Watching Prince Harry’s interview with Tom Bradby on ITV last night, I felt impossibly sad.

As a royal expert who has reported on the Windsors for over 30 years, I’ve seen the 38-year-old grow up in the spotlight. But there’s barely any trace of the once cheeky young lad who stuck his tongue out and flicked v-signs at cameras.

Instead, he appears a tortured man: keyed up, angry and resentful. He’s used his new book, Spare, as a machine gun to scatter revelations and allegations like bullets to anyone who crossed into his line of fire.

In the true sense of the word, the Duke of Sussex’s memoir is a blockbuster. We’ve not had anything of this scale since Andrew Morton’s book on Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, and her now much-criticised interview with Martin Bashir.

Spare, and the various television interviews to promote it, has seen Harry lay various damaging allegations at the door of Buckingham Palace. From labelling Queen Consort Camilla as a ‘villain’, accusing her of ‘leaking stories about the family’ to curry favour with the press, to suggesting King Charles III struggled as a single father, nothing has been left behind closed doors, with every conversation available for public scrutiny.

The more salacious stories – such as his physical fights with Prince William – are intermingled with more trivial matters: such as Kate and Meghan not sharing lip gloss and three separate mentions of his private parts. It’s a staggering amount of detail.

It feels like there’s a story on every page – a banquet for the press, who he blames for most of his woes, to feast on.

I just don’t understand his end game. I fully commend Harry’s desire to live independently of the royals (and the taxpayer) to make his own money. But I don’t understand his insistence of looking to the past, painting his father and brother as panto villains when that simply is not the case. It’s got unnecessarily ugly.

It’s even more confusing to hear Harry claiming to want reconciliation, telling Tom Bradby he wants his father and brother back. But it’s seemingly descended into a one-sided slanging match.

I know King Charles and the Prince of Wales are meeting with senior royals and aides to discuss whether they should respond. It’s likely they will publicly say nothing, but behind closed doors, they know Harry will have crossed the line. The Camilla comments were a step too far. Charles has always made it clear that Camilla is a non-negotiable part of his life, and hard work was done for her image to be changed from the most hated woman in Britain to a widely accepted Queen Consort.

As someone who knew the late Princess Diana well, I know she would have been particularly distraught that Harry has chosen to write about William like this. If she had still been alive, I very much doubt Harry would be in this situation, having written this sort of book and taking part in this sort of interview.

Charles says he should have done more, but I know that Diana was there from the start to guide them. She was very firm that she never wanted Harry to feel lesser or excluded next to William – so it surprises me that Harry has been very vocal about this ‘heir and spare’ stuff. Diana always made it clear to him. He’s always known he’s not going to be king, he’s known this right from the start. It was Diana’s dearest wish that Harry be William’s wingman. He’s now turned out to be William’s hitman.

It’s made painfully clear in Spare just how much everyone is hurting. In spite of the rows and disagreements, there’s clearly a deep love between Harry and William, evoked in their silly Harold and Willy nicknames. We saw Harry describe how William took him to one side after Prince Philip’s funeral, gently telling him: ‘I love you, and I just want you to be happy. I swear on mummy’s life.’ But we also see Harry telling him, despite their evoking their ‘code’ that he just ‘doesn’t believe him.’

Harry doesn’t seem to understand that reconciliation is a two-way street. He needs to give a little as well if he does want to get back on track.

If I’m honest, I don’t think Harry really knew himself what he wanted. I think he expected to be able to live in America, pop in and out of various royal jobs to do with regiments and charity work, but still have the trappings of royal life. But the institution simply doesn’t work like that – you can’t be a part time member of the royal family.

And in a way, that’s the tragedy of this whole saga. The king wants a slimmed down monarchy, and Harry and Meghan would have been a cornerstone of that. It would have been the King and Camilla, Harry and Meghan, William and Kate. They may have felt they weren’t accepted, but Meghan and Harry were so hugely popular. They were key members of this family – they’re the ones that chose to leave.

Harry says the ball is in his family’s court as to whether they reconcile. While I can never say never, I can with some certainty say it won’t be any time soon. The true test lies in whether they attend the coronation. I believe Charles will still invite his son: even after the Oprah interview, he attended the Queen’s jubilee, alongside Meghan. He was allowed to attend the Queen’s funeral too – as he should.

Technically, he should be at the coronation. But the problem with that is, the coronation is on the same day as Archie’s birthday. Will they use that as an excuse not to come? Will they bring Archie? The other problem is that if Harry and Meghan do come over, an event that should be happy and joyous for the royal family, everything will just focus on them.

It’s a very delicate situation and understandable if it’s one they choose to avoid.

We all have problems with our family – we just don’t all have Prince Harry’s platform to air our grievances. For someone who claims to hate them so much, Spare has been a brilliant book for the press. But it’s been awful for the royal family.

As told to Kimberley Bond

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