TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About the Royal Family with Royal Reporter Robert Hardman

Episode Date: August 8, 2026

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Listen to Fidelity Connects on Spotify today and power your next move tomorrow. Structurally within Britain, the monarchy has no power. Is that really true? Well, they might not have executive power. They unquestionably have influence. Can you think of anyone who's ever met 14 presidents? There is what you might call a negative power because the armed forces owe their allegiance to the Mono. No politician can get their hands on it.

Same with the judiciary. Same with the civil service. Same with the honor system. All these things. are in the hands of the wrong people can lead to tyranny. She had various grades of sort of objection, which would start with one raised eyebrow, and then double raised eyebrows.

And then the ultimate one was, are you sure? And are you sure? Are you sure was like a code for, I think you've got to go away and think about this. It's not rational. It's how we've evolved, and it just, it works. Robert Harmon, welcome to Trigonometry. You are, of course, journalists,

but also a chronic level. of a number of royals. The latest book you have is about Elizabeth the second. Delighted to have you on. The royal family is actually a subject that's probably been undercover on trigonometry and fairness, and partly because Francis and I are both a little bit foreign and maybe can't quite understand why the royal family is such a big deal. Why is it such a big deal? It's sort of an integral part of, I think, of what we are, who we are. People don't wake up every day and think, oh, you know, we live in a monarchy. But it does have an underlying force of stability continuity.

It's why it allows Britain, helps Britain sort of punch above its wake diplomatically. Every world survey, global survey, and when they analyze sort of country by country, what does the rest of the world think of first when they think of Britain? They think of the monarchy. They think of the royal family. When I've talked to Upteen diplomats, you know, as soon as they go, the first thing anyone says to them and they're posting is how is the king you know how is the princess how are the royal family and when you look when you stand back and look at the post-war

history as i have done for this book of of britain and you see the part that the queen has played in that in the dismantling of empire and the transition from monocultural to multicultural society at every level the monarchy has played this part and they are this this thread that runs through it all. And I think it's best summed up, actually, in the very sad day of her death in 2022. And it was an extraordinary week. We just changed our head of government,

three days earlier, two days earlier. Suddenly, we were changing our head of state. Now, in most countries, if you change your head of government or your head of state, that can often lead to a degree of protest, turmoil or whatever, whether it's, you know,

Washington, January 6th or other countries. We'd done both. We changed the whole lot in one week and not a shot was fired. There wasn't a protest. It wasn't an angry word. Things just carried on. And there was a lovely letter in the Times newspaper that week saying, dear sir, there's a pint of milk in my fridge. It's seen two prime ministers, two heads of state, and it's still going strong. I wonder what the marmalade seemed. And that sort of summed up that level of just sort of heft stability. It's a sort of bedrock. And we don't think about it all the time, but it's there. And if it's ever challenged, boy, the people suddenly go, oh, hang on, no, we've got to defend this. Yeah. And I've always felt a kind of natural understanding of the connection to history.

I mean, it's a thousand-year history of this country at the very least. Is that one of the reasons it has such a strong sentiment, it evokes such strong sentiment in this country? Because it's maybe one of the very few things left now that really connects the people of this country to it. Well, the history kind of feeds into all that. It's soft power. I've interviewed the man who codified, if you like, invented soft power. Professor Joe Nye of Harvard University, who defined the sort of concept of doing things through influence and charm and persuasion versus brute force and coercion.

He said, well, Britain, you've got two absolutely inalienable self-power assets. One is the English language and all that goes with it, the literature, the culture, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, etc. But he said the other is the monarchy, the royal family. That's something that other people don't have. that gives you an enormous advantage. It says what puts you in the top of the, or near the top of the sort of soft power index. So all these things feed in.

Yes, the history is part of it. It's also, you know, most of the world speaks English. That's for a reason. There's a sort of ongoing debate about the evils of the British Empire, the perceived evils. I mean, the fact is that at a time when lots of countries were spreading their wings around the world. Britain was doing it largely by dint of having a very successful navy and the net result is that large parts of the earth speak English and at the time that was

done in the name of the crown. And to this day, the head of state of this country is the head of the state with the biggest footprint on earth. I mean, the king is a head of state of more of the earth's surface than, you know, President Xi or Vladimir Putin or anyone else by dint of being also a king of Canada and Australia and New Zealand and Papua New Guinea in 15 countries in total. So the crown is a very, it's a sort of unique among the monarchies in the world. There are 27, I think, it is monarchs in the world, but the one that, you know, the one that doesn't really need an introduction when you say the queen or the king. You know, I think most people assume you're talking about this one.

That's really interesting. And you mentioned soft power a number of times. It's interesting because structurally within Britain, the monarchy has no power. But in terms of its influence, I mean, you mentioned interviewing President Trump for the book. That's, I think, a very good example of where someone is a very prickly character to put it very mildly in Donald Trump, difficult for some British leaders to get on with. Actually, the monarchy was an instrumental part of maintaining that relationship, wasn't it? absolutely was. I mean, the only reason I got through the door of Mar-a-Lago's because I was there to talk to him about the Queen. I mean, as a British journalist, I wouldn't have got near the place. But, you know, we had a slightly dicey start when he sort of, he asked me if I was going to play golf. I said, you don't play golf. You don't play golf and you're British? What? But we, I said, well, we're here to talk about the late Queen because he was the last state visitor of her reign. I mean, she met pretty much everyone of any substance from the

the mid-early part of the 20th century right up to 2022. And he was her last state visitor. He came in 2019 and then COVID hit and she was ill. So he was the last. And we had several chats, actually. It was purely because of his affection for her. And it was very interesting. He didn't want to talk about British politicians at all.

We talked about all sorts of other things. I'm only to sit down with the president. I ended up having breakfast with him and dinner and a few other chats as well. And other people are there. The conversation is going this way and that. But when it gets on to Britain, it's usually through the prism of the monarchy. And President Trump is, he's very proud of the fact that he's half British. His mother was a McLeod from the Isle of Lewis.

He feels a sort of connection. And that doesn't manifest itself in the relationship. People talk about the special relationship. It's not particularly special between the White House and Downing Street. I would say it is special and historically special between the White House and Buckingham Palace. I mean, the late queen met 14 presidents. There's no one in history. No one ever has met and known 14 presidents.

And for another book, I interviewed President George Bush, Jr. And I said, can you think of anyone who's ever met 14 presidents? Because you were one, and so was your dad. I said, no. Henry Kissinger might have met a dozen, max, maybe 10. But the queen had that depth of familiarity. And so does the king. I mean, the king, our present king, first went to the White House in 1970 as a student

and had a 90-minute tutorial in the Oval Office with Richard Nixon, it was president at the time, and has met and known every president since. So you get that degree of connection with all these governments and countries and personalities around the world. And it's extraordinary. I mean, a meeting with Elizabeth II was a kind of bucket list top ten for every world leader, really during their time in office. And that's why Donald Trump was very happy to sit down and talk about it.

And I was going to ask you about the power. Am I, you know, I mentioned that structurally within the British political system, the monarch has no power. But is that really true in the sense that, you know, when the prime minister comes for a cup of tea, the monarch might be? Prime Minister, have you considered, you know, this?

