harry has always wanted to be.</p>
<p>The mirror also makes William Harry’s nemesis. Harry’s resentment of his brother that clearly stems from a deep-rooted jealousy of the one person who was the closest to their mother<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> - Harry’s glee as he relays William’s “famous resemblance to Mummy”<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a> now “fading”<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a> is shocking – exacerbates the differences between the two brothers and inscribes their dynamic in an Aristotelian frame. When William becomes Nemesis, Harry becomes a tragic hero. This is no longer a brotherly quarrel between two boys who once walked in their mother’s funeral procession – it is a mythic destiny.</p>
<p>Every anecdote from their childhood, every tiny inequality – from William’s “larger half” of the room at Balmoral to William receiving an extra serving of sausage at breakfast – becomes a symbol of institutional hierarchy and yet another proof of Harry’s “nullity”: he’s undeserving of space to exist or to enjoy the smallest pleasures of life.</p>
<p>Small material details are often used in oral traditions as symbols of cosmic orders. Harry, consciously or through the magic touch of his ghostwriter, reproduces that structure. Sausage distribution becomes dynastic law enacted at breakfast.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that William’s closeness with Diana has exacerbated Harry’s jealousy. Diana herself had described William as her “soulmate”.<a href='#_ftn8'>[8]</a> Never does Harry explicitly reference this moment when William, the natural heir to the throne, became heir by maternal election, but his knowledge of it haunts his narrative.</p>
<p>Diana’s “soulmate” mistake leads to one of the most cutting passages of the memoir:</p>
<p>“I looked at Willy, really looked at him, maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in: his familial scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me; his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own; his famous resemblance to Mummy, which was fading with time. With age.”<a href='#_ftn9'>[9]</a></p>
<p>This excerpt betrays the root of Harry’s resentment of his brother. The “Spare” didn’t resent the “Heir” only for being the “Heir” but for his resemblance to their mother.</p>
<p>It is a fact that William resembles Diana in a way that’s more than superficial.<a href='#_ftn10'>[10]</a> He’s inherited her facial bone structure, her gaze, her long upper lip, her smile, her long neck and broad shoulders, and her tall, lean frame. Harry, to his apparent dismay, was cut from the Mountbatten-Windsor cloth.<a href='#_ftn11'>[11]</a></p>
<p>In this context, Harry’s observations should be read as a tally of emotional debt being collected. He looks at his brother – his only brother – and doesn’t see a sibling. He sees a dying mirror.</p>
<p>Harry sees this as a win. Finally, William is losing one of his strongest bonds to their mother – it is not a resemblance that is fading, it is Diana who is fading from William.</p>
<p>William was Diana’s favorite. William looked like her. William carries her legacy. And when Harry sees that physical resemblance fading, he feels vindicated. Many have pointed out that William still looks like his mother – he does. Whether Harry truly thought that William was looking less and less like Diana with time or he’d convinced himself of it, the ugliness of the felt vindication remains.</p>
<p>The baldness dig is another show of immaturity. Harry uses words such as “alarming” and “advanced,” but he’s practically screaming, “my horse is bigger than your horse”. The grandeur of the vocabulary only serves to underline the triviality and pettiness of the observation.</p>
<p>The irony of this remark is stark when one considers the book’s cover design. It deliberately echoes the visual language of eight-time Grand Slam winner André Agassi’s memoir <em>Open</em>, written in collaboration with the same ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer.<a href='#_ftn12'>[12]</a> The adoption of Agassi’s minimalist, confrontational cover format<a href='#_ftn13'>[13]</a> can be seen as a strategic bid to elevate Harry’s narrative into the same register of searing confession and cultural impact.</p>
<p>Yet the imitation falters at the precise point where Agassi’s cover achieves its power: Agassi’s photograph is a close-cropped portrait in which his baldness is starkly, almost defiantly, on display – a visual complement to a book offering the reader an unfiltered account of identity stripped bare. By contrast, Harry’s cover photograph<a href='#_ftn14'>[14]</a> is conspicuously cropped at the top, eliminating any view of his thinning hair. The visual strategy – excluding what Agassi foregrounded – undermines Spare’s claim to radical honesty. And, taken in conjunction with Harry’s comments about William’s alarming baldness, underscores the younger prince’s pettiness and hypocrisy.</p>
<p>While Harry writes that William “cared less about finding his purpose than about winning his lifelong competition with me”,<a href='#_ftn15'>[15]</a> <em>Spare</em> comes across as the autobiography of a man narrating his entire existence as a competition with his brother. A competition he is morally winning. William didn’t defend his girlfriend while Harry did defend his;<a href='#_ftn16'>[16]</a> William resorted to physical violence while Harry never did,<a href='#_ftn17'>[17]</a> William never broke free from the Institution, while Harry did.<a href='#_ftn18'>[18]</a> William exists in Spare only as an extension of Harry’s drama – an unavoidable and narratively necessary Nemesis.</p>
<p>William is both the axis of grievance and the condition of Harry’s self-mythologizing. Without William, there is no Nemesis. Without Nemesis, there is no tragic hero – there is no tragedy to tell.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Christine Liwag Dixon, “From Young Boy to Dashing Royal”, <em>The List</em>, December 7, 2016.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, part 2, chap. 83.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Kathleen Walsh, “Prince William was Princess Diana’s ‘Most Trusted Confidant’”, <em>Marie Claire</em>, April 6, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref8'>[8]</a> James Crawford-Smith, “How Diana’s Advice Has Shaped Prince William’s Life as He Turns Forty”, <em>Newsweek</em>, June 21, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref9'>[9]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref10'>[10]</a> Meredith Clark, “Prince William’s Resemblance to Princess Diana in Viral Video Stuns Fans: ‘Spitting Image’”, <em>Independent</em>, November 29, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref11'>[11]</a> Sarah Nathan, “Prince Harry Looks Just Like Grandfather Prince Philip Did in His 30s”, <em>Page Six</em>, April 12, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref12'>[12]</a> Raphaelle Besse Desmoulières, “Who is J.R. Moehringer, Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter”, <em>Le Monde</em>, January 27, 2023.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref13'>[13]</a> <em>Open</em>, <em>Goodreads</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref14'>[14]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Goodreads.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref15'>[15]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Part 2, Chapter 83.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref16'>[16]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Part 3, Chapter 20.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref17'>[17]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 3, Chapter 62.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref18'>[18]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Part 3, Chapter 86.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Third excerpt: Archewell: A self-exiled Prince Harry's attempt to create his own court, crown, and halo, using, once again, his mother Diana's image.</p>
<p>On the last day of the year, the Sussexes launched their Archewell website, positioning it as a spiritual reset button and an invitation to a grieving, exhausted, and isolated global population to follow their story of rebirth.</p>
<p>The website, as it was launched on the thirty-first of December 2020,<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> was defined by four elements: sepia pictures of young Harry with Diana, and young Meghan with Doria; a defining statement – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – a link to external charities and causes; and a newsletter signup box. There were no programs, no plans, no specific goals.</p>
<p>The central quote – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – might read like a sacred text, but it is ideological, exclusionary, and calculated.</p>
<p>Harry – his mother’s son – anchors himself to Diana. He is her son, not hers and Charles’. Meghan, on the other hand, presents herself as the maternal bridge between the legacy and the future. She is not Doria’s daughter, she’s not Harry's partner, and most importantly, she’s not a woman, a person, in her own right. She is the mother of their son – the mother of Diana’s grandson.</p>
<p>The quote creates a closed cycle where Diana is the myth, Harry is the heir, Archie is the legacy, and Meghan is the vessel. It leaves no room for Meghan’s own origin, Doria’s contribution – visually present through her picture but narratively erased – Harry’s adulthood, fatherhood, partnership, community, queer families, chosen families. Essentially, it is monarchical mythology dressed in progressive beige.</p>
<p>The main page signed off as “Harry &amp; Meghan.” The use of first names implies raw authenticity and emotional directness. However, every other page on the site referred to them by the titles given to them by The Queen, which are tied to the Institution they supposedly fled, based on hereditary aristocracy, and are irrelevant to American legal structures. The message is clear: they rejected the system but kept the rank it gave them. In other words, they didn’t want to serve the crown but wanted the status that being part of that Institution afforded them.</p>
<p>The website’s visitors were prompted to share how they activate compassion in the world. It might sound caring and warm, but there was no privacy policy explained and no follow-up mechanism, which allows the argument that the invitation was about data mining and audience mirroring.</p>
<p>The core sentence requires further dissection. It sounds like family language, but it is lineage branding. It describes a dynastic position, a biological chain, a closed loop of meaning. This single sentence performs a complete act of gender reduction: Harry is only the son of a dead woman, and Meghan is only a mother. No one is a person – everyone is a role. It is a sanctification of domesticity packaged as empowerment. It reasserts that women are nurturers, men are legacy holders, and parenthood is heteronormative, biological, and binary.</p>
<p>Not one did the site feature the word “father.” Harry’s identity is permanently retroactive – always a son, never a dad. Neither Prince Charles nor Thomas Markle is acknowledged.</p>
<p>As for Doria, she’s visible, but she’s not named, not referred to in a sentence, or even acknowledged as a mother. She’s a prop. Diana is the emotional cornerstone; Doria is the visual moral support. Only one mother is the narrative – and it’s not the black one.</p>
<p>Archewell launched itself as a compassionate, modern, inclusive alternative to outdated power systems. But it revealed itself to be a brand based on inherited grief and not earned service, culturally conservative, and narratively monarchist.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Archewell archived launching page.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Fourth excerpt: The inspiration behind Meghan Markle's claim of marrying Prince Harry three days before their wedding day: Rachel Zane from Suits did it first.</p>
<p><em>(In Harry and Meghan’s hen coop)</em></p>
<p><em>[…]</em></p>
<p><em>Oprah: What are you most excited about in the new life? What are you most excited about? Here, chick, chick, chick, chick.</em></p>
<p><em>Meghan: I think just being able to live authentically.</em></p>
<p><em>Oprah: Mm-hmm.</em></p>
<p><em>Meghan: Right? Like this kind of stuff. It’s so, it’s so basic, but it’s really fulfilling. Just getting back down to basics. I was thinking about it - even at our wedding, you know, three days before our wedding, we got married…</em></p>
<p><em>Oprah: Ah!</em></p>
<p><em>Meghan: No one knows that. But we called the archbishop, and we just said, ‘Look, this, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us’. So, like, the vows we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that was the piece that…</em></p>
<p><em>Harry: Just the three of us.</em></p>
<p><em>Oprah: Really?</em></p>
<p><em>Harry: Just the three of us.</em></p>
<p><em>Meghan: Just the three of us.</em><a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a></p>
<p>In that exchange, Meghan claims that she and Harry were married – “we got married” – by the Archbishop of Canterbury three days before their official wedding.</p>
<p>In an interview given to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the Archbishop of Canterbury clarified that “the legal wedding was on Saturday. I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offense if I had signed it knowing it was false”.<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> He added that he “won’t say what happened at any earlier meetings”.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a></p>
<p>This rebuttal by the archbishop was not needed to establish that Meghan and Harry were not being truthful when they claimed they were wed three days before their televised wedding ceremony.</p>
<p>In fact, under the Marriage Act 1949<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a> – which still governs Anglican marriage – Church of England and Church in Wales weddings can only take place in a church, a chapel licensed for marriages, or, in specific historical exceptions, in a churchyard. Harry and Meghan’s Nottingham Cottage’s backyard – “our backyard” – was not consecrated by a bishop for public worship, not licensed for the solemnization of marriage, and not legally recognized as a venue – whether privately, temporarily, or for convenience.</p>
<p>Moreover, an Anglican wedding requires two witnesses. In the exchange with Oprah, Meghan said it was just the two of them – Harry and Meghan – and the archbishop. Harry confirmed it, saying, “Just the three of us,” and repeated it once. Then, Meghan herself repeated it one more time. There is no legally contracted wedding without witnesses.</p>
<p>Whatever happened – if anything – in that backyard three days before the legal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was not a marriage ceremony. It’s not a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of law: they did not get married “three days before” their wedding.</p>
<p>Defenders of the duchess contend that she meant that the archbishop delivered them a private benediction three days before their wedding. This version uses the archbishop's refusal to “say what happened at any earlier meetings” as proof that some dramatic vow exchange in the backyard did happen. But Meghan did not claim that she and Harry had a private exchange of vows; she claimed that they got “married” in private. She used the word “married”. Neither Meghan nor Harry offered a clarification; they simply repeated, “just the three of us.”</p>
