Edward was King for less than a year before he stepped down, deciding to marry his lover, the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, rather than reign without her. Yet, while Mrs Simpson is usually cited as the reason for his abdication, some of the royal’s old letters revealed he was considering removing himself from the Royal Family years before he even met his American love. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s shocking decision to step down as senior royals in January was perceived by many commentators to be comparable to Edward’s abdication.

Although he has only taken this leap now, Harry’s interviews in the years leading up to his shocking announcement foreshadowed his own decision to leave the royal front line – just as Edward’s letters did.

In a letter to Princess Alice on June 4 1925, the former Prince of Wales said: “I am so heartily sick of being cheered and yelled and shrieked at.

“It almost hurt sometimes. I suppose the fact of the matter is that I’m quite the wrong person to be Prince of Wales.”

He also told his his former long-term lover Freda Dudley Ward how