Does that happen? Yeah. They does. Obviously, there's executive power And no monarch's going to sort of tread on that. I mean, you know, it's often said that the monarch would have to sign his or her own death warrant if Parliament decided it. And they are obliged to follow formally the advice of the prime minister. The prime minister gives the monarch, said something on advice.

It's like it's effectively an order. They are a public servant. But at the same time, well, they might not have executive power. They unquestionably have influence. And they can sort of steer the direction of things. they can sort of set a tone. And it is a sort of formidable power with a small P. Just to be able to do things like,

I mean, we just saw it with the King's state visit to the USA the other day. Or with the late Queen's state visit to Ireland in 2011. These are moments where the monarch can do stuff that politicians just can't do. It's to sort of reset the dial. It's to sort of set a direction. I mean, you know, the late Queen was not a confrontational person, but she was one of the few people in public life who was very happy talking about her faith, for example. And I think she set a sort of a dialogue, a sort of capacity for a sort of multi-denominational, multi-faith dialogue.

But, you know, it wasn't, we don't discuss very much. But I think, and I've spoken to various faith leaders in the course of writing my books, And they will say that the way that she would, you know, she was often the only major public figure in British public life who would be seen very happily chatting to newly elected black leaders or religious leaders or Muslim leaders or whatever. And that sent a sort of subliminal signal of sort of harmony, if you like. So they do have these powers. they can, you know, whether it's setting trends or, I mean, you know, the king's lifelong devotion to the planet, for example, and it was deemed pretty eccentric when he first started talking about pollution and the threat to the climate back in the 70s. It's become an orthodoxy,

and certainly I've seen him at things like the COP summit where, you know, people come up to him and say, we kind of got this whole thing going, because he did. He sort of set up a sort of pre-Summit summit in 1990, in Brazil, which led on to what was called the Earth Summit, which led onto the first COP summit, and now we're on to COP, I don't know, what are we on, 30 or something? You know, he's been there all along. So, yeah, the power is there in terms of influence.

And it's also because, and this is a very fascinating story that you talk about in the book, is that she has influence, but she can also not engage with politicians, if she so chooses. The most, I would say notorious example of that is with Boris Johnson. So let's talk about that a little bit, because I don't think people are aware of that story. Yeah, there is definitely a, there is what you might call a negative power. One of the great strengths of the monarchy is that because the armed forces owe their allegiance to the monarch,

no politician can get their hands on it, same with the judiciary, same with the civil service, same with the honour system, all these things that are in the hands of the wrong people can lead to tyranny and whatever. That doesn't happen in the UK. But as you say that, that sort of non-engagement, I mean, when Boris was sort of being pushed to, he was about to resign, everyone was sort of terrified that he might actually just sort of go and call an election. He couldn't just do that. He would have to get the approval, or get the, the, the, the, the formal approval from the sovereign. And so, I mean, obviously, the monarch is never going to stop the elected Prime Minister

from doing what the elected Prime Minister wants to do on the basis that they're doing it for the right reasons and it's being done in the right way. And so, yeah, at that time, there was a worry that, you know, Boris might just pick up the phone and go, I'm thinking of having an election. The Queen might say, oh, that's very nice. Right, I've got her approval, that's fine. I've gone down, let's have an election. It didn't happen.

He resigned anyway. And as it happens, had huge respect for the queen. So I don't think that was ever likely that he was going to sort of bamboozle her. But yeah, you know, you have just, you know, just by just by dend of it, almost a raised eyebrow. I mean, the queen had sort of, as I said, she wasn't a confrontational person. She didn't like having arguments. She wasn't like kind of Queen Victoria who like sort of. you know, get quite, hang on what do you do?

Wasn't her style. But she had various grades of sort of objection, which would start with one raised eyebrow and then double raised eyebrow. And then the ultimate one was, are you sure? And are you sure was like a sort of code for, I think you better go away to think about this. And there were moments like that. I mean, there might be little things,

but in particular areas like defense, for example. There's quite a lot of are you sure about some of the defense reforms. I mean, sometimes you just come straight out with it. I remember interviewing George Osborne for a previous book. And the Queen had come up to him in a state banquet and said something along the lines of, what are you doing with my bagpiping school? The smallest establishment of the British Army is the British Army School of bagpiping in Scotland. And George Osborne said, I'm not sure, but I'll find out.

He went into his office the next day. Is there a school of bagpiping? Are we closing it down? And if we are, we're not anymore. And the Army School of Bagpiping survived to pipe another day. And one of the things that really comes across in the book, Robert, is this is a person and who played her position to perfection right the way through from when she became monarch to when she passed away a number of years ago.

And if you look at the world from when she was on the throne for the first time, Winston Churchill was Prime Minister right the way through to Liz Strass. You can say diplomatically different types of prime ministers. But the way that the world has changed is remarkable. But she almost navigated it to perfection, didn't she? No, I mean, you're absolutely right, Francis. She was, it's why, in a way, talking about a second- Elizabethan age, it doesn't really work because it was such a huge span of time.

You know, when she became queen, half the nations on earth that exist today just didn't exist then. You know, they've evolved since, new boundaries, titles, constitutions, flags, you know, names. I mean, you know, Yugoslavia was around then. It's not a thing anymore. There were two Germany's. And she reigned through all that. When she first came to the friend, the Korean War was still going on, which was essentially more or less in, in fighting terms, an extension of the Second World War. And that was happening. We were still on rations when she came.

As he said, Churchill was in Downing Street. And so she's rained through, you know, the jet age was just starting. And she rained through the space age. And then along came the digital age. You know, she's been through all that. And yet, at no point did she appear to be running out of steam. There was no cry in her late years saying, oh, we better pension her off. You know, it's time for her to step aside.

In fact, the older she got, the more her authority kind of went up. She was sort of more and more revered. She was a sort of timeless figurehead. And I think that that does go with monarchy. We do have that sort of sense of, you know, the king is dead long with the king. You know, it just goes on and you don't retire. I mean, towards the end of her life, there was a bit of a run on monarchies in the sort of 20 teens, if I can call it that, about 2013, 2014.

you had the king of Spain suddenly said, I'm handing over to the next generation. The king of the Belgian said, I'm done. The Queen of Holland said, over and out. Who else? There was the Emir of Gaza, did the same, all in the space of year. And then finally the Pope, the Pope, the Pope abdicated, effectively. The Pope is a sort of sovereign figure. And all that in the space of year.

And these are figures who were of a similar age to the Queen. And it just didn't occur to her. It didn't occur to us as a country. that she would stand aside because she took an oath, it's a job for life. And I think that goes with that is, you know, she was very good at adapting. She did adapt. She moved with the time. She was never ahead of the times.

And the king's the same. You know, he once said to someone, I don't want to be ahead of the curve, but I don't want to be behind the curve. You know, you just got to move with it. And that's what she did. I mean, the monarchy, you look at the monarchy she inherited from her father in 1952. It was a sort of almost an Edwardian, if not Victorian structure. I mean, lots of people doing absolutely unnecessary jobs that weren't needed with sort of crazy titles. The thing was essentially at the top end, it was all done on kind of connections.