<p>A marriage and a benediction aren’t the same, and the law does not confuse the two. Indeed, a marriage creates obligations, protections, and duties enforceable by law, whereas a benediction does not create any legally enforceable responsibilities, protections, or duties.</p>
<p>Whether the Sussexes did or did not receive the archbishop’s benediction in private doesn’t really matter. A benediction is not a marriage. And whatever did or did not happen three days before the “spectacle”, Harry and Meghan are guilty of altering reality for narrative impact.</p>
<p> The transmission of knowledge depends fundamentally on trust. Considering that knowledge derived from testimony is pervasive in everyday life, and one cannot independently verify every single claim one is told, speakers are granted default credibility until they give a reason for it to be withdrawn. It is an epistemic contract between speaker and listener, built on the presumption of honesty. When the speaker knowingly violates this contract, the presumption of honesty crumbles.</p>
<p>The collapse of the presumption of honesty is triggered not by the nature of the lie but by the intentional violation of the duty to be reliable.</p>
<p>When an audience accepts a testimony, it chooses to believe that the speaker is both sincere in stating what they believe and competent in having formed that belief. There’s a double assumption of sincerity and competence to this choice. When the speaker lies, they violate the sincerity condition, resulting in a categorical shift from a trustworthy informant to a compromised informant. Once someone has demonstrated an inclination to deceive, they fall into a credibility deficit. The default trust necessary to be believed is lost. Once someone demonstrates a capacity for intentional deception, the listener’s trust is lost, as they start entertaining the possibility that any other assertion may also be false. Results: global skepticism toward the speaker, rather than topic-specific skepticism.</p>
<p>Even the smallest of lies justifies broad and sustained doubt toward the speaker’s future claims. It is neither about moral outrage nor about disproving each subsequent statement by the same speaker: it is about recognizing that the foundation for believing those statements has already been voluntarily destroyed by the speaker themselves.</p>
<p>Surprisingly enough – or maybe not – it wasn’t the first time Meghan spoke of a small private wedding that never was. Once upon a career, Meghan portrayed Rachel Zane, a paralegal in pencil skirts, in the American legal drama television series “Suits”. In the series’ fifth season, Rachel Zane testifies in a mock trial at the law firm where she works.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Harvey Specter: Miss Zane, if you got married six weeks after dating the defendant, why are you engaged to him right now?</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Rachel Zane: Because we did it on a whim, and we’d planned to have an annulment. But once we fell more in love, we thought that it might be wonderful to reveal it to our families after we were married again.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Harvey Specter: And how exactly did it go when you got married the first time?</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Rachel Zane: We were in Las Vegas …</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Harvey Specter: Yeah! Yeah! I don’t give a shit where you were. What color was your dress? What color was the cake?</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>[…]</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Rachel Zane: The dress was white, and the cake was vanilla with a buttercream frosting. It was a small ceremony at around 10 PM. And I remember the man who married us like it was yesterday because it was the most special day of my life.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Harvey Specter: When you came up with this story, did Mr. Ross at least give you the courtesy of letting you make up your own memories of your supposedly sacred day?</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Harvey Specter: And I’ve got one more question. Did you vow to remain faithful to Mr. Ross throughout your marriage?</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Rachel Zane: Yes, I did!</em></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><em>Harvey Specter: Yeah! Then I guess when you cheated on him with Logan Sanders, it means you lied to him at that non-existent ceremony, just like you’re lying to all of us right now.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a></em></p>
<p>Meghan performed the “Suits” scene as sixth on the call sheet, and the Oprah scene as the wife of the sixth in line to the British Crown.</p>
<p>The Suits scene and the Montecito scene share key structural similarities.</p>
<p>Both scenes invent a private ritual and lace it with emotional specificity – “the cake was vanilla with butter cream frosting” in the fictional scene; “we have the vows framed in our room” in the Oprah interview – with the intention of overwriting public reality.</p>
<p>While Rachel directly describes the secret wedding as “the most special day”, Meghan indirectly frames it as such, using wording such as “authenticity” and “just the three of us”. The second wedding becomes more of a show than an honest exchange of eternal vows: Meghan literally calls it a “spectacle for the world,” while Rachel is more subtle, implying the second wedding would be to celebrate with family and friends.</p>
<p>An argument can be made that Meghan learned how to invent private ceremonies to assert emotional power and control the public narrative, as well as how to deliver the story with sincere affect and detailed memory cues, from Rachel Zane. And when she needed a beautiful romantic story to tell Oprah, she just recycled a scene from the one show that put her on the map. Then, she called it authenticity.</p>
<p>Meghan’s demonstrably false claim about a secret marriage is proof of the duchess’s ability to candidly recount a moment that never happened. It invites diligent scrutiny of her other, more emotionally charged stories, like claims of helplessness, institutional racism, or suicidal ideation. Indeed, when a testimony framed as a moment of candidness and vulnerability contains a demonstrable falsehood, the entire edifice of that testimony stands compromised. It does not negate every pain or claim, but it justifies the necessity of questioning and thoroughly investigating every other claim.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> “Mark My Words: Meghan Markle Oprah Interview: Read Full Transcript of Duchess and Prince Harry’s Bombshell Confession”, The Sun, January 31, 2024.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Lucy Campbell, “Archbishop of Canterbury: Harry and Meghan’s Legal Wedding on Saturday”, <em>The Guardian</em>, March 30, 2021.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> “Marriage Act 1949”, <em>Legislation.gov.uk</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Suits Official, “Harvey Exposes Rachel for Cheating on Mike, Suits”,</p>
<p>YouTube Video, 4’22, January 29, 2023, author’s transcription.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Fifth excerpt: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's accusation of racism against the royal family: recycling Mohamed Fayed's accusations. It's always about Diana.</p>
<p>After Diana and Dodi Fayed’s tragic, untimely death, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father, alleged that Diana was pregnant with his son’s child, and accused the Royal Family and MI6 of killing them to prevent the birth of the future King’s mixed-race sibling. These sensational claims received extensive tabloid coverage during the late 1990s and the early 2000s.</p>
<p>Fayed Senior claimed that, hours before the accident, Diana had phoned him and told him that she was expecting a child with Dodi and that they were going to announce their engagement on the first of September 1997.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a></p>
<p>He publicly accused MI6 of orchestrating a hit on Diana because they “could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be the stepfather of the future King of England”.<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> He also claimed that Diana had confided in him that Prince Philip and Prince Charles were trying to get rid of her.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a></p>
<p>In January 2004, John Burton, former Coroner of the Queen’s Household, who attended Diana’s only postmortem examination, broke his silence and told the Times newspaper that Diana was not pregnant at the time of her death and that he had “seen into her womb”.<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a></p>
<p>The three-year-long Scotland Yard’s Operation Paget, which concluded in December 2006, investigated all conspiracy claims, including pregnancy and espionage plots. It found no evidence of pregnancy or of a murder plot. Its report concluded that Diana had died from a tragic car accident, and listed driver intoxication and speeding paparazzi as key factors.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a></p>
<p>In April of 2008, a jury in a UK inquest found that the deaths of Diana, Dodi, and Henri Paul were “unlawful killing” by grossly negligent driving. The Coroner, Scott Baker, emphasized that “not a shred of evidence” was found to support MI6 involvement.<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a></p>
<p>Interestingly enough, in August of 2001 - four years after the deaths of Dodi and Diana - Mohammad Fayed had turned to the US media to “seek the support of the American people”, confirming, in no uncertain terms, that “the death was the result of a murder with racism at the core”.<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a></p>
<p>Almost twenty years later, Diana’s son and his wife – the woman so similar to his mum – appeared on an American TV show to blanket accuse the British Royal Family of racism and of refusing to provide security for a biracial child.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> “Al Fayed Attacks UK Royals as ‘Dracula Family’”, <em>CNN</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Emily Burack, “Mohamad Al Fayed Conspiracy Theories About The Royal Family Explained”, <em>Town &amp; Country</em>, December 20, 2023.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> “Al Fayed Attacks UK Royals as ‘Dracula Family’”</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> “Coroner: Diana Was Not Pregnant”, <em>CNN</em>, January 7, 2004.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Lynsey Eidell, “What Was Operation Paget? All About the 3-Year Inquiry into Princess Diana’s Death”, <em>People</em>, December 14, 2023.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> Stephen Bates, “After 11 Years, Diana the Verdict: Killed by a Combination of Henri Paul and Paparazzi”, <em>The Guardian</em>, April 8, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> “Diana Conspiracy Theory Pursued Again”, <em>ABC News</em>, August 30,</p>
<p>2001.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Sixth excerpt: Yes, Lilibet was Queen Elizabeth II's childhood nickname, but, in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's daughter's name, there is another message and it isn't Diana.</p>
<p>On the fourth of June 2021, Meghan gave birth to her and Harry’s second child, a daughter they named Lilibet Diana.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> It is relevant here to look closely at how William and Harry named their respective daughters, as in those names lie the clearest markers of their divergence: one bound to lineage, the other to rupture.</p>
<p>William and Catherine’s only daughter bears the name Charlotte Elizabeth Diana,<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> while Harry’s bears the name Lilibet. Both young princesses carry a tribute to their late paternal grandmother – Diana – and to Queen Elizabeth II – Elizabeth in Charlotte’s name, and its diminutive, Lilibet, in Lily’s.</p>
<p>But the symmetry breaks with the girls’ first names. Charlotte is the feminine form of Charles, a deliberate nod to her paternal grandfather. It anchors her identity in continuity with her paternal grandparents and with her mother, Catherine, as well, since Elizabeth is also Catherine’s middle name.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a> Princess Charlotte’s name, therefore, is a dense, multi-layered gesture toward family, tradition, and royal legitimacy.</p>
<p>By stark contrast, Lilibet Diana carries no such reference to Charles. The absence is conspicuous. There is no obligation to honor a father when naming a daughter – or a son. Yet given the circumstances – the fractured relationship between Charles and Harry at the time of her birth and the symbolic weight of names in royal culture – the omission is telling. Where William’s choice reconciles the past and the present by weaving together Charles, Elizabeth, and Diana, Harry’s choice avoids Charles entirely. The difference is emblematic of the divergent paths of Diana’s two boys.</p>
<p>There is also the spin in Lily’s name. It is fair to assume that, by choosing Lilibet instead of Elizabeth, the Sussexes sought to reframe the then-reigning Queen as simply a great-grandmother. The private childhood nickname was meant to distance the Sussexes from the questions that arose about them naming their daughter after the matriarch of the very institution they’d accused of racism and life endangerment.<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a> It was, in effect, a branding choice – an attempt to keep the link with the Windsors but under the pretense of familial loyalty rather than a dynastic one. The calculation backfired when public and media reaction fixated not on the intended warmth but on the perceived audacity: the Sussexes had stolen the Queen’s childhood nickname.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> The outrage drowned out the marketing play they had strategized, and, instead of humanizing, the choice was read as presumptuous.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Dulcie Lee, “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Announce Birth of Baby Girl”, <em>BBC News</em>, June 6, 2021.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> “The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Name Their Baby”, <em>The Royal Family</em>, May 4, 2015.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> “The Princess of Wales”, <em>The Royal Family</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> Nylah Burton, “Harry and Meghan’s Baby Name Proves They Are Not the Heroes You Thought They Were. And That’s Ok”, <em>The Independent</em>, June 7, 2021.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Tim Teeman and Tim Sykes, “Queen Elizabeth Felt Harry and Meghan Had ‘Taken’ Her Name, Aides Said”, <em>Daily Beast</em>, Jan 15, 2024.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
                                    
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        <itunes:summary><![CDATA[Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.
