The Crown star Jonathan Pryce told Newsweek the monarchy must stick to protocol because "if you bend the rules" it "will stop...
The Crown star Jonathan Pryce told Newsweek the monarchy must stick to protocol because "if you bend the rules" it "will stop with the disintegration of the royal family."
While Pryce did not refer to it directly, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal exit took place as they raged against aspects of the palace system, from suing the media using outside lawyers to publishing their exit plans on their own website.
Pryce stars in the upcoming final season of Netflix show The Crown as Prince Philip, who is at times presented as the voice of royal protocol.
And he told Newsweek that without the framework of rules within which the royals live their lives there could be dire consequences for the monarchy.
"It is unfortunate that a series of events, recent events with Harry and with William... there have been a series of unfortunate events shall we say, and they're played out against the background of this protocol," he said.
"You see it with, it's not just with Diana, it's with Andrew he's not allowed certain things, he's stepped beyond the bounds of protocol. He can't have the house that he wants to live in because he's not this, that and the other.
"It's a way that they've found to exist. They have rules, if you bend the rules where's it going to stop? And it will stop with the disintegration of the royal family. I mean, they exist because of their protocol. Their established protocol."
The Crown's Take on Half in, Half Out
In the show, Prince Philip is depicted telling palace staff that Princess Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997, together with boyfriend Dodi Fayed, should not have a full royal repatriation after her death because she had lost her HRH [Her Royal Highness] title.
Queen Elizabeth II overrules him after a palace staffer notes they do not want her to be repatriated in a truck from Harrods department store, which at the time belonged to Fayed's father Mohamed Al-Fayed.
But there are frequent subtle nods to the present day, including Harry and Meghan's desire for a "half in, half out" system in which they lived abroad earning money in the private sector while still representing Queen Elizabeth II.
In The Crown, the queen is depicted saying of Princess Diana: "I always say it's hard to be half in anything. You're either in or you're out."
If Pryce is correct, then it suggests Harry and Meghan's own desire to continue serving the queen from the comfort of their California mansion could not have been accommodated without compromising the future of the monarchy.
The tension over the Sussexes' "half in, half out" approach reached a crescendo with their comments on the 2020 U.S. presidential election which they maintained were neutral but were perceived as breaching royal impartiality rules.
They were criticized by Donald Trump, and Missouri congressman Jason Smith wrote to the British Embassy in Washington demanding the queen strip them of their titles.
Harry and Meghan's Frustrations With Palace Rules
However, Harry and Meghan rubbed up against the royal rulebook before they even quit when in 2019 they hired their own lawyers to sue the British press, circumnavigating the palace reluctance for royals to testify in court.
Harry would later tell the High Court in a witness statement that the palace seeks to "avoid the situation where a member of the Royal Family would have to sit in the witness box."
And in January 2020, Harry and Meghan were accused of blindsiding the queen by putting their detailed exit plans onto what was at the time a newly launched website with little prior warning and at a stage when no formal agreement on their departure terms had been negotiated.
In The Crown's final season, though, it is Philip rather than palace aides who represents the orthodox royal philosophy in a context where the royals were heavily criticized after Diana's death.