I mean, the monarchy now is run, it's entirely, the management of it is meritocratic, the jobs, the duties, the roles, the pay. It's all benchmarked against sort of other public sector. So she did take this institution and move it into the modern era, but at the same time keeping that element of mystique, which is part of what it's about. You know, you've got to have scarcity value. There's got to be a sort of thrill, a sense of excitement when you walk through the door of, say, Bucking Palace.

Otherwise, it's not special. And people know that. There is this, what I call the sort of royal paradox, that we want the royals to be just like us, but we also want them to be completely different. We don't just want to see them wandering down the street with the Sainsbury's shopping bag. People keep going about, oh, you know,

we've got to have a bicycling monarchy like the Scandinavians. I once interviewed the king of Norway, I said, do you ride a bicycle? He went, no, are you always going on about bicycling monarchy? I'm running a bicycle since I was a teenager. But, you know, we had this idea that they should somehow be more democratic. Well, I mean, the whole idea of monarchy, it's not fundamentally democratic.

It's a whole point of it. It's fundamentally exclusive, right? That's the point of it. It's superior in some ways. The pomp and it's one era where you kind of tolerate pomp in this country. Well, you encourage it. If you said, you know, we're going to have a coronation in, you know, without crowds or I tell you what, let's just flog the crown jewels or, you know, why bother with the trooping the color? I mean, these are all things that people love.

They understand that these aren't exercises in sort of military power or, or. or they're not demonstrating some sort of lauding over everybody else. I think it was a rather powerful moment in the king's coronation. And you see him. He's sort of stripped down to his shirt, he's anointed, and then he's plumped in his throne. And then gradually he has all these sort of things heaped on him. He's got sort of sceptres and tunics and armils and rings and the coronation glove.

And then finally, you know, he's actually sitting, he can't move because he's got so much stuff. And then the crown goes on his head. And you get a sense of, yes, you're wearing the biggest diamond in the world. These are priceless treasures. But actually, you are a servant. You know, this is, this is, you're putting all this song because it represents what you have to do. It's not, it's not like, yeah, have the biggest jewelry set in the world.

It's like, all this is, this is sort of symbolic. And I think sometimes people forget that, but they are ultimately, as I said earlier, they're public servants. I'm going to be honest with you. I used to think grilling was simple. Meat goes on, meat comes off. You look vaguely competent in front of your mates. Jobs are gooden. Then I tried to grill anything that wasn't a burger or a steak.

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For a limited time, our audience gets 10% off with our exclusive link. Head to hexclad.com slash trig. That's H-E-X-C-L-A-D.com forward slash trig. Tell them trigonometry sent you. Do you think some of the challenge, though, comes from the fact that at one point, those things were about signaling Britain's superiority and strength, and the more that goes into the past and the more Britain adapts to its current role in the world, which isn't that, that may affect how the monarchy is perceived?

Well, it's a very good point, Constantine. I mean, it goes back to this point. You've got to move with the time. So, yeah, once upon a time, obviously monarchs were out. absolute and there's been a sort of gradual transfer of powers along the way to what we have now which is a constitutional monarchy so you know people understand that the monarch is not as I said it's not it's not executive power but it's it's a break on unreasonable authority and it just it's it's a pressure valve if if we if people in this country hate the government

and they hit the streets and get very angry, that's fine because they can vent that at an election. They can chuckle that hatred at the houses of parliament. But the head of states at the other end of the mouth, the head of state is different. You know, this is a unifying, it's a sort of bonding force. And I think, you know, it's very healthy. Some people say, our politics is so sort of, you know,

it's so confrontational. everyone's shouting or whatever. I don't think that's particularly bad. I think you've got a very active, sometimes feebrile, but very dynamic political arena at one end of SW1. And then you've got this very solid bit of the other that just sort of make sure that everything kind of ticks along and leads the politicians to get on with it. And I just think it works. It's not rational. I mean, if you were starting a new country tomorrow, you wouldn't think, oh, we've got to find one family and give them everything shiny and portion perpetuity. I mean, you wouldn't. But it's, it's how we've evolved. And it just, it works. I mean, there's a, there's a rather interesting

survey that comes out every year, which I was like looking at called the UN Development Index. And it's essentially the UN sort of index and where's, what's the best country in the world? And it has various metrics such as life expectancy, education, income, GDP, all the stuff. And they put it through the sort of the algorithm. And every single time, in the top 10, about half of monarchies, the top 20, I think it's 12 out of 20, are monarchies. And when you consider it's 193 countries, but only 40 are monarchies, that's a disproportionate result. And these are constitutional monarchies? These are not the absolute ones like Saudi and whatever, they come in a bit further down. remember. If you look in the top 10, Britain isn't in the top 10 actually, but you've got Norway,

Sweden, Denmark, yeah, Denmark, and Australia, which of course the king is king of Australia. And then you look at the top 20, Britain's in there, I think, New Zealand and Canada come in there. So, yeah, of course, it's absurd to say that by having a hereditary state, you've got a longer life expectancy. I mean, I wouldn't posit that as a sort of logical argument. But you can look at the at that sense of stability and continuity, what a modern constitutional monarchy, that's a sense of confidence, if you like, that it gives

a country. By the top one is Switzerland, I think. I mean, you've got others in the mix, including Ireland's right up there. It's very clearly not a monarchy. Can't stand the monarchy. But overall, it shows that when people say, oh, it's

such a, sort of so backward, why don't we grow up as a nation? We should be going to grow up as a nation and modernize and why we've got this sort of throwback system, to which I'd say, well, if you want to grow up as a nation, just look, all these countries, you're saying Norway and Sweden and Denmark, Japan, Japan doesn't deserve a monarchs, got an emperor for gone sake. You know, they seem to deal right with that. So it's just a system that, like I said, it's evolved. I think it would be incredibly unsettling, damaging and frankly constitutionally suicidal to try and dismantle it. It just,

works, don't fix it. I love the fact that we're talking about dismantling because what Queen Elizabeth saw over her reign was essentially dismantling the last vestiges of empire. So why don't we talk about that? Because that's very interesting. Yeah, I mean, that's a fascinating. I'm glad you raised that because, I mean, that was her, what set her apart from all the other monarchs when she came to the throne was all her predecessors had sort of were expected to make Britain great, not again, because it already was great. You know, it's this idea of, you know, you've got to consolidate power. We've got to make the empire strong and hold on to all these possessions.

She comes in and the British Empire has effectively gone in 1947 with the partition of India and in just evolving as this new concept of the Commonwealth, the modern Commonwealth. And her job is not to consolidate an empire. She's her father that was crowned emperor, so was his father and his father and his mother and everybody. You know, she wasn't, the empire had gone. She was all about dismantling it, but doing it amicably. So basically, still, I mean, there was still a lot of the world was a British colony in 1952. And I think she would regard her greatest achievement as creating the Commonwealth as moving from an imperial structure to a post-

imperial structure. It's happened amicably and constructively. But what I think we are seeing now is a change in tone. So it was a very forward-looking thing. A lot of these young countries were becoming democracies. They wanted help. She loved sort of holding these Commonwealth summits, these leaders. I think felt because these were young countries finding their feet and here was this big establishment figure, the queen, who would meet them and treat them as equals. And there was a real sense of kind of harmony at these Commonwealth events.