Filius Regi is available on Amazon in KDP and paperback.
----more----
 
 
First excerpt: The truth about "Prince Harry the soldier": he slept through the Camp Bastion attack.
Harry’s other identity, considering his main one is “Diana’s boy”, is “Harry, the soldier”. After passing his A-levels,[1] Harry decided to join the military, a decision he’ll be hailed for despite the military being a typical career path for male spares in European monarchies. Even his now-disgraced uncle, Andrew of Jeffrey Epstein infamy,[2] had trained as a naval officer at Britannia Royal Naval College, become a pilot, and served in the Falklands War.[3]
The military was the one place that could provide Harry with much-needed structure and discipline. In late 2003, he enrolled in a preparatory course in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Assessment Center with the goal of starting the forty-four-week training course in May of 2005.
In April of 2006, Harry graduated from Sandhurst with the rank of Second Lieutenant in Blues and Royals.
In a lifetime of spin and image building, Harry’s desire, and his arguably selfish need, to serve on the front lines remains a fact. In early 2007, plans for his first deployment to Iraq were made. But following insurgents threatening to target British troops just to kill the “handsome prince”,[4] the Army canceled Harry’s deployment.[5] Harry’s reaction showcased that he was not ready to serve; he’d reportedly thrown a tantrum, pointing out the unfairness of having “dragged my sorry arse in Sandhurst for a year” and then not being allowed to "get out on operations”.[6]
Serving isn’t a reward for completing military training. Serving in the military is not self-serving; it should never be considered an opportunity for a person, regardless of their background, to prove themselves. Being on the front lines stops being serving when it starts endangering fellow soldiers’ lives – something both The Queen and Charles acknowledged.[7] One serves not where and when one wants, but where one is needed and won’t cause harm to the cause one is serving.
This incident highlights two uncomfortable truths: on the front lines, Harry was a liability, and the British Army was aware of it.
And yet, months later, the Ministry of Defense gave in to Harry’s ravenous need for validation and deployed him to Afghanistan. On the fourteenth of December 2007, Harry was secretly flown to Afghanistan amid a media blackout deal, coordinated between the British Ministry of Defense and the major UK news outlets.[8] There, he was stationed at a British-controlled base in Helmand Province, which was part of a wider, NATO-led, multinational combat environment. Harry’s unit frequently coordinated with Gurkha soldiers, Afghan National Army troops, and coalition allies from NATO member states.
Ten weeks later, on the twenty-eighth of February 2008, the Drudge Report, of Monica Lewinsky infamy, broke the news of Harry’s presence in Afghanistan.[9]
The Ministry of Defense, terrified and rightfully so that Taliban fighters would actively target Harry’s unit, ordered the prince’s immediate extraction.[10] A lot could be said about the Drudge Report endangering a coalition unit on active duty for clicks and clout,[11] but would it be fair to hold such a publication to higher standards than the British Ministry of Defense?
Indeed, the real issue was always why the need for secrecy wasn't a deterrent for the deployment. Why was one man’s need for validation deemed more important than the lives of the troops?
The military tour was over; the media tour began. A whole campaign hailing the hero prince was rolled out: Harry gave interviews, footage of his tour was released ]]></itunes:summary>
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        <title>EXCERPT from: FILIUS REGI, THE FALL OF PRINCE HARRY - ARCHEWELL: A SELF-EXILED PRINCE HARRY'S ATTEMPT TO CREATE HIS OWN COURT, CROWN AND HALO, USING, ONCE AGAIN, HIS MOTHER DIANA’S IMAGE!</title>
        <itunes:title>EXCERPT from: FILIUS REGI, THE FALL OF PRINCE HARRY - ARCHEWELL: A SELF-EXILED PRINCE HARRY'S ATTEMPT TO CREATE HIS OWN COURT, CROWN AND HALO, USING, ONCE AGAIN, HIS MOTHER DIANA’S IMAGE!</itunes:title>
        <link>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/excerpt-from-filiusregithefallof-princeharry-archewella-self-exiled-princeharrys-attempt-tocreate-hisowncourtcrown-and-halo-usingonceagainhismother-di/</link>
                    <comments>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/excerpt-from-filiusregithefallof-princeharry-archewella-self-exiled-princeharrys-attempt-tocreate-hisowncourtcrown-and-halo-usingonceagainhismother-di/#comments</comments>        <pubDate>Sun, 02 Nov 2025 21:54:31 +0100</pubDate>
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                                    <description><![CDATA[<p>Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.</p>
<p>Filius Regi is available on Amazon in <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYGXFQ71'>Kindle</a> and <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633070'>paperback</a> formats.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>On the last day of the year, the Sussexes launched their Archewell website, positioning it as a spiritual reset button and an invitation to a grieving, exhausted, and isolated global population to follow their story of rebirth.</p>
<p>The website, as it was launched on the thirty-first of December 2020,<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> was defined by four elements: sepia pictures of young Harry with Diana, and young Meghan with Doria; a defining statement – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – a link to external charities and causes; and a newsletter signup box. There were no programs, no plans, no specific goals.</p>
<p>The central quote – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – might read like a sacred text, but it is ideological, exclusionary, and calculated.</p>
<p>Harry – his mother’s son – anchors himself to Diana. He is her son, not hers and Charles’. Meghan, on the other hand, presents herself as the maternal bridge between the legacy and the future. She is not Doria’s daughter, she’s not Harry's partner, and most importantly, she’s not a woman, a person, in her own right. She is the mother of their son – the mother of Diana’s grandson.</p>
<p>The quote creates a closed cycle where Diana is the myth, Harry is the heir, Archie is the legacy, and Meghan is the vessel. It leaves no room for Meghan’s own origin, Doria’s contribution – visually present through her picture but narratively erased – Harry’s adulthood, fatherhood, partnership, community, queer families, chosen families. Essentially, it is monarchical mythology dressed in progressive beige.</p>
<p>The main page signed off as “Harry &amp; Meghan.” The use of first names implies raw authenticity and emotional directness. However, every other page on the site referred to them by the titles given to them by The Queen, which are tied to the Institution they supposedly fled, based on hereditary aristocracy, and are irrelevant to American legal structures. The message is clear: they rejected the system but kept the rank it gave them. In other words, they didn’t want to serve the crown but wanted the status that being part of that Institution afforded them.</p>
<p>The website’s visitors were prompted to share how they activate compassion in the world. It might sound caring and warm, but there was no privacy policy explained and no follow-up mechanism, which allows the argument that the invitation was about data mining and audience mirroring.</p>
<p>The core sentence requires further dissection. It sounds like family language, but it is lineage branding. It describes a dynastic position, a biological chain, a closed loop of meaning. This single sentence performs a complete act of gender reduction: Harry is only the son of a dead woman, and Meghan is only a mother. No one is a person – everyone is a role. It is a sanctification of domesticity packaged as empowerment. It reasserts that women are nurturers, men are legacy holders, and parenthood is heteronormative, biological, and binary.</p>
<p>Not one did the site feature the word “father.” Harry’s identity is permanently retroactive – always a son, never a dad. Neither Prince Charles nor Thomas Markle is acknowledged.</p>
<p>As for Doria, she’s visible, but she’s not named, not referred to in a sentence, or even acknowledged as a mother. She’s a prop. Diana is the emotional cornerstone; Doria is the visual moral support. Only one mother is the narrative – and it’s not the black one.</p>
<p>Archewell launched itself as a compassionate, modern, inclusive alternative to outdated power systems. But it revealed itself to be a brand based on inherited grief and not earned service, culturally conservative, and narratively monarchist.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Archewell archived launching page.</p>
]]></description>
                                                            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.</p>
<p>Filius Regi is available on Amazon in <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYGXFQ71'>Kindle</a> and <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633070'>paperback</a> formats.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>On the last day of the year, the Sussexes launched their Archewell website, positioning it as a spiritual reset button and an invitation to a grieving, exhausted, and isolated global population to follow their story of rebirth.</p>
<p>The website, as it was launched on the thirty-first of December 2020,<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> was defined by four elements: sepia pictures of young Harry with Diana, and young Meghan with Doria; a defining statement – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – a link to external charities and causes; and a newsletter signup box. There were no programs, no plans, no specific goals.</p>
<p>The central quote – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – might read like a sacred text, but it is ideological, exclusionary, and calculated.</p>
<p>Harry – his mother’s son – anchors himself to Diana. He is her son, not hers and Charles’. Meghan, on the other hand, presents herself as the maternal bridge between the legacy and the future. She is not Doria’s daughter, she’s not Harry's partner, and most importantly, she’s not a woman, a person, in her own right. She is the mother of their son – the mother of Diana’s grandson.</p>
<p>The quote creates a closed cycle where Diana is the myth, Harry is the heir, Archie is the legacy, and Meghan is the vessel. It leaves no room for Meghan’s own origin, Doria’s contribution – visually present through her picture but narratively erased – Harry’s adulthood, fatherhood, partnership, community, queer families, chosen families. Essentially, it is monarchical mythology dressed in progressive beige.</p>
<p>The main page signed off as “Harry &amp; Meghan.” The use of first names implies raw authenticity and emotional directness. However, every other page on the site referred to them by the titles given to them by The Queen, which are tied to the Institution they supposedly fled, based on hereditary aristocracy, and are irrelevant to American legal structures. The message is clear: they rejected the system but kept the rank it gave them. In other words, they didn’t want to serve the crown but wanted the status that being part of that Institution afforded them.</p>
<p>The website’s visitors were prompted to share how they activate compassion in the world. It might sound caring and warm, but there was no privacy policy explained and no follow-up mechanism, which allows the argument that the invitation was about data mining and audience mirroring.</p>
<p>The core sentence requires further dissection. It sounds like family language, but it is lineage branding. It describes a dynastic position, a biological chain, a closed loop of meaning. This single sentence performs a complete act of gender reduction: Harry is only the son of a dead woman, and Meghan is only a mother. No one is a person – everyone is a role. It is a sanctification of domesticity packaged as empowerment. It reasserts that women are nurturers, men are legacy holders, and parenthood is heteronormative, biological, and binary.</p>
<p>Not one did the site feature the word “father.” Harry’s identity is permanently retroactive – always a son, never a dad. Neither Prince Charles nor Thomas Markle is acknowledged.</p>
<p>As for Doria, she’s visible, but she’s not named, not referred to in a sentence, or even acknowledged as a mother. She’s a prop. Diana is the emotional cornerstone; Doria is the visual moral support. Only one mother is the narrative – and it’s not the black one.</p>
<p>Archewell launched itself as a compassionate, modern, inclusive alternative to outdated power systems. But it revealed itself to be a brand based on inherited grief and not earned service, culturally conservative, and narratively monarchist.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Archewell archived launching page.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
                                    
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        <itunes:summary><![CDATA[Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.
