What is driving Prince Harry to increasingly follow in the unfortunate footsteps of the Duke of Windsor?
The two men, both of their generation’s pin-up boys, fled the country when duty called.
In the case of David, the famously glamorous Prince of Wales before his brief reign as King Edward VIII, you could say he didn’t know what he was doing.
But Harry? One glance at the pages of any royal history book would warn you of the disorientation, despair and loss of status that a senior royal on the run experiences.
His great-uncle put up with him after his abdication in 1936, and now with news that Harry may be hoping for a partial return to the royal fold, we see history repeating itself.
Perhaps it’s no surprise: the two royals have a lot in common, even though one was born to be king and the other just a stand-in.
Both adored, both disobedient, both under the spell of an American divorcee, Harry, Duke of Sussex, and David, Duke of Windsor, are separated by nearly 100 years of history, but their stories bear an eerie similarity.
The Duke of Sussex and the Duke of Windsor are separated by almost 100 years of history, but their stories have one eerie similarity. Above: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle photographed for Time100 Talks in 2020; former King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson
David joined the Grenadier Guards at the age of 20 and Prince Harry was around the same age when he joined the British Army.
Both princes were thrown into combat zones at a young age, David in World War I and Harry in Afghanistan.
Both were thrown into combat at a young age – David with World War I duties, Harry actually fighting in Afghanistan – and discovered a camaraderie in the military that they couldn’t find at home.
David joined the Grenadier Guards at the age of 20 in 1914 and hoped to serve on the Western Front.
But he was blocked by the War Secretary, Lord Kitchener, who feared a propaganda coup if the future king was killed or captured by the Germans.
However, he witnessed trench warfare firsthand and narrowly escaped when an enemy shell hit his car.
Harry spent ten years in the Army, serving with distinction and ending as an Apache helicopter commander in Afghanistan.
He later tarnished his record by claiming to have killed 25 Taliban soldiers, something his fellow veterans described as being in poor taste.
War hero Colonel Tim Collins famously said: “We don’t put notches in rifle butts.”
Their military service gave them both a desire to help the underprivileged. In the 1930s, David asked that unemployed miners in South Wales be looked after in their poverty.
Harry focused on the plight of wounded and disabled soldiers when creating the Invictus Games.
This made them both even more glamorous as they amazed audiences with their practical, unpretentious approach and concern for those who needed help.
But both turned to drink and women to escape the pressures of the supposedly glamorous lives they led.
The army gave both men a desire to help the underprivileged. David called for help to be provided for the poor unemployed miners of South Wales, and Harry focused on the plight of wounded veterans.
But both men turned to drink and women to escape the pressures of the supposedly glamorous lives they led.
Both found solace for their problems in women with a stronger personality: David with Wallis Simpson, a very ambitious American divorcee, and Harry with Meghan Markle, who could be described in a similar way.
Harry was memorably photographed naked in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2012, enjoying a drunken game of striptease with a group of women.
He later wrote that he felt filled with “shame and guilt” after the photos were published.
David drank and slept with women more privately, but just as dishonourably, during his 1928 tour of British East Africa, although unlike Harry he never expressed any remorse.
Surrounded as they were by obsequious and parasitic courtiers, both rarely heard the word “No” uttered in their presence, and as a result developed the belief that everything they did had to be right.
That worked as long as they remained working royals, but it created difficulties when they emerged from behind palace bars and were forced to confront the real world.
Both allowed their well-developed persecution complexes to make them unattractive to the public and to their friends.
The Duke was constantly worried about money and refused to pay his bills; Harry was disproportionately concerned about what he claimed was press intrusion.
Both found solace for their problems in women with a stronger personality: Windsor with Wallis Simpson, a very ambitious American divorcee, and Harry with Meghan Markle, who could be described in a similar way.
Both women imposed their will and their thoughts on their husband.
Soon enough, the first duchess grew bored with life as an exiled royal, which begs the question: will the second duchess follow suit?
Both men allowed this love for their chosen other halves to dominate their thoughts, to the exclusion of sound reasoning.
But both women had felt ignored by royalty in general and by courtiers in particular, and fostered in their husbands the belief that there was a better world beyond their royal destiny.
In both cases, this had the effect of destroying the men’s public appeal, and they fled into self-imposed exile.
Both men soon discovered that what seemed like a logical step to them was, to others, a betrayal.
Then each of them began to rely on the company of their wife’s friends and acquaintances, feeling like fish out of water as they spent their exile in Paris and California among people they did not really know.
Both were inspired to write a memoir (for a lot of money), which caused huge scandals and further alienated them from the royal family and the public.
Both issued statements informing the public that they were stepping down from their royal duties.
Windsor came to be hated by his brother Bertie, who was forced to take the throne as King George VI when his elder brother abandoned him and in doing so brought about his early death at the age of 56. In Harry’s case, he alienated the most powerful force in the Royal Family, the future king.
Until the day of his death in 1971, at the age of 75, the Duke of Windsor longed to be invited back into the royal fold.
He was unable to see the damage done and the bitter disappointment he had caused to the millions of people who were once his fans.
Similarly, we now learn that Harry may wish to return to Britain and possibly take on some royal duties.
This latest development is just the latest example of him following in his great-uncle’s footsteps and is likely to have a very similar outcome.
And for one crucial reason: each man apparently did everything he could to distance himself from the only person who could have saved them from the cold: their brother.
Windsor was hated by his brother Bertie, who was forced to take the throne as King George VI when his elder brother abandoned him and in doing so helped bring about his early death at the age of 56.
In Harry’s case, his actions alienated the most powerful force in the current royal family: the future king, Prince William.
It seems that Harry learned nothing from his ancestor’s example.
Tragically, both men shared a stunning inability to grasp what real duty means: that something is expected of you in return for the honors, riches, and adulation you are given.
Even in the real world, nothing is free.