It's one of them. Mrs. Thatcher fell out with the Commonwealth famously in the 80s, but the rest of them, they felt a sort of kinship. And it did all sorts of good things to Commonwealth. I think it was one of the driving forces in dismantling apartheid. example in South Africa. And as we've gone on now, there's been a sort of change of attitude and sort of looking forward and thinking, you know, these countries are growing and becoming stronger

and more independent. Now there is a sort of a rearward glance and saying, well, hang on, the only reason you're in the Commonwealth is that you were colonised and that this was a bad thing and that this must now be atoned for. And so you have this reparations debate starting to sort of build. And I think it's a very difficult one for both the government, the British government, but particularly for the monarchy to handle, because obviously empire was conducted in the name of the crown. And the crown, there's a direct linear link. Because I think it was the prime minister of Barbados who said that they no longer want the royal family being the official head of state, which I don't think even 30 years ago, that would have been, that would have been

contained as an idea. But it became very mainstream, very quickly, that conversation. It did. I mean, it happened actually just before the Queen died. It happened at the end of 2021 when Barbados, as you say, had been a, when all these former colonies went independent, they were all given the option. What do you want to be? Do you want to be a presidency or do you want to carry on with the crowd? And a lot, most actually, said, no, I want a president. You want to stand on her own two feet. But a lot could see the advantages in having the crown as this sort of, you know, you're trying to build a new nation. It's actually quite useful. It's quite cheap as well. You haven't got to start worrying about

having a separate residence and all the rest for a president because your head of state pays her own bills. And there was a very interesting conversation in the 70s or 80s, in fact, when the then prime minister, I think it is, prime minister of Antigua. a Lester Bird, was talking to Fidel Castro and said to him, I'm thinking of dumping the monarchy and we're going to become a republic. And Castro said, well, hang on a second. Why do you want to do that? Well, we know we're going to stand on her own two feet. And Castro said, well, does the queen interfere in your politics? And he said, no. Is she good for business? Is she good for tourism? Yes. Well, why do you want to do that? And I know this happened because,

Because Lester Bird regaled this conversation to Sir Sani Ramfald, who was one of the great Secretary-General's of the Commonwealth, who told me for my book. So, you know, it's gospel. Fidel Castro was a fan of the monarchy. You know, go figure. There you go. That's the title of the episode.

Some business advice from one of the most famous communists in the world. I would imagine a lot of the psychodrama that we now see with the royal family, because there's the monarchy and then there's the royal family, somewhat separate things, actually, in some ways. is actually very much part for the course in terms of history. I mean, the royal families have always had the, you know, the spares and the others and all of this scheming and plotting and whatever.

But we live in a very different age now where the power of the media and social media and the ability for people to see into that world, to discuss that world, it must be so difficult for them to manage all of the different things that we've seen. I mean, I think the death of Princess Diana was the beginning of it, but now, of course you have, you know, Harry and Megan, then you have Prince Andrew and all of this stuff.

What impact will all of this have on the Royal Family and on the Monarchy? Well, you're absolutely right that it's a completely different media landscape. I mean, of all the changes, I think, that Elizabeth II reigned through was the media landscape. When she started, it was completely reverential. and the monarchy called the shots. And then by the end it's 24-7 news, rolling news, social media, everything else. And that does make it difficult. However, I think as long as the public can understand that they are a family.

They're an institution and they're a family. And every family has its tricky members. And so, you know, the king, some more trickier than others. And when you think about it, I mean, the right at the end of the Queen's reign, you know, you had the start of the kind of Andrew catastrophe unfolding with his news interview in 2019. And I think luckily she didn't have to see how that would unfold after her death. But right away at the start of the King's reign, I mean, he took the throne in September 22. by a late October 22,

you started, you had the first sort of trailers appearing on Netflix for Harry and Megan's six-parter basically complaining about the monarchy. You had the whole new series of the Crown depicting Charles in a very unflattering light, someone who was sort of constantly at war with his wife and trying to unseat his mother from the throne.

You had all these things bubbling under, and then that only got worse because as, you know, as the Harry and Megan show kind of went out. There was lots of publicity with it, them saying how horrible life was in Britain and the monarchy didn't treat them very well. And then as soon as that was over, we were straight into the launch of Harry's book, Spear, which was full of unflattering remarks. And all that, of course, followed on from the Oprah Winfrey interview where the couple had accused the monarchy of all sorts of things, natively racism. And you'd think at the start of a rain,

that's really not very helpful. You've just come in, you're a new king. But when you look at the polling, this is what's interesting, the polling pretty much flatlines all the way through that. You've got about a three-month period of what someone at the palace described to me as headwinds from California.

Sometimes those headwinds were quite strong. But it just didn't make any great difference. You know, overall, most people could understand, yeah, the family's got problems, but as an institution, as a form of government, we're broadly, we're happy with it. And then you get things like the whole Andrews saga. And the king, I think, I mean, he reacted,

I was surprised at the severity of the punishment that was dulled out to Andrew almost immediately. As soon as it turned out that in that news night interview that he'd lied about severing his links with Epstein, he wasn't just told you're not HRA, or you're not Duke of York anymore. I mean, he was stripped of everything, the whole lot, all the honors, everything. He was taken back, he was born a prince, but even that was taken away from his birthright

was stripped from him. Everything went. And that was, that was decisive. And barring, I mean, given that he's been arrested, so who knows where things go from here, the king is the head of judiciary, so he has to tread carefully. But I mean, you could hardly have dispatched Andrew to a more of a sort of internal Siberia, if you like, than a sort of farmhouse at the end of a lane in the middle of nowhere in Norfolk. That's where he is.

So, yeah, he's a blot on the royal name, Andrew. But he's still, people can understand that the monarchy is different. I don't think it's done any great damage to the idea of constitutional monarchy. I mean, it's clearly important. embarrassing for the House of Windsor. But, you know, the monarchy moves on, where it would have been, I think, very dangerous if he'd been in line to the throne. If there's actually any serious chance of him being our head of state at that point, I think, you know, the monarchy would have been in great trouble. But he's not. He's disposable. And one day he will be gone. Do you think that part of the plot, and this is maybe the one blemish on the impeccable legacy of the late queen, as you say, is that she was not the one. that dealt with Prince Andrew, now Andrew, as harshly as the king is now done.

And in fact, some say, was very protective of Andrew, which, look, if you have kids, you've seen your wife, it's very difficult for a mother to discipline her children, particularly, even when they've done something terrible. But is that perhaps a fair critique? I think it is, it's fair to apportion a degree of blame. the late queen. I think the way that she's effectively now, because she's conveniently no longer around, we just pin everything on her and say it's all her fault. Andrew is her fault. I totally disagree with that. I mean, I went into some detail in this in the book. I mean, there's no question

Andrew was behaving monstrously long before the Epstein stuff came to light. Really? Yeah, yeah. What was you doing? He was just throwing his weight around. You know, he was just boorish. He'd be rude to people. I mean, I interviewed David Cameron for the book, who told me one of the hardest things he had to do. And it was quite early on in his premiership was to go to the Queen and say, I'm afraid I'm sacking Prince Andrew as a trade envoy.