Filius Regi is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.
----more----
On the last day of the year, the Sussexes launched their Archewell website, positioning it as a spiritual reset button and an invitation to a grieving, exhausted, and isolated global population to follow their story of rebirth.
The website, as it was launched on the thirty-first of December 2020,[1] was defined by four elements: sepia pictures of young Harry with Diana, and young Meghan with Doria; a defining statement – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – a link to external charities and causes; and a newsletter signup box. There were no programs, no plans, no specific goals.
The central quote – “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother” – might read like a sacred text, but it is ideological, exclusionary, and calculated.
Harry – his mother’s son – anchors himself to Diana. He is her son, not hers and Charles’. Meghan, on the other hand, presents herself as the maternal bridge between the legacy and the future. She is not Doria’s daughter, she’s not Harry's partner, and most importantly, she’s not a woman, a person, in her own right. She is the mother of their son – the mother of Diana’s grandson.
The quote creates a closed cycle where Diana is the myth, Harry is the heir, Archie is the legacy, and Meghan is the vessel. It leaves no room for Meghan’s own origin, Doria’s contribution – visually present through her picture but narratively erased – Harry’s adulthood, fatherhood, partnership, community, queer families, chosen families. Essentially, it is monarchical mythology dressed in progressive beige.
The main page signed off as “Harry &amp; Meghan.” The use of first names implies raw authenticity and emotional directness. However, every other page on the site referred to them by the titles given to them by The Queen, which are tied to the Institution they supposedly fled, based on hereditary aristocracy, and are irrelevant to American legal structures. The message is clear: they rejected the system but kept the rank it gave them. In other words, they didn’t want to serve the crown but wanted the status that being part of that Institution afforded them.
The website’s visitors were prompted to share how they activate compassion in the world. It might sound caring and warm, but there was no privacy policy explained and no follow-up mechanism, which allows the argument that the invitation was about data mining and audience mirroring.
The core sentence requires further dissection. It sounds like family language, but it is lineage branding. It describes a dynastic position, a biological chain, a closed loop of meaning. This single sentence performs a complete act of gender reduction: Harry is only the son of a dead woman, and Meghan is only a mother. No one is a person – everyone is a role. It is a sanctification of domesticity packaged as empowerment. It reasserts that women are nurturers, men are legacy holders, and parenthood is heteronormative, biological, and binary.
Not one did the site feature the word “father.” Harry’s identity is permanently retroactive – always a son, never a dad. Neither Prince Charles nor Thomas Markle is acknowledged.
As for Doria, she’s visible, but she’s not named, not referred to in a sentence, or even acknowledged as a mother. She’s a prop. Diana is the emotional cornerstone; Doria is the visual moral support. Only one mother is the narrative – and it’s not the black one.
Archewell launched itself as a compassionate, modern, inclusive alternative to outdated power systems. But it revealed itself to be a brand based on inherited grief and not earned service, culturally conservative, and narratively m]]></itunes:summary>
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        <title>EXCERPT from: FILIUS REGI, THE FALL OF PRINCE HARRY - PRINCE HARRY, PRINCE WILLIAM, DIANA'S FACIAL BONE STRUCTURE AND THE FOREHEAD OF AGASSI</title>
        <itunes:title>EXCERPT from: FILIUS REGI, THE FALL OF PRINCE HARRY - PRINCE HARRY, PRINCE WILLIAM, DIANA'S FACIAL BONE STRUCTURE AND THE FOREHEAD OF AGASSI</itunes:title>
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                    <comments>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/excerpt-from-filius-regi-the-fall-of-prince-harry-prince-harry-prince-william-dianas-facial-bone-structure-and-the-forehead-of-agassi/#comments</comments>        <pubDate>Sun, 02 Nov 2025 20:51:20 +0100</pubDate>
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                                    <description><![CDATA[<p>Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.</p>
<p>Filius Regi is available on Amazon in <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYGXFQ71'>Kindle</a> and <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633070'>paperback</a> formats.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>The relationship between the two brothers has long been an object of fascination and curiosity. For years, it was believed that Diana’s two sons had a very close, loving, and supportive relationship.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> But in Spare, Harry tells another story.</p>
<p>Harry’s crystallization of his dynamic with William is one of the memoir’s most revealing lines:</p>
<p>“My beloved brother, my arch-nemesis, how had that happened?”<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a></p>
<p>The paradox is deliberate. William is depicted by his own brother as both object of love and object of resentment, both a mirror – “In some ways he was my mirror; in some ways he was my opposite.”<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a> – and a rival – “It was all so obvious, he cared less about finding his own purpose or passion than about winning his lifelong competition with me.”<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a></p>
<p>“My mirror”. Harry doesn’t see William as “other” but as a version of himself that has been elevated. The tension’s not between Harry and William – self and sibling – but between self and idealized self.</p>
<p>Through the prism of the mirror metaphor, William loses his personhood and autonomy – he becomes “another Harry”, one that has more hair, more room space, more sausages, and, crucially, their mother’s bone structure. He is the version of Harry that Harry has always wanted to be.</p>
<p>The mirror also makes William Harry’s nemesis. Harry’s resentment of his brother that clearly stems from a deep-rooted jealousy of the one person who was the closest to their mother<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> - Harry’s glee as he relays William’s “famous resemblance to Mummy”<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a> now “fading”<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a> is shocking – exacerbates the differences between the two brothers and inscribes their dynamic in an Aristotelian frame. When William becomes Nemesis, Harry becomes a tragic hero. This is no longer a brotherly quarrel between two boys who once walked in their mother’s funeral procession – it is a mythic destiny.</p>
<p>Every anecdote from their childhood, every tiny inequality – from William’s “larger half” of the room at Balmoral to William receiving an extra serving of sausage at breakfast – becomes a symbol of institutional hierarchy and yet another proof of Harry’s “nullity”: he’s undeserving of space to exist or to enjoy the smallest pleasures of life.</p>
<p>Small material details are often used in oral traditions as symbols of cosmic orders. Harry, consciously or through the magic touch of his ghostwriter, reproduces that structure. Sausage distribution becomes dynastic law enacted at breakfast.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that William’s closeness with Diana has exacerbated Harry’s jealousy. Diana herself had described William as her “soulmate”.<a href='#_ftn8'>[8]</a> Never does Harry explicitly reference this moment when William, the natural heir to the throne, became heir by maternal election, but his knowledge of it haunts his narrative.</p>
<p>Diana’s “soulmate” mistake leads to one of the most cutting passages of the memoir:</p>
<p>“I looked at Willy, really looked at him, maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in: his familial scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me; his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own; his famous resemblance to Mummy, which was fading with time. With age.”<a href='#_ftn9'>[9]</a></p>
<p>This excerpt betrays the root of Harry’s resentment of his brother. The “Spare” didn’t resent the “Heir” only for being the “Heir” but for his resemblance to their mother.</p>
<p>It is a fact that William resembles Diana in a way that’s more than superficial.<a href='#_ftn10'>[10]</a> He’s inherited her facial bone structure, her gaze, her long upper lip, her smile, her long neck and broad shoulders, and her tall, lean frame. Harry, to his apparent dismay, was cut from the Mountbatten-Windsor cloth.<a href='#_ftn11'>[11]</a></p>
<p>In this context, Harry’s observations should be read as a tally of emotional debt being collected. He looks at his brother – his only brother – and doesn’t see a sibling. He sees a dying mirror.</p>
<p>Harry sees this as a win. Finally, William is losing one of his strongest bonds to their mother – it is not a resemblance that is fading, it is Diana who is fading from William.</p>
<p>William was Diana’s favorite. William looked like her. William carries her legacy. And when Harry sees that physical resemblance fading, he feels vindicated. Many have pointed out that William still looks like his mother – he does. Whether Harry truly thought that William was looking less and less like Diana with time or he’d convinced himself of it, the ugliness of the felt vindication remains.</p>
<p>The baldness dig is another show of immaturity. Harry uses words such as “alarming” and “advanced,” but he’s practically screaming, “my horse is bigger than your horse”. The grandeur of the vocabulary only serves to underline the triviality and pettiness of the observation.</p>
<p>The irony of this remark is stark when one considers the book’s cover design. It deliberately echoes the visual language of eight-time Grand Slam winner André Agassi’s memoir Open, written in collaboration with the same ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer.<a href='#_ftn12'>[12]</a> The adoption of Agassi’s minimalist, confrontational cover format<a href='#_ftn13'>[13]</a> can be seen as a strategic bid to elevate Harry’s narrative into the same register of searing confession and cultural impact.</p>
<p>Yet the imitation falters at the precise point where Agassi’s cover achieves its power: Agassi’s photograph is a close-cropped portrait in which his baldness is starkly, almost defiantly, on display – a visual complement to a book offering the reader an unfiltered account of identity stripped bare. By contrast, Harry’s cover photograph<a href='#_ftn14'>[14]</a> is conspicuously cropped at the top, eliminating any view of his thinning hair. The visual strategy – excluding what Agassi foregrounded – undermines Spare’s claim to radical honesty. And, taken in conjunction with Harry’s comments about William’s alarming baldness, underscores the younger prince’s pettiness and hypocrisy.</p>
<p>While Harry writes that William “cared less about finding his purpose than about winning his lifelong competition with me”,<a href='#_ftn15'>[15]</a> Spare comes across as the autobiography of a man narrating his entire existence as a competition with his brother. A competition he is morally winning. William didn’t defend his girlfriend while Harry did defend his;<a href='#_ftn16'>[16]</a> William resorted to physical violence while Harry never did,<a href='#_ftn17'>[17]</a> William never broke free from the Institution, while Harry did.<a href='#_ftn18'>[18]</a> William exists in Spare only as an extension of Harry’s drama – an unavoidable and narratively necessary Nemesis.</p>
<p>William is both the axis of grievance and the condition of Harry’s self-mythologizing. Without William, there is no Nemesis. Without Nemesis, there is no tragic hero – there is no tragedy to tell.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Christine Liwag Dixon, “From Young Boy to Dashing Royal”, The List, December 7, 2016.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, part 2, chap. 83.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Kathleen Walsh, “Prince William was Princess Diana’s ‘Most Trusted Confidant’”, Marie Claire, April 6, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref8'>[8]</a> James Crawford-Smith, “How Diana’s Advice Has Shaped Prince William’s Life as He Turns Forty”, Newsweek, June 21, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref9'>[9]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref10'>[10]</a> Meredith Clark, “Prince William’s Resemblance to Princess Diana in Viral Video Stuns Fans: ‘Spitting Image’”, Independent, November 29, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref11'>[11]</a> Sarah Nathan, “Prince Harry Looks Just Like Grandfather Prince Philip Did in His 30s”, Page Six, April 12, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref12'>[12]</a> Raphaelle Besse Desmoulières, “Who is J.R. Moehringer, Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter”, Le Monde, January 27, 2023.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref13'>[13]</a> Open, Goodreads.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref14'>[14]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Goodreads.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref15'>[15]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 2, Chapter 83.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref16'>[16]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 3, Chapter 20.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref17'>[17]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 3, Chapter 62.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref18'>[18]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 3, Chapter 86.</p>
]]></description>
                                                            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.</p>
<p>Filius Regi is available on Amazon in <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYGXFQ71'>Kindle</a> and <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633070'>paperback</a> formats.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>The relationship between the two brothers has long been an object of fascination and curiosity. For years, it was believed that Diana’s two sons had a very close, loving, and supportive relationship.<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> But in Spare, Harry tells another story.</p>
<p>Harry’s crystallization of his dynamic with William is one of the memoir’s most revealing lines:</p>
<p>“My beloved brother, my arch-nemesis, how had that happened?”<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a></p>
<p>The paradox is deliberate. William is depicted by his own brother as both object of love and object of resentment, both a mirror – “In some ways he was my mirror; in some ways he was my opposite.”<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a> – and a rival – “It was all so obvious, he cared less about finding his own purpose or passion than about winning his lifelong competition with me.”<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a></p>
<p>“My mirror”. Harry doesn’t see William as “other” but as a version of himself that has been elevated. The tension’s not between Harry and William – self and sibling – but between self and idealized self.</p>
<p>Through the prism of the mirror metaphor, William loses his personhood and autonomy – he becomes “another Harry”, one that has more hair, more room space, more sausages, and, crucially, their mother’s bone structure. He is the version of Harry that Harry has always wanted to be.</p>
<p>The mirror also makes William Harry’s nemesis. Harry’s resentment of his brother that clearly stems from a deep-rooted jealousy of the one person who was the closest to their mother<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> - Harry’s glee as he relays William’s “famous resemblance to Mummy”<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a> now “fading”<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a> is shocking – exacerbates the differences between the two brothers and inscribes their dynamic in an Aristotelian frame. When William becomes Nemesis, Harry becomes a tragic hero. This is no longer a brotherly quarrel between two boys who once walked in their mother’s funeral procession – it is a mythic destiny.</p>
<p>Every anecdote from their childhood, every tiny inequality – from William’s “larger half” of the room at Balmoral to William receiving an extra serving of sausage at breakfast – becomes a symbol of institutional hierarchy and yet another proof of Harry’s “nullity”: he’s undeserving of space to exist or to enjoy the smallest pleasures of life.</p>
<p>Small material details are often used in oral traditions as symbols of cosmic orders. Harry, consciously or through the magic touch of his ghostwriter, reproduces that structure. Sausage distribution becomes dynastic law enacted at breakfast.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that William’s closeness with Diana has exacerbated Harry’s jealousy. Diana herself had described William as her “soulmate”.<a href='#_ftn8'>[8]</a> Never does Harry explicitly reference this moment when William, the natural heir to the throne, became heir by maternal election, but his knowledge of it haunts his narrative.</p>
<p>Diana’s “soulmate” mistake leads to one of the most cutting passages of the memoir:</p>
<p>“I looked at Willy, really looked at him, maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in: his familial scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me; his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own; his famous resemblance to Mummy, which was fading with time. With age.”<a href='#_ftn9'>[9]</a></p>
<p>This excerpt betrays the root of Harry’s resentment of his brother. The “Spare” didn’t resent the “Heir” only for being the “Heir” but for his resemblance to their mother.</p>
<p>It is a fact that William resembles Diana in a way that’s more than superficial.<a href='#_ftn10'>[10]</a> He’s inherited her facial bone structure, her gaze, her long upper lip, her smile, her long neck and broad shoulders, and her tall, lean frame. Harry, to his apparent dismay, was cut from the Mountbatten-Windsor cloth.<a href='#_ftn11'>[11]</a></p>
<p>In this context, Harry’s observations should be read as a tally of emotional debt being collected. He looks at his brother – his only brother – and doesn’t see a sibling. He sees a dying mirror.</p>
<p>Harry sees this as a win. Finally, William is losing one of his strongest bonds to their mother – it is not a resemblance that is fading, it is Diana who is fading from William.</p>
<p>William was Diana’s favorite. William looked like her. William carries her legacy. And when Harry sees that physical resemblance fading, he feels vindicated. Many have pointed out that William still looks like his mother – he does. Whether Harry truly thought that William was looking less and less like Diana with time or he’d convinced himself of it, the ugliness of the felt vindication remains.</p>
<p>The baldness dig is another show of immaturity. Harry uses words such as “alarming” and “advanced,” but he’s practically screaming, “my horse is bigger than your horse”. The grandeur of the vocabulary only serves to underline the triviality and pettiness of the observation.</p>
<p>The irony of this remark is stark when one considers the book’s cover design. It deliberately echoes the visual language of eight-time Grand Slam winner André Agassi’s memoir <em>Open</em>, written in collaboration with the same ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer.<a href='#_ftn12'>[12]</a> The adoption of Agassi’s minimalist, confrontational cover format<a href='#_ftn13'>[13]</a> can be seen as a strategic bid to elevate Harry’s narrative into the same register of searing confession and cultural impact.</p>
<p>Yet the imitation falters at the precise point where Agassi’s cover achieves its power: Agassi’s photograph is a close-cropped portrait in which his baldness is starkly, almost defiantly, on display – a visual complement to a book offering the reader an unfiltered account of identity stripped bare. By contrast, Harry’s cover photograph<a href='#_ftn14'>[14]</a> is conspicuously cropped at the top, eliminating any view of his thinning hair. The visual strategy – excluding what Agassi foregrounded – undermines Spare’s claim to radical honesty. And, taken in conjunction with Harry’s comments about William’s alarming baldness, underscores the younger prince’s pettiness and hypocrisy.</p>
<p>While Harry writes that William “cared less about finding his purpose than about winning his lifelong competition with me”,<a href='#_ftn15'>[15]</a> <em>Spare</em> comes across as the autobiography of a man narrating his entire existence as a competition with his brother. A competition he is morally winning. William didn’t defend his girlfriend while Harry did defend his;<a href='#_ftn16'>[16]</a> William resorted to physical violence while Harry never did,<a href='#_ftn17'>[17]</a> William never broke free from the Institution, while Harry did.<a href='#_ftn18'>[18]</a> William exists in Spare only as an extension of Harry’s drama – an unavoidable and narratively necessary Nemesis.</p>
<p>William is both the axis of grievance and the condition of Harry’s self-mythologizing. Without William, there is no Nemesis. Without Nemesis, there is no tragic hero – there is no tragedy to tell.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Christine Liwag Dixon, “From Young Boy to Dashing Royal”, <em>The List</em>, December 7, 2016.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, part 2, chap. 83.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Kathleen Walsh, “Prince William was Princess Diana’s ‘Most Trusted Confidant’”, <em>Marie Claire</em>, April 6, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref8'>[8]</a> James Crawford-Smith, “How Diana’s Advice Has Shaped Prince William’s Life as He Turns Forty”, <em>Newsweek</em>, June 21, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref9'>[9]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, prologue.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref10'>[10]</a> Meredith Clark, “Prince William’s Resemblance to Princess Diana in Viral Video Stuns Fans: ‘Spitting Image’”, <em>Independent</em>, November 29, 2022.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref11'>[11]</a> Sarah Nathan, “Prince Harry Looks Just Like Grandfather Prince Philip Did in His 30s”, <em>Page Six</em>, April 12, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref12'>[12]</a> Raphaelle Besse Desmoulières, “Who is J.R. Moehringer, Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter”, <em>Le Monde</em>, January 27, 2023.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref13'>[13]</a> <em>Open</em>, <em>Goodreads</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref14'>[14]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Goodreads.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref15'>[15]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Part 2, Chapter 83.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref16'>[16]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Part 3, Chapter 20.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref17'>[17]</a> Prince Harry, Spare, Part 3, Chapter 62.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref18'>[18]</a> Prince Harry, <em>Spare</em>, Part 3, Chapter 86.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
                                    
        <enclosure url="https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/pv8mfc8xdtpe83dk/the_bald_and_the_beautifula36k8.mp3" length="6959437" type="audio/mpeg"/>
        <itunes:summary><![CDATA[Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.
Filius Regi is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.
----more----
The relationship between the two brothers has long been an object of fascination and curiosity. For years, it was believed that Diana’s two sons had a very close, loving, and supportive relationship.[1] But in Spare, Harry tells another story.
Harry’s crystallization of his dynamic with William is one of the memoir’s most revealing lines:
“My beloved brother, my arch-nemesis, how had that happened?”[2]
The paradox is deliberate. William is depicted by his own brother as both object of love and object of resentment, both a mirror – “In some ways he was my mirror; in some ways he was my opposite.”[3] – and a rival – “It was all so obvious, he cared less about finding his own purpose or passion than about winning his lifelong competition with me.”[4]
“My mirror”. Harry doesn’t see William as “other” but as a version of himself that has been elevated. The tension’s not between Harry and William – self and sibling – but between self and idealized self.
Through the prism of the mirror metaphor, William loses his personhood and autonomy – he becomes “another Harry”, one that has more hair, more room space, more sausages, and, crucially, their mother’s bone structure. He is the version of Harry that Harry has always wanted to be.
The mirror also makes William Harry’s nemesis. Harry’s resentment of his brother that clearly stems from a deep-rooted jealousy of the one person who was the closest to their mother[5] - Harry’s glee as he relays William’s “famous resemblance to Mummy”[6] now “fading”[7] is shocking – exacerbates the differences between the two brothers and inscribes their dynamic in an Aristotelian frame. When William becomes Nemesis, Harry becomes a tragic hero. This is no longer a brotherly quarrel between two boys who once walked in their mother’s funeral procession – it is a mythic destiny.
Every anecdote from their childhood, every tiny inequality – from William’s “larger half” of the room at Balmoral to William receiving an extra serving of sausage at breakfast – becomes a symbol of institutional hierarchy and yet another proof of Harry’s “nullity”: he’s undeserving of space to exist or to enjoy the smallest pleasures of life.
Small material details are often used in oral traditions as symbols of cosmic orders. Harry, consciously or through the magic touch of his ghostwriter, reproduces that structure. Sausage distribution becomes dynastic law enacted at breakfast.
There is no doubt that William’s closeness with Diana has exacerbated Harry’s jealousy. Diana herself had described William as her “soulmate”.[8] Never does Harry explicitly reference this moment when William, the natural heir to the throne, became heir by maternal election, but his knowledge of it haunts his narrative.
Diana’s “soulmate” mistake leads to one of the most cutting passages of the memoir:
“I looked at Willy, really looked at him, maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in: his familial scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me; his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own; his famous resemblance to Mummy, which was fading with time. With age.”[9]
This excerpt betrays the root of Harry’s resentment of his brother. The “Spare” didn’t resent the “Heir” only for being the “Heir” but for his resemblance to their mother.