When he left the Navy in 01, the Queen was desperate to keep Andrew in the Navy because there wasn't really anything for him to do. And then the Navy said, look, we've run out of road here. He's, we can't give him anything to do. He's no longer ours. So he left the Navy. And it was the government prodded along by

at the time a very senior labor figure called Peter Mandelson who came up with the idea of a trade envoy and so you know the queen was obviously behind this I mean great it's a sort of you know got we've got him a job there's something for him to do but it was the government who came up with this idea of a trade envoy and all those years he was being a trade envoy it wasn't the queen who was sort of saying to people oh no no you've got to send Andrew here it was you know the department of trade and industry would send into places he'd go on these trips under the auspices of the foreign office who would organize them everywhere he went he was being accompanied by police officers from the met metropolitan police who answered to the home office so you know you've got

different arms of the government are also involved if you like in this kind of Andrew um he you know on these these tours where where where gradually things sort of unfolded and and you know he'd go off and he'd go on some of these trips and with with Epstein and and and you know you know why weren't other people getting bored? I mean, it's not for the Queen to know exactly what's in his diary, but it is for some of these public servants and also people at the palace. They should have known what's going on.

And finally, by the end, you know, obviously the things came to a head. There was the, he was seen with Epstein after Epstein had been convicted. And at the same time, as Cameron said, he was just useless as an envoy. He'd just go into a trade fair and just say the wrong. thing. I mean, it was at one telecoms event, he went,

what's orange? And everyone sort of put their head in their hands. He just wasn't delivering, if you like, for the country. So, you know, as I say, that a lot of people, I think, let Andrew go on for too long. And the queen, of course, she would accept that she had a part to play. And it's

a very fair point, Constantine, that people would always worried about upsetting the Queen. And we better not, you know, be too mean to Andrew because we might upset the Queen. That was definitely a thing. But, you know, even after all that, and I've got the story in the book of how he, you know, he actually

hit a very senior member of staff in a row about he wanted to hold a conference at the palace and he couldn't and the master of the household who had to explain, I'm sorry, you can't do that. You know, and he ended up hitting him. And, you know, the Queen was

was appalled and Prince Philip ended up writing a letter of apology to this chap. Andrew wrote a sort of grudging note. So everyone knew what he was like. And therefore it's fair to say, well, why didn't people act earlier? But I would say there were a lot of people who could have acted earlier. I was just going to say, but there are people listening to this, Robert, who's like, look, fair enough, he was an adult, he had responsibility. There was, you know, responsibility was also spread.

amongst other people. But look, Virginia Gaffray, the accusations that came out, the Queen lent Andrew $12 million quid in order that these charges just go away. I mean, we're in Michael Jackson territory here, aren't we? Going into this year, I told myself I was finally going to stop guessing about my health. Like most people, I want more energy, better focus, and to be still strong and sharp years from now. But every time I've gone to the doctor, I walk out with basically nothing. Everything's fine. Drink more water, sleep a bit more. No real insight, no plan, just vibes. That's why superpower stood out to me. Superpower makes it simple to actually understand what's going on inside your body. You do one blood draw, either at home or in a nearby lab, and they

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After you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about them. So make sure to mention Triggerometry to support the show. Once again, head to superpower.com and use our code Trigger at checkout. He was an adult. He had responsibility. There was, you know, responsibility was also spread amongst other people. But look, Virginia Gaffray, the accusations that came out, the Queen lent Andrew 12 million quid in order that these charges just go away. I mean, we're in Michael Jackson territory here, aren't we? Well, we certainly don't know exactly how much it was. We don't exactly,

was it a loan, was it a gift, who paid what to who? I mean, there's, there's, there are a lot of questions. I don't, I don't pretend there aren't. But, At the time, companies would, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I mean, people pay off people, it looked terrible. It still looks terrible. And we still don't know the exact details of it. But yeah, I mean, you know, that's that that was, I think, a great mistake. It was at the start of the diamond, no, no, not the diamond, the platinum jubilee. And there was a sort of sense of, well, let's just make this go away.

But of course, it didn't. Like I say, it's very, very hard for a mother to disown her child. It was the hardest thing. I talked to people who worked with her. They said that moment where she had to, after his news night interview, where they had effectively she had to kick him out of public life, that was told of that was very, very painful for her. Because also she was a person.

Princess of York. I mean, you know, she, she, her dad was Duke of York. She was born the daughter of the Duke of York. That's why that title to her, you know, meant everything. That's why she was so pleased and proud to give it to Andrew on his wedding day. You will now be the Duke of York. You know, this is an extra special thing. It's one of the reasons why everyone is very glad that she was not around to see him lose that title. And what do we know about Prince Andrew now in terms of what he was up to, how he was able to get away with it, and also why he was doing it in the first place? Well, I mean, it's ongoing legal process.

So, I mean, I suspect we were going to find out some more. You know, like I said, I mean, he was given a very long leash, long reign to do what he was, you know, to hang out with that scene, to go to all these places. And as things have unfolded, a lot of it's not just about the accusations to do with young girls, but it's to do with state records, state documents,

who was telling what to whom. So yeah, I mean, it's by no means over. It's an ongoing scandal. It's definitely one of the, I would say, one of the gravest sort of royal scandals of modern times. But like I said, it doesn't involve the direct line to the throne. And there's going to be a lot of people listening to this who are going, well, we've spoken about the Queen, we've spoken about empire, we've touched on probably the wrong way of describing it,

Prince Andrew. Ex-Prince Andrew. Ex-Prince Andrew. Ex-Prince-Prince- Andrew. What about Megan and Harry? I mean, again, that is a, well, we have touched on them already, but, you know, they parted company with the monarchy, I think, following Harry's, well, the events of recent days. What's your so upset about? He's multiple issues to do with, you know, how, I think he, essentially, he feels that he hasn't had, hasn't been dealt fairly by, by Britain, by the media, by the government, and notably by the monarchy. by the institution, I think. What does he want that he didn't get? Treatment, he feels that, I mean, you have to ask him, but I mean, if you read his book, you listen to his interviews,

he feels that when, at times when he felt he needed sort of help, support of the institution, for whatever reason, that it was lacking. He felt that, you know, and it is a hierarchy. I mean, you read throughout the book, there are these little sort of, you know, slights, he sort of takes a fence. William got the bigger room, William got the bigger bed, he got the this, for that. I mean, you know, it's in there, read the book, but it's a hierarchy,

you know, I mean, it's not a huge surprise. The one who's the air is going to get the big stuff. I mean, one of the reasons the late Queen was very sympathetic to Harry, and she really was, I mean, he talks about having a special relationship with her, and I think that's true, is she had a great affinity with spares. Her father was a spare. He wasn't born to be king. She always, throughout her life, she would be incredibly tolerant

when Princess Margaret was behaving at the time. She can be very difficult, but the Queen had great sympathy with her. She was a spare. And Andrew was a spare. Harry's a spare. She could see that if you're the firstborn, it all sort of goes on straight,

it goes down train tracks. It's all coming to you, everything. If you're not here, it's a more sort of nebulous situation. You're in this sort of vague, and no one's quite sure what you can and you can't do. And so that, as we saw with Harry. I mean, there was a time when Harry was absolutely the most popular member of the family by a mile. I would say peak Harry, peak, peak Prince Harry, was late summer of 2012. We'd had that wonderful summer.