It is a fact that William resembles Diana in a way that’s more than superficial.[10] He’s inherited her facial bone structure, her gaze, her long upper lip, her smile, her long neck and broad shoulders, and her tall, lean frame. Harry, to his apparent dismay, was cut from the Mountbatten-Windsor cloth.[11]
In this co]]></itunes:summary>
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        <title>EXCERPT from: FILIUS REGI, THE FALL OF PRINCE HARRY - PRINCE HARRY THE SOLDIER SLEPT THROUGH THE CAMP BASTIAN ATTACK</title>
        <itunes:title>EXCERPT from: FILIUS REGI, THE FALL OF PRINCE HARRY - PRINCE HARRY THE SOLDIER SLEPT THROUGH THE CAMP BASTIAN ATTACK</itunes:title>
        <link>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/excerpt-from-filius-regi-the-fall-of-prince-harry-prince-harry-the-soldier-slept-through-the-camp-bastian-attack/</link>
                    <comments>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/excerpt-from-filius-regi-the-fall-of-prince-harry-prince-harry-the-soldier-slept-through-the-camp-bastian-attack/#comments</comments>        <pubDate>Sun, 02 Nov 2025 18:21:29 +0100</pubDate>
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                                    <description><![CDATA[<p>Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.</p>
<p>Filius Regi is available on Amazon in <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYGXFQ71'>Kindle</a> and <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633070'>paperback</a> formats.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Harry’s other identity, considering his main one is “Diana’s boy”, is “Harry, the soldier”. After passing his A-levels,<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> Harry decided to join the military, a decision he’ll be hailed for despite the military being a typical career path for male spares in European monarchies. Even his now-disgraced uncle, Andrew of Jeffrey Epstein infamy,<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> had trained as a naval officer at Britannia Royal Naval College, become a pilot, and served in the Falklands War.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a></p>
<p>The military was the one place that could provide Harry with much-needed structure and discipline. In late 2003, he enrolled in a preparatory course in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Assessment Center with the goal of starting the forty-four-week training course in May of 2005.</p>
<p>In April of 2006, Harry graduated from Sandhurst with the rank of Second Lieutenant in Blues and Royals.</p>
<p>In a lifetime of spin and image building, Harry’s desire, and his arguably selfish need, to serve on the front lines remains a fact. In early 2007, plans for his first deployment to Iraq were made. But following insurgents threatening to target British troops just to kill the “handsome prince”,<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a> the Army canceled Harry’s deployment.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> Harry’s reaction showcased that he was not ready to serve; he’d reportedly thrown a tantrum, pointing out the unfairness of having “dragged my sorry arse in Sandhurst for a year” and then not being allowed to "get out on operations”.<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a></p>
<p>Serving isn’t a reward for completing military training. Serving in the military is not self-serving; it should never be considered an opportunity for a person, regardless of their background, to prove themselves. Being on the front lines stops being serving when it starts endangering fellow soldiers’ lives – something both The Queen and Charles acknowledged.<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a> One serves not where and when one wants, but where one is needed and won’t cause harm to the cause one is serving.</p>
<p>This incident highlights two uncomfortable truths: on the front lines, Harry was a liability, and the British Army was aware of it.</p>
<p>And yet, months later, the Ministry of Defense gave in to Harry’s ravenous need for validation and deployed him to Afghanistan. On the fourteenth of December 2007, Harry was secretly flown to Afghanistan amid a media blackout deal, coordinated between the British Ministry of Defense and the major UK news outlets.<a href='#_ftn8'>[8]</a> There, he was stationed at a British-controlled base in Helmand Province, which was part of a wider, NATO-led, multinational combat environment. Harry’s unit frequently coordinated with Gurkha soldiers, Afghan National Army troops, and coalition allies from NATO member states.</p>
<p>Ten weeks later, on the twenty-eighth of February 2008, the Drudge Report, of Monica Lewinsky infamy, broke the news of Harry’s presence in Afghanistan.<a href='#_ftn9'>[9]</a></p>
<p>The Ministry of Defense, terrified and rightfully so that Taliban fighters would actively target Harry’s unit, ordered the prince’s immediate extraction.<a href='#_ftn10'>[10]</a> A lot could be said about the Drudge Report endangering a coalition unit on active duty for clicks and clout,<a href='#_ftn11'>[11]</a> but would it be fair to hold such a publication to higher standards than the British Ministry of Defense?</p>
<p>Indeed, the real issue was always why the need for secrecy wasn't a deterrent for the deployment. Why was one man’s need for validation deemed more important than the lives of the troops?</p>
<p>The military tour was over; the media tour began. A whole campaign hailing the hero prince was rolled out: Harry gave interviews, footage of his tour was released to the public, and he was widely praised as brave and humble.</p>
<p>Harry came out of this experience more confident than ever, viewing himself as a real soldier whose life was ruined, once again, by the British media instead of by a right-wing American publication. He joined the Army Air Corps and started his pilot training in January 2009.</p>
<p>By August 2012, it was time for another Harry scandal, and this time it involved the crown jewels, the ones that should never be on public display. On the twenty-second, TMZ published photos of a completely naked Harry cupping his groin in a Vegas hotel suite during a game of strip billiards.<a href='#_ftn12'>[12]</a> The world exploded. Somehow, the one incident that could have been, and should have been, labeled a youthful indiscretion and addressed in a short statement, then forgotten, became an international scandal.</p>
<p>On the seventh of September, the British Ministry of Defense issued a public statement confirming that Captain Wales had flown into Camp Bastion to begin a four-month tour as an Apache co-pilot gunner.<a href='#_ftn13'>[13]</a></p>
<p>The media’s tone immediately shifted from “drunken naked party prince” to “combat veteran royal risking his life for Queen and Country”.<a href='#_ftn14'>[14]</a></p>
<p>Whether the deployment was planned before the publication of Harry’s naked pictures or concocted in the days after it in yet another effort to save Harry’s reputation, there is no way to know for a fact. And with no hard evidence to back either one of the theories, one can draw one’s own informed conclusion.</p>
<p>A powerful argument for a deployment for optics can be made. Harry’s deployment plans to Iraq were canceled when it became clear that his presence would put the troops at risk. His first deployment to Afghanistan ended when the Drudge Report exposed his presence in Helmand Province. The British Ministry of Defense had then said: “This decision has been taken primarily on the basis that the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier”.<a href='#_ftn15'>[15]</a> This statement clearly indicates that the concerned authorities believed the disclosure of Harry’s presence in an active combat zone posed a threat to the lives of the serving troops. And still, seventeen days after TMZ first published the prince’s naked pictures, the Ministry of Defense was volunteering information about Harry’s presence in an active war zone.</p>
<p>Also, the seventh of September 2012 – when the deployment was announced – was the day after the fifteenth anniversary of Diana’s funeral and of the image of twelve-year-old Harry walking behind his mother’s coffin. On that morning, the British public was emotionally raw, primed to accept the news of Harry’s deployment as heroic without questioning the timing or the reasons it was being announced this time, rather than being kept a secret.</p>
<p>“Safe House”<a href='#_ftn16'>[16]</a></p>
<p>On the tenth, a Taliban spokesperson warned Reuters that they were using all their strength to get rid of Harry<a href='#_ftn17'>[17]</a> and had “informed our commanders in Helmand to do whatever they can to eliminate him.”<a href='#_ftn18'>[18]</a> These threats were not publicly acknowledged by the British Ministry of Defense. And Harry, a declared target of the Taliban whose simple presence endangered the lives of fellow soldiers, was not extracted.</p>
<p>Tragedy struck on the night of the fourteenth of September. Camp Bastion was attacked by fifteen Taliban insurgents, dressed in U.S. Army uniforms, who breached the eastern perimeter fence.<a href='#_ftn19'>[19]</a> During the attack, two U.S. Marines were killed, seventeen UK and American personnel were wounded, six aircraft were destroyed, and support infrastructure was obliterated.<a href='#_ftn20'>[20]</a> The material losses were deemed the worst incurred in a single day since the Vietnam War.<a href='#_ftn21'>[21]</a> Throughout it all, Prince Harry slept.<a href='#_ftn22'>[22]</a></p>
<p>Questions about Harry’s security and his whereabouts during the attacks were immediately raised. British Secretary of State for Defense Philippe Hammond declared that, while Harry faced the same risk in combat as any Apache helicopter pilot, he benefited from “additional security arrangements”.<a href='#_ftn23'>[23]</a>           </p>
<p>These arrangements were enacted “once we knew on Friday night that the perimeter at Bastion had been breached”,<a href='#_ftn24'>[24]</a> and Harry was moved to a secure position under effective guard.<a href='#_ftn25'>[25]</a> American General Sturdevant confirmed that Harry had “a place identified as a safe house in case the base came under attack”.<a href='#_ftn26'>[26]</a></p>
<p>So, at Camp Bastion, Harry “mucked around with everyone else: he ate in the canteen, he wandered around Naafi, and pumped iron in the air-conditioned gym”<a href='#_ftn27'>[27]</a> but, as the spokesperson for the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, Major Martyn Crighton confirmed, he “was never in any danger”.<a href='#_ftn28'>[28]</a></p>
<p>Four months later, after securing the myth of the warrior prince, Captain Wales gloriously returned to London on the twenty-first of January 2013.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Miranda Pell “A-Levels Results of Royal Family Including William, Harry, Kate, Meghan”, Chronicle Live, August 14, 2025.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Max Mada, “Prince Andrew ‘Spent Weeks’ at Epstein Home – Witness”, BBC News, January 6, 2014.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> Mathew Moore, “Prince Harry Will Not Be Deployed to Iraq”, The Telegraph, May 16, 2007.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Moore, “Prince Harry Will Not Be Deployed to Iraq”.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref8'>[8]</a> Bob Satchwell, “Why We Agreed on a Media Blackout on Harry”, The Guardian, February 29, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref9'>[9]</a> “Prince’s Deployment Kept Secret by Media”, CBS News, February 29,</p>
<p>2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref10'>[10]</a> D’arcy Dorna, “Defense Chief Says Prince Harry Being Withdrawn</p>
<p>from Afghanistan for Security Reasons”, Record Online.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref11'>[11]</a> Ben Dowell, “NoW’s Wallis Attacks Drudge Over Harry”, The Guardian, February 29, 2009.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref12'>[12]</a> “Prince Harry Naked Photos During Vegas Rager”, TMZ, August 22,</p>
<p>2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref13'>[13]</a> Max Foster and Laura Smith-Spark, “UK’s Prince Harry Deployed to</p>
<p>Afghanistan”, CNN, September 7, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref14'>[14]</a> “Prince Harry Deployed to Afghanistan”, BBC News, September 7,</p>
<p>2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref15'>[15]</a> Haroon Saddique, “Prince Harry to Be Recalled from Afghanistan”, The Guardian, February 29, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref16'>[16]</a> Jonathan Owen, “Prince Harry Slept Through Entire Camp Bastion Attack”, Independent, October 4, 2024.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref17'>[17]</a> “Afghan Taliban Threaten to Kidnap and Kill Prince Harry”, Reuters, September 10, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref18'>[18]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref19'>[19]</a> John D. Gresham, “Attack on Camp Bastion: The Destruction Of VMA- 211”, Defense Media Network, September 20, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref20'>[20]</a> Richard Taylor-Norton, “Camp Bastion Attack Revealed ‘High Level Complacency’”, The Guardian, April 14, 2014.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref21'>[21]</a> Cpl. Bill Waterstree, “Purple Hearts and Guts of Steel: VMA-211 Marines Recognized for Actions at Camp Bastion”, Marines the Official Website of The United States Marines Corps, August 29, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref22'>[22]</a> Harry Slept Through Taliban Attack That Devastated Camp”, The Nation, October 6, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref23'>[23]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref24'>[24]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref25'>[25]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref26'>[26]</a> Jonathan Owen, “Prince Harry Slept Through Camp Bastion Entire Arrack”, The Independent, October 4, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref27'>[27]</a> Nick Hopkins, “Prince Harry: How the MoD Gambled to Keep Him Safe – From the Media”, The Guardian, January 22, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref28'>[28]</a> “Prince Harry Under Guard During Taliban Attack on Base”.</p>
<p> </p>
]]></description>
                                                            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.</p>
<p>Filius Regi is available on Amazon in <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYGXFQ71'>Kindle</a> and <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633070'>paperback</a> formats.</p>
<p>----more----</p>
<p>Harry’s other identity, considering his main one is “Diana’s boy”, is “Harry, the soldier”. After passing his A-levels,<a href='#_ftn1'>[1]</a> Harry decided to join the military, a decision he’ll be hailed for despite the military being a typical career path for male spares in European monarchies. Even his now-disgraced uncle, Andrew of Jeffrey Epstein infamy,<a href='#_ftn2'>[2]</a> had trained as a naval officer at Britannia Royal Naval College, become a pilot, and served in the Falklands War.<a href='#_ftn3'>[3]</a></p>
<p>The military was the one place that could provide Harry with much-needed structure and discipline. In late 2003, he enrolled in a preparatory course in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Assessment Center with the goal of starting the forty-four-week training course in May of 2005.</p>
<p>In April of 2006, Harry graduated from Sandhurst with the rank of Second Lieutenant in Blues and Royals.</p>
<p>In a lifetime of spin and image building, Harry’s desire, and his arguably selfish need, to serve on the front lines remains a fact. In early 2007, plans for his first deployment to Iraq were made. But following insurgents threatening to target British troops just to kill the “handsome prince”,<a href='#_ftn4'>[4]</a> the Army canceled Harry’s deployment.<a href='#_ftn5'>[5]</a> Harry’s reaction showcased that he was not ready to serve; he’d reportedly thrown a tantrum, pointing out the unfairness of having “dragged my sorry arse in Sandhurst for a year” and then not being allowed to "get out on operations”.<a href='#_ftn6'>[6]</a></p>
<p>Serving isn’t a reward for completing military training. Serving in the military is not self-serving; it should never be considered an opportunity for a person, regardless of their background, to prove themselves. Being on the front lines stops being serving when it starts endangering fellow soldiers’ lives – something both The Queen and Charles acknowledged.<a href='#_ftn7'>[7]</a> One serves not where and when one wants, but where one is needed and won’t cause harm to the cause one is serving.</p>
<p>This incident highlights two uncomfortable truths: on the front lines, Harry was a liability, and the British Army was aware of it.</p>
<p>And yet, months later, the Ministry of Defense gave in to Harry’s ravenous need for validation and deployed him to Afghanistan. On the fourteenth of December 2007, Harry was secretly flown to Afghanistan amid a media blackout deal, coordinated between the British Ministry of Defense and the major UK news outlets.<a href='#_ftn8'>[8]</a> There, he was stationed at a British-controlled base in Helmand Province, which was part of a wider, NATO-led, multinational combat environment. Harry’s unit frequently coordinated with Gurkha soldiers, Afghan National Army troops, and coalition allies from NATO member states.</p>
<p>Ten weeks later, on the twenty-eighth of February 2008, the Drudge Report, of Monica Lewinsky infamy, broke the news of Harry’s presence in Afghanistan.<a href='#_ftn9'>[9]</a></p>
<p>The Ministry of Defense, terrified and rightfully so that Taliban fighters would actively target Harry’s unit, ordered the prince’s immediate extraction.<a href='#_ftn10'>[10]</a> A lot could be said about the Drudge Report endangering a coalition unit on active duty for clicks and clout,<a href='#_ftn11'>[11]</a> but would it be fair to hold such a publication to higher standards than the British Ministry of Defense?</p>
<p>Indeed, the real issue was always why the need for secrecy wasn't a deterrent for the deployment. Why was one man’s need for validation deemed more important than the lives of the troops?</p>
<p>The military tour was over; the media tour began. A whole campaign hailing the hero prince was rolled out: Harry gave interviews, footage of his tour was released to the public, and he was widely praised as brave and humble.</p>
<p>Harry came out of this experience more confident than ever, viewing himself as a real soldier whose life was ruined, once again, by the British media instead of by a right-wing American publication. He joined the Army Air Corps and started his pilot training in January 2009.</p>
<p>By August 2012, it was time for another Harry scandal, and this time it involved the crown jewels, the ones that should never be on public display. On the twenty-second, TMZ published photos of a completely naked Harry cupping his groin in a Vegas hotel suite during a game of strip billiards.<a href='#_ftn12'>[12]</a> The world exploded. Somehow, the one incident that could have been, and should have been, labeled a youthful indiscretion and addressed in a short statement, then forgotten, became an international scandal.</p>
<p>On the seventh of September, the British Ministry of Defense issued a public statement confirming that Captain Wales had flown into Camp Bastion to begin a four-month tour as an Apache co-pilot gunner.<a href='#_ftn13'>[13]</a></p>
<p>The media’s tone immediately shifted from “drunken naked party prince” to “combat veteran royal risking his life for Queen and Country”.<a href='#_ftn14'>[14]</a></p>
<p>Whether the deployment was planned before the publication of Harry’s naked pictures or concocted in the days after it in yet another effort to save Harry’s reputation, there is no way to know for a fact. And with no hard evidence to back either one of the theories, one can draw one’s own informed conclusion.</p>
<p>A powerful argument for a deployment for optics can be made. Harry’s deployment plans to Iraq were canceled when it became clear that his presence would put the troops at risk. His first deployment to Afghanistan ended when the Drudge Report exposed his presence in Helmand Province. The British Ministry of Defense had then said: “This decision has been taken primarily on the basis that the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier”.<a href='#_ftn15'>[15]</a> This statement clearly indicates that the concerned authorities believed the disclosure of Harry’s presence in an active combat zone posed a threat to the lives of the serving troops. And still, seventeen days after TMZ first published the prince’s naked pictures, the Ministry of Defense was volunteering information about Harry’s presence in an active war zone.</p>
<p>Also, the seventh of September 2012 – when the deployment was announced – was the day after the fifteenth anniversary of Diana’s funeral and of the image of twelve-year-old Harry walking behind his mother’s coffin. On that morning, the British public was emotionally raw, primed to accept the news of Harry’s deployment as heroic without questioning the timing or the reasons it was being announced this time, rather than being kept a secret.</p>
<p>“Safe House”<a href='#_ftn16'>[16]</a></p>
<p>On the tenth, a Taliban spokesperson warned Reuters that they were using all their strength to get rid of Harry<a href='#_ftn17'>[17]</a> and had “informed our commanders in Helmand to do whatever they can to eliminate him.”<a href='#_ftn18'>[18]</a> These threats were not publicly acknowledged by the British Ministry of Defense. And Harry, a declared target of the Taliban whose simple presence endangered the lives of fellow soldiers, was not extracted.</p>
<p>Tragedy struck on the night of the fourteenth of September. Camp Bastion was attacked by fifteen Taliban insurgents, dressed in U.S. Army uniforms, who breached the eastern perimeter fence.<a href='#_ftn19'>[19]</a> During the attack, two U.S. Marines were killed, seventeen UK and American personnel were wounded, six aircraft were destroyed, and support infrastructure was obliterated.<a href='#_ftn20'>[20]</a> The material losses were deemed the worst incurred in a single day since the Vietnam War.<a href='#_ftn21'>[21]</a> Throughout it all, Prince Harry slept.<a href='#_ftn22'>[22]</a></p>
<p>Questions about Harry’s security and his whereabouts during the attacks were immediately raised. British Secretary of State for Defense Philippe Hammond declared that, while Harry faced the same risk in combat as any Apache helicopter pilot, he benefited from “additional security arrangements”.<a href='#_ftn23'>[23]</a>           </p>
<p>These arrangements were enacted “once we knew on Friday night that the perimeter at Bastion had been breached”,<a href='#_ftn24'>[24]</a> and Harry was moved to a secure position under effective guard.<a href='#_ftn25'>[25]</a> American General Sturdevant confirmed that Harry had “a place identified as a safe house in case the base came under attack”.<a href='#_ftn26'>[26]</a></p>
<p>So, at Camp Bastion, Harry “mucked around with everyone else: he ate in the canteen, he wandered around Naafi, and pumped iron in the air-conditioned gym”<a href='#_ftn27'>[27]</a> but, as the spokesperson for the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, Major Martyn Crighton confirmed, he “was never in any danger”.<a href='#_ftn28'>[28]</a></p>
<p>Four months later, after securing the myth of the warrior prince, Captain Wales gloriously returned to London on the twenty-first of January 2013.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref1'>[1]</a> Miranda Pell “A-Levels Results of Royal Family Including William, Harry, Kate, Meghan”, <em>Chronicle Live</em>, August 14, 2025.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref2'>[2]</a> Max Mada, “Prince Andrew ‘Spent Weeks’ at Epstein Home – Witness”, <em>BBC News</em>, January 6, 2014.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref3'>[3]</a> Mathew Moore, “Prince Harry Will Not Be Deployed to Iraq”, <em>The Telegraph</em>, May 16, 2007.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref4'>[4]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref5'>[5]</a> Moore, “Prince Harry Will Not Be Deployed to Iraq”.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref6'>[6]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref7'>[7]</a> <em>Ibid</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref8'>[8]</a> Bob Satchwell, “Why We Agreed on a Media Blackout on Harry”, <em>The Guardian</em>, February 29, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref9'>[9]</a> “Prince’s Deployment Kept Secret by Media”, <em>CBS News</em>, February 29,</p>
<p>2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref10'>[10]</a> D’arcy Dorna, “Defense Chief Says Prince Harry Being Withdrawn</p>
<p>from Afghanistan for Security Reasons”, <em>Record Online</em>.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref11'>[11]</a> Ben Dowell, “NoW’s Wallis Attacks Drudge Over Harry”, <em>The Guardian</em>, February 29, 2009.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref12'>[12]</a> “Prince Harry Naked Photos During Vegas Rager”, <em>TMZ</em>, August 22,</p>
<p>2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref13'>[13]</a> Max Foster and Laura Smith-Spark, “UK’s Prince Harry Deployed to</p>
<p>Afghanistan”, <em>CNN</em>, September 7, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref14'>[14]</a> “Prince Harry Deployed to Afghanistan”, <em>BBC News</em>, September 7,</p>
<p>2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref15'>[15]</a> Haroon Saddique, “Prince Harry to Be Recalled from Afghanistan”, <em>The Guardian</em>, February 29, 2008.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref16'>[16]</a> Jonathan Owen, “Prince Harry Slept Through Entire Camp Bastion Attack”, <em>Independent</em>, October 4, 2024.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref17'>[17]</a> “Afghan Taliban Threaten to Kidnap and Kill Prince Harry”, <em>Reuters</em>, September 10, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref18'>[18]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref19'>[19]</a> John D. Gresham, “Attack on Camp Bastion: The Destruction Of VMA- 211”, <em>Defense Media Network</em>, September 20, 2012.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref20'>[20]</a> Richard Taylor-Norton, “Camp Bastion Attack Revealed ‘High Level Complacency’”, <em>The Guardian</em>, April 14, 2014.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref21'>[21]</a> Cpl. Bill Waterstree, “Purple Hearts and Guts of Steel: VMA-211 Marines Recognized for Actions at Camp Bastion”, <em>Marines the Official Website of The United States Marines Corps</em>, August 29, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref22'>[22]</a> Harry Slept Through Taliban Attack That Devastated Camp<em>”, The Nation</em>, October 6, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref23'>[23]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref24'>[24]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref25'>[25]</a> <em>Ibid.</em></p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref26'>[26]</a> Jonathan Owen, “Prince Harry Slept Through Camp Bastion Entire Arrack”, <em>The Independent</em>, October 4, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref27'>[27]</a> Nick Hopkins, “Prince Harry: How the MoD Gambled to Keep Him Safe – From the Media”, <em>The Guardian</em>, January 22, 2013.</p>
<p><a href='#_ftnref28'>[28]</a> “Prince Harry Under Guard During Taliban Attack on Base”.</p>
<p> </p>
]]></content:encoded>
                                    
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        <itunes:summary><![CDATA[Filius Regi: The Fall of Prince Harry is a non-fiction book by Lela Chehade. The book dives deep into Prince Harry’s tragic arc, and the story of how, with the help of Meghan Markle, Harry used the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to build his brand and avoid accountability.