We'd have the Diamond Jubilee. We'd have the Olympics. It had been a huge success. Queen opened the Olympics with James Bond famously. It was while I was in the stadium that night. It was great. And then it came to ending the Olympics. The Olympic rules say the games will be closed by the head of state.

Well, the Queen said, no, actually. I'm going to Balmoral. I've opened Olympics before. It opened the 1976 Olympics. I mean, the House of Windsor was more Olympics than any other family in the world. They've done the 1908, the 48, the 48, you know, the 2012 Olympics. So the Queen said, no, I'm going on. holiday, one of the family is going to close the Olympics.

And it's a big deal. It's billions of people are watching. You kind of hand over to the next Olympic city. And everyone assumed that, well, that's a job for Prince Charles or possibly Prince William. And with very short notice, it was just quietly announced that Prince Harry will close the games. And everyone thought, that's interesting. I mean, why? Why Harry?

What we didn't know at the time, but what he knew and what the Queen knew is he was about to go off on active service to Afghanistan for the second. time and it was dangerous and there was a you know no one talked about it but you know he might not come back you know she wanted him to have his moment and that was a very it was a very proud moment for harry it was a uh it didn't involve very much have you turn up at the olympics but you are effectively you are sitting there in the place of the sovereign acting as head of state and that's a big moment for him and he was very chuffed about that and yet just a few weeks later um he he's about to go off to afghanistan and he goes on this boys trip to los Vegas where, you know, they fall in with some party girls. One of the party girls takes a

picture on her phone of them or playing them strip billiards and the picture gets out into the, you know, internet and suddenly it goes viral. And no one cared. I mean, no one thought, look, he's a single guy. He's about to get off and fight in a war. He's in Vegas. He's having a good time. Great. Good luck to you. But he took it very badly. He felt really let down. He felt that the press had this, you know, this shouldn't have happened. He felt that, he felt that He just felt he'd let the whole lot down, the army, the family, the monarchy, the country. And I think that was a moment where he started, I just detected a sort of a more sour demeanour. You know, he went from happy Harry to sulky Harry at that point.

So very interesting response, because you think you'd take some responsibility for your role in all of this, wouldn't you? Well, I think he did. I mean, he was, he gave an interview a few months later where he just said, look, I know, I was, it was my fault. He wasn't blaming anyone for what had happened. He was very unhappy. He felt that the press had, you know, shouldn't have published these pictures. I mean, the response from the public, as I said, was, well, we don't care. There was a website went up on the Facebook page called, Give a Naked Salute to Prince Harry,

and it was full of members of the armed forces, all doing naked sort of with their backs to the camera. You'd have all around the armed forces. I mean, everyone thought, you know, he's a playboy prince, so what? But, you know, I think from that point on, he, I think that marked his growing distrust of the media. And then, and then he felt that that, you know, obviously impacted on Megan. I think they felt that after the marriage, that they weren't getting the same support levels from the institution that William and Catherine were getting. and I think it was very badly handled. When there came a point where they were going to split the offices,

they shared an office until just after Harry and Megan got married in 2018. And fairly soon after that, the palace was being refurbished. And there was a bit of forward planning. And that forward planning was, at some point, you know, the Prince of Wales, Charles is going to become king. And at that point, William becomes the new Prince of Wales. Harry, you come under the cost centre of the monarch, not the Prince of Wales. So you need to have your own office. And it was just done very badly. It was just treated like in a sort of managerial way,

which is the right go and find yourself some new office space. You know, you, you, you, it was, it was handled, yeah, it was a bit corporate. And I think when you're dealing with a, yeah, it's an institution, people sometimes call it the firm, people call it the monarch, PLC or whatever, but fundamentally it's a family unit. And I think that that, that's a, that officialdom didn't do that very well. And Harry and Megan, I think, took that very personally. And then gradually they felt that they weren't getting the support that William and Catherine were getting.

And actually, why are we doing this? Let's get out of here. How much of this comes down to the horrific events of 1997 and the way that his mother died? And his anger and resentment to the press, maybe to his father as well with the way he perceived the way that his father treated his mother? Well, actually, if you read this book, Spare, he's actually very fond when he's writing about his father.

I mean, he's very affectionate par. You know, he loves his father. I mean, I think, yeah, the death of his mother, unquestionably, still to this day, I think, really informs his attitude towards the press, the media generally, but the press in particular. I mean, the fact is that the Fleet Street were not involved. Fleet Street weren't in the Alma Tunnel on August the 31st, 1997. I mean, it just, you know, but he sees it as a sort of part of a... Wait, was that car not being chased by paparazzi for some? Yeah, yeah.

It was the French paparazzi were pursuing a car being driven by a drunk driver. I mean, I think we want to... We can unpack that the earth. I mean, there'd been multiple investigations and inquiries and all the rest, but yeah, there was a car chase. But what I'm saying is you can see why he would think the press course of death. Yeah, he would see, yeah, if you assume that the sort of paparazzi right up to the, you know, Fleet Street are all one on the same thing, then, yeah, you can draw that inference. And I don't blame him, and I don't think most people would. I mean, you know, a young boy, and you want, you want somebody to blame.

I mean, I think there are multiple people to blame in that. question with the paparazzi were integral factor. But whereas Prince William has moved on, he has, he understands that, you know, the press, a free press has a role to play in a constitutional democracy, and you just, you deal with that. I mean, it's a fact of life. I think Harry finds it much harder. And, you know, on the one trip that he did do with Megan, the one sort of big tour, they did Soon after they got married they did this big kind of Pacific tour and the press all came along and

And you know the press call that press call I mean none of them have been around at the time of Diana's death I mean this is years later And on these trips these are hard work for the press and are jolly by any means And the the there's a sort of There's always an understanding you know the press do their job the royals do their job, but you you know there's a if Charles and Committer on a trip, William and Catherine on a trip, there'd be a bit of sort of hello, how are you.

At no point, there was no engagement at all with the media. And on the final leg, the Prince's private secretary said, you really do need to just go and say, at least to say hello to the press. I mean, you know, they'd been following, they've been working, you know, around the clock for two weeks,

and it would just be a courtesy. So he sort of grudgingly went to the back of the plane and sort of hacks are sitting in, in sort of the cheap seats at the back. And sort of poked just said through the curtain and said, thanks for coming, not that you were invited, shut the curtain. So the press thought, well, you know, how do you respond as a professional, you know, when you're in that sort of situation?

It doesn't mean you instinctively warm. And then, you know, at the time of Archie's birth, palace, or the put out the statement saying that the Duchess has, gone into hospital and in fact she'd already had the baby and come home i mean that was just it was just i mean it was raw it wasn't it was a raw i mean it was a lie um and people don't like being um and and so there was that there was just a level of distrust mistrust and it just you know got worse and eventually they thought we're out you actually seem fairly sympathetic to harry i think on balance what about megan has she played the constructive role in in the raw family

Well, I mean, people talk about Megxit, which I think is unfair because it implies it's all down to her. I mean, I would say it's 50-50. I mean, it's as much him. And I've one here, so I know from talking to people. I mean, there'd be moments where actually Megan would be sort of advocating a more kind of constructive role. And often, I mean, Harry's response to these two people I know when they said, look, you do need to sort of forger a better relationship with the media. He just said, well, they killed my mother. And that's the end of the conversation.

So Megan's, you know, she could be practical. She could see how the need to find some sort of common ground. But no, I think, you know, she, when they decided it was time to go, I think she was very much, you know, you just look at the Oprah Winfrey interview, which was so damaging, I think, to relations. That was essentially her interview. He comes in at the end. He sort of comes bounding in after about 40 minutes.

And then slightly messes up all her narrative anyway. Because she sort of talked about how, you know, how while she was pregnant, a member of the family had started asking about the baby. And then Harry kind of comes into the sofa and goes, yeah, that was right at the start of our relationship. You think, hang on, no, that's not going to stand up in a court of law because she just said it happened, you know, in 2019. And you've said it happened in 20, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, of course, she has a part to play in it. It's just really sad.

I think they could have been such an asset to the monarchy, particularly to the Commonwealth. I mean, that's what the Queen thought when they were getting married. I mean, she made both of them, she gave them these very sort of senior positions as Commonwealth Youth Ambassadors. She had all sorts of high hope. She set aside one of the oldest and most important of her patronages,

which is the Association of Commonwealth Universities, which is one of the oldest, I think it's the oldest university, sort of pan-global international university association. And the Queen had been a patron of that for her whole reign. And she said, no, let's give that to Megan. This would be very useful to give her a platform. She can go and talk about important issues in an apolitical space. So the Queen really had high hopes and was very touched on Megan's wedding day.

And Megan's veil at her wedding, she'd had all the flowers of every single nation of the Commonwealth embroidered into her veil. And it was a charming touch. And the Queen thought this is great. You know, we're going to have a slimmed down monarchy. Williams, obviously, going to have a lot of stuff to do here. And Harry and Megan can go and, you know, travel the Commonwealth

and sort of keep the Commonwealth. Because don't forget, the Commonwealth, when she started, it had eight members. When she died, it had 56. I mean, it's an extraordinary institution. And she could see that they'd be great for that. And then, of course, that didn't happen. And then they kind of started turning on the Commonwealth in some of their interviews. One interview, I think, Harry said, yeah, it's got a lot to answer for one.

You thought, oh, that's not going to, this is a slightly off message. But, you know, and actually on that point, I know we talked about the Commonwealth earlier, but another important point is it's people still want to join it. And all the new, the new countries joining it were never part of the British Empire anyway. So, well, people might want to kind of have this sort of revisionist argument about the evils of the British Empire, which unquestionably had things to answer for. No, I'm not saying he didn't. But when, you know, you've got countries like Gabon and Togo, Mozambique, and Cameroon and Rwanda, which held a recent Commonwealth summit, none of them had anything to do with the British Empire at all. Well, they want to join it because it's a great network.

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Well, it's a fact. I mean, he's not academically top of the tree. I mean, we, we, we, we, but I, people sort of say, oh, yeah, Harry's thick. I, I, I disagree. with that. I've watched him at close quarters and he's got great emotional intelligence. I think he's very good at working a room, both he and William are actually. But he, you know, he can he can go into a space full of very old, very young people he's never met before who are all tongue-tied, who've got nothing to say. And some, some royals find that and have found that very difficult. It's a bit sort of, have you come far? And it's all a bit stiff. And Harry is really good at going, going in and chat. And so I think he may not I mean his a levels were not great. I think he got two of them and and it was enough to get into the army

But at a personal level he's he's he's a very he's good and he's not I think he's got he's got good instincts I mean his his in terms of he he does have a sort of sense of a You know if he's at an event. Okay. What's the point of this and who the key people here and that person over there's looking a bit lost and so he's good at that So I think he has strengths, but I think you're right, having left the confines, as he would put it, of the monarchy or the structures and all that goes with it. There is a sense of a lost soul who's sitting out there in California and just listening to whichever, you know, PR person they happen to have hired that week. I mean, they seem to get through spokespeople at a rate of knots. You're always reading about yet another new appointment to their empire and then that person sort of moves on within a matter of months.

So you've only got to look at this court case. He's just lost. I mean, absolute catastrophic blunder. Tell people about that, Robert. This is his case along with others against the Daily Mail, and the paper of which I write. So I declare an interest, but I wasn't involved in the actions. but you know it's it's it was a very um you know it was it was almost sort of a it felt at times like he you know he's he's had his court cases against the media before i mean he's he's fought multiple

cases um but this one was really very flimsy from the start yeah he he pressed ahead and and you know as it went on it was in court it was quite clear that um that you know the the proof that he was wrong and wasn't there but um you know he he he he he he he put plowed on and now even after it's over, he's issued a statement saying, you know, attacking the judge and saying, you know, there's a whitewash. And that makes life very difficult for repairing fences with his father because the king is the head of the judiciary. And this is one of the reasons why the king was to be quite careful talking to Harry when he's involved in, you know, various legal actions. I mean, Harry at one more has been suing the British government.

that puts the king in impossible position because he's he's the head of the judiciary. So, you know, if Harry's sort of going to sort of start putting out statements accusing judges and ministers and whatever of whatever, that's just not what royals do. So, so no, Harry, I think he has been badly advised and I don't really see any end to that. I think he'll go back to California and let's, I think what will happen next? Well, it sounds to me, I hadn't paid that much close attention. I sort of start to feel sorry from, really. It just sounds like obviously the death of his mother was such a, it would be a traumatic event for anyone, but it's unresolved and it's unprocessed trauma, which I imagine is driving much of this. It's sad, really, more than anything to do it.

I mean, you know, read his book. I mean, it's an extraordinary book. There's a lot in it that doesn't quite stack up. I mean, there are assertions he makes which are just factually wrong. You know, one could say, well, they're just untrue. But, you know, he is, I just go back to that. I remember sitting there on his wedding day, May 2018, it was such a happy day.

This country had had a miserable couple of years after the whole Brexit saga and politically everyone was sort of at each other's throats and everything just felt a bit rubbish. And then suddenly we had this sunny day and this great event. And it was fabulous. And you had the first biracial member of the royal family. And it was great. And everybody loved it.

And I think everyone felt, okay, this is a sort of reboot moment for the monarchy. Well, actually, not, I mean, the monarchy had been on a high, really, ever since, I think, I would argue since 2011, which was William's wedding, the state visit of Ireland, the Obama's coming to Britain and followed by the Olympics and Jubilee and everything. And all the way through, there been this sort of great. great run of great things. And this moment just felt like a happy day for the country. And it just didn't last. I just think it's sad. And I think there's not much we can do about it. No, we've got to move on. Well, that was the thing that I found really surprising, because, as I say, someone who's not a close observer of these things like you, I remember them having this wedding, which was universally adored by everyone clearly. And then,

fast forward, not a very long time at all. Suddenly they're complaining about how they've been treated, everyone's racist, like all this stuff. And it just didn't match my visual experience of what I saw. Obviously, like not being on the inside, you know? Yeah. Well, and that was, that was their perception. I think you talked to people who worked around them at the time, and I think there was a, there was a kind of a cultural clash. I mean, you know, they, particularly, you know, Megan had come from a kind of Candoo, Californian, right, Let's get on and do this situation. I mean, and that's going to be difficult when you suddenly come up against, you know,

the royal household, which is it does things at its own pace. And it's, you know, it might be in your, compared to what she's used to, a bit sort of dozy, a bit indolent. I mean, I know that the sort of tiny little things would be irritating. There was some problem with a lock on a door in their, in their cottage. And it just took weeks to sort it out because it had to be done by this official and that official because it's an old enlisted building. You could see why it's what that just meant the lock, you know.

You could see why it would drive them and drive Megan in particular. It would sort of infuriate them. But, you know, the queen went out of a way to make it work for them, as I say. And I think she just felt that they hadn't given it enough time. You know, these things aren't, it's not all sort of happiness and sweetness and light. you know, there's this hard graft involved, and there is, it is a hierarchy. And that's the way it is. And I think the media sort of stoked up this idea of the fab four.

People talked about the fab four, which was just wrong. I mean, it was never going to work, because inevitably, you know, you're going to have the fab two, and then the next two, and they're going to move at different levels, because it's a monarchy. It's how it goes. And I think one of the great sadnesses, particularly for the queen, towards the end of her reign, was the knowledge that this book was coming out, Meg's it, that must have been incredibly painful for her. I think it was painful, but we need to put it in perspective.

I mean, she'd been through everything. I mean, when you, as a 14-year-old, watched your father, who wasn't meant to be king, trying to kind of hold a country together, when at any minute you're likely to be invaded. And if you are invaded, and don't forget, I mean, the Romanovs are still fresh. in the family mind.

I mean, it's not long since they were put up against a wholen shot. You know, your father and mother nearly get killed twice in a week. You've been through all that. You've seen the sort of stresses. You've suddenly taken over this job at a very early age. It's a 25-year-old mother of two within years. I think we have a sort of rosy picture of the early part of a rain. It's all just lovely and wonderful and everyone's nice and it's super.

It's not. I mean, the Suez crisis really rattled her. That was only three years into. her reign. You know, they've been along the way a lot of serious, difficult moments. I mean, as I say in the book, she had something akin to a not quite a nervous breakdown, but certainly nervous exhaustion in 1969. I'd see, I mean, some utterly appalling moments in the 80s, which a lot of people, I think, would, would have, might have just chucked in the job. I mean, I still look back. I think the most extraordinary moment of her entire reign, if not her

entire life was that morning in 1981, where 1982, sorry, where she woke up to find a strange man barefoot at the end of her bed dripping blood and holding a broken ashtray. And she's ringing the alarm bell and nothing happens. Nobody comes. And I mean, how terrifying is that? But she manages to keep him talking and keep him calm. It's Michael Fagan. It's this loser, drug addict, mentally ill man who's broken into the palace. She doesn't know who he is. This is at a time when the IRA are trying to blow up the royal family. They killed Lord Manbatten only three years earlier. There are bombs going off. Anything could be behind this. And she's got to sit there. And here is this madman at the end of her bed. And she finally someone comes in. The maid comes in and goes,

flipping neck, man, what's he doing? And they get taken away. What does she do? She's got an investiture at 11 o'clock that morning she knows that several hundred people are on their way there they bought new hats and shoes and it's going to be the biggest day of their life so she just gets on with it and no one had the faintest idea 11 a m there she is bang on time at the investiture and it was only when it came out in the papers the next day people thought oh my god what she just been through um and and you know she she was brave they are you have to be brave i think to do this job she was very brave she only had one phobia which was helicopters but she got over that and um uh And remarkable.

So going back to your point about how much of the Harry business must have been a shop. Well, yeah, the 90s, that was a bigger deal because Anna Cerebilis, that did involve the direct line of succession. I mean, the fact that the heir to the throne's marriage was falling apart, as were the marriages of her other children. There were huge rows about tax, about money. The royal family was not in a good place. And then in 1997, as we've discussed, the death of Diana. I mean, these were not existential threats to the monarchy. I don't think it was ever as bad as that,

but they were very, very grave challenges, much, I think, far graver than either Andrew or Harry, who, let's face it, are secondary to the direct line. So, yeah, she was upset at the end, but she'd seen it all. She had the most extraordinary life, and she always abided by her father's dictum. to her as a former naval officer, which this storm two shall pass.

That was always like, the sun will come out. We've just got to get through this. She was incredibly stoical. And that being the case, what is now the future of the royal family, have a relatively new king in place? He's, you know, of age, you might say. And then you've got the potential eventual succession of Prince William. What do you make of how this is going to pan out from here?

What do you think? I think it, as ever, will have. to adapt, it will have to move with the times. There will be challenges, but overall it's a 1,000-year-old institution that has, you know, endeared with one brief interlude when Charles I first parted company with his head. But Britain fairly soon afterwards resumed its love for having a constitutional monarchy. All that actually wasn't particularly constitutional with Charles II, but it will carry on. It will have to adapt. I mean, it is shrinking. The next generation is going to be the current Prince and Princess of Wales and, you know, helped by some of their older cousins.

But, I mean, if you look at the sort of the working unit, William and Catherine, by some margin, the two youngest, their children, should their children want to do it, by the way. I mean, there's no guarantee that George and Charlotte and Louis will necessarily want a life of Royal Duty. but we hope they do. It's going to be a challenging time. And I think we as the public, we have to manage our expectations. We have to realise that we've got a smaller royal unit. So they can't do necessarily all the things that we're used to the royals doing. We can't just expect them to keep turning up to open hospitals

and cut ribbons and do all that stuff because there aren't enough of them to get around. So we have to deal with that. But I mean, overall, the fundamental role of having this figure to whom the armed forces and the judiciary and the civil service is in charge of the honours system, all that stuff, and is separate from government and has this soft power role, which just, it just works. You just got to see, I mean, I was in Washington with the king the other day, and you just see how, watch the monarch address in Congress. And it's, it's, it just shows how it works. And it's not, as I said earlier, it's not rational. We wouldn't, we wouldn't create it tomorrow.

But it's there. And yeah, there's a perfectly respectable argument to, towards having an elected head of state and saying that, you know, it's run its course. And there's a perfectly straightforward democratic solution to it, which is any political party could put in their manifesto at the next election. We will have a referendum on the monarchy. See where that gets.

None of them do that because they know that the public fundamentally are very happy with this system. And they know it's got its faults and they know nothing's perfect. But, you know, boy, be careful what you wish for. Robert, what a perfect place to end the interview. Final question is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? I talked to, I was talking about this before. I came here with my wife, Diana, because I think there were lots of things.

but we we she put this and I I totally agree is is um it's loneliness actually as loneliness as particularly as people get older I think there is less human connection there and we see it at every level we see you know where people working from home social media the way that people know that they have sort of friendships on on on on through web platforms instead of in face to face I think that's that's something we've got we just need to, like this, we need to sit down with other people and look at them and face to face and we need friends. That we do.

Robert, thank you so much. Head on over to triggerpod.com.uk, where Robert's going to answer your questions. Is King Charles's failure to be defender of the faith, i.e. the Church of England, as per his coronation oath, and his insistence of being a defender of all faiths, a betrayal of his mother's legacy?