Filius Regi is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.
----more----
Harry’s other identity, considering his main one is “Diana’s boy”, is “Harry, the soldier”. After passing his A-levels,[1] Harry decided to join the military, a decision he’ll be hailed for despite the military being a typical career path for male spares in European monarchies. Even his now-disgraced uncle, Andrew of Jeffrey Epstein infamy,[2] had trained as a naval officer at Britannia Royal Naval College, become a pilot, and served in the Falklands War.[3]
The military was the one place that could provide Harry with much-needed structure and discipline. In late 2003, he enrolled in a preparatory course in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Assessment Center with the goal of starting the forty-four-week training course in May of 2005.
In April of 2006, Harry graduated from Sandhurst with the rank of Second Lieutenant in Blues and Royals.
In a lifetime of spin and image building, Harry’s desire, and his arguably selfish need, to serve on the front lines remains a fact. In early 2007, plans for his first deployment to Iraq were made. But following insurgents threatening to target British troops just to kill the “handsome prince”,[4] the Army canceled Harry’s deployment.[5] Harry’s reaction showcased that he was not ready to serve; he’d reportedly thrown a tantrum, pointing out the unfairness of having “dragged my sorry arse in Sandhurst for a year” and then not being allowed to "get out on operations”.[6]
Serving isn’t a reward for completing military training. Serving in the military is not self-serving; it should never be considered an opportunity for a person, regardless of their background, to prove themselves. Being on the front lines stops being serving when it starts endangering fellow soldiers’ lives – something both The Queen and Charles acknowledged.[7] One serves not where and when one wants, but where one is needed and won’t cause harm to the cause one is serving.
This incident highlights two uncomfortable truths: on the front lines, Harry was a liability, and the British Army was aware of it.
And yet, months later, the Ministry of Defense gave in to Harry’s ravenous need for validation and deployed him to Afghanistan. On the fourteenth of December 2007, Harry was secretly flown to Afghanistan amid a media blackout deal, coordinated between the British Ministry of Defense and the major UK news outlets.[8] There, he was stationed at a British-controlled base in Helmand Province, which was part of a wider, NATO-led, multinational combat environment. Harry’s unit frequently coordinated with Gurkha soldiers, Afghan National Army troops, and coalition allies from NATO member states.
Ten weeks later, on the twenty-eighth of February 2008, the Drudge Report, of Monica Lewinsky infamy, broke the news of Harry’s presence in Afghanistan.[9]
The Ministry of Defense, terrified and rightfully so that Taliban fighters would actively target Harry’s unit, ordered the prince’s immediate extraction.[10] A lot could be said about the Drudge Report endangering a coalition unit on active duty for clicks and clout,[11] but would it be fair to hold such a publication to higher standards than the British Ministry of Defense?
Indeed, the real issue was always why the need for secrecy wasn't a deterrent for the deployment. Why was one man’s need for validation deemed more important than the lives of the troops?
The military tour was over; the media tour began. A whole campaign hailing the hero prince was rolled out: Harry gave interviews, footage of his tour was released to the public, and he was widely praised as brave and humble.
Harry came out of this experienc]]></itunes:summary>
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        <title>IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT: S01: THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY, A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING - E01: IN HIS OWN WORDS, A NULLITY, A SPARE</title>
        <itunes:title>IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT: S01: THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY, A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING - E01: IN HIS OWN WORDS, A NULLITY, A SPARE</itunes:title>
        <link>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/if-the-crown-doesnt-fit-s01-the-story-of-prince-harry-a-tragedy-of-his-own-making-e01-in-his-own-words-a-nullity-a-spare/</link>
                    <comments>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/if-the-crown-doesnt-fit-s01-the-story-of-prince-harry-a-tragedy-of-his-own-making-e01-in-his-own-words-a-nullity-a-spare/#comments</comments>        <pubDate>Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:37:50 +0200</pubDate>
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                                    <description><![CDATA[<p>IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT's season one, THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY: A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING is receipts-first series on Prince Harry’s public arc: the “spare” identity, Oprah (“recollections may vary”), Philip’s funeral optics, the Jubilee boo, Netflix/Spotify deal mechanics, Harry &amp; Meghan, Spare (the “todger” moment), and South Park’s cultural verdict. We unpack platform economics, royal communications, and audience behavior—how Archewell sold grief, how studios bought spectacle, and how the crowd reclaimed jurisdiction. Start anywhere; each episode is short and surgical.</p>
<p>FILIUS REGI: SON OF A KING is available on Amazon: </p>
<p>Kindle: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY</a> </p>
<p>Paperback: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X</a> </p>
<p>Hardcover: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038</a> </p>
]]></description>
                                                            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT's season one, THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY: A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING is receipts-first series on Prince Harry’s public arc: the “spare” identity, Oprah (“recollections may vary”), Philip’s funeral optics, the Jubilee boo, Netflix/Spotify deal mechanics, <em>Harry &amp; Meghan</em>, Spare (the “todger” moment), and South Park’s cultural verdict. We unpack platform economics, royal communications, and audience behavior—how Archewell sold grief, how studios bought spectacle, and how the crowd reclaimed jurisdiction. Start anywhere; each episode is short and surgical.</p>
<p>FILIUS REGI: SON OF A KING is available on Amazon: </p>
<p>Kindle: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY</a> </p>
<p>Paperback: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X</a> </p>
<p>Hardcover: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038</a> </p>
]]></content:encoded>
                                    
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        <itunes:summary><![CDATA[IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT's season one, THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY: A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING is receipts-first series on Prince Harry’s public arc: the “spare” identity, Oprah (“recollections may vary”), Philip’s funeral optics, the Jubilee boo, Netflix/Spotify deal mechanics, Harry &amp; Meghan, Spare (the “todger” moment), and South Park’s cultural verdict. We unpack platform economics, royal communications, and audience behavior—how Archewell sold grief, how studios bought spectacle, and how the crowd reclaimed jurisdiction. Start anywhere; each episode is short and surgical.
FILIUS REGI: SON OF A KING is available on Amazon: 
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY 
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X 
Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038 ]]></itunes:summary>
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        <itunes:duration>1713</itunes:duration>
                <itunes:episode>9</itunes:episode>
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        <title>IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT - SEASON ONE: THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY, A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING</title>
        <itunes:title>IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT - SEASON ONE: THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY, A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING</itunes:title>
        <link>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/if-the-crown-doesnt-fit-season-one-the-story-of-prince-harry-a-tragedy-of-his-own-making/</link>
                    <comments>https://biblionxdaektilik.podbean.com/e/if-the-crown-doesnt-fit-season-one-the-story-of-prince-harry-a-tragedy-of-his-own-making/#comments</comments>        <pubDate>Sat, 25 Oct 2025 23:07:06 +0200</pubDate>
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                                    <description><![CDATA[<p>IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT's season one, THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY: A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING is receipts-first series on Prince Harry’s public arc: the “spare” identity, Oprah (“recollections may vary”), Philip’s funeral optics, the Jubilee boo, Netflix/Spotify deal mechanics, Harry &amp; Meghan, Spare (the “todger” moment), and South Park’s cultural verdict. We unpack platform economics, royal communications, and audience behavior—how Archewell sold grief, how studios bought spectacle, and how the crowd reclaimed jurisdiction. Start anywhere; each episode is short and surgical.</p>
<p>FILIUS REGI: SON OF A KING is available on Amazon: </p>
<p>Kindle: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY</a> </p>
<p>Paperback: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X</a> </p>
<p>Hardcover: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038</a> </p>
]]></description>
                                                            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT's season one, THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY: A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING is receipts-first series on Prince Harry’s public arc: the “spare” identity, Oprah (“recollections may vary”), Philip’s funeral optics, the Jubilee boo, Netflix/Spotify deal mechanics, <em>Harry &amp; Meghan</em>, Spare (the “todger” moment), and South Park’s cultural verdict. We unpack platform economics, royal communications, and audience behavior—how Archewell sold grief, how studios bought spectacle, and how the crowd reclaimed jurisdiction. Start anywhere; each episode is short and surgical.</p>
<p>FILIUS REGI: SON OF A KING is available on Amazon: </p>
<p>Kindle: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY</a> </p>
<p>Paperback: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X</a> </p>
<p>Hardcover: <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038'>https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038</a> </p>
]]></content:encoded>
                                    
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        <itunes:summary><![CDATA[IF THE CROWN DOESN'T FIT's season one, THE STORY OF PRINCE HARRY: A TRAGEDY OF HIS OWN MAKING is receipts-first series on Prince Harry’s public arc: the “spare” identity, Oprah (“recollections may vary”), Philip’s funeral optics, the Jubilee boo, Netflix/Spotify deal mechanics, Harry &amp; Meghan, Spare (the “todger” moment), and South Park’s cultural verdict. We unpack platform economics, royal communications, and audience behavior—how Archewell sold grief, how studios bought spectacle, and how the crowd reclaimed jurisdiction. Start anywhere; each episode is short and surgical.
FILIUS REGI: SON OF A KING is available on Amazon: 
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQPDWBLY 
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/248863302X 
Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/2488633038 ]]></itunes:summary>
        <itunes:author>daektilik</itunes:author>
        <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
        <itunes:block>No</itunes:block>
        <itunes:duration>259</itunes:duration>
                        <itunes:episodeType>trailer</itunes:episodeType>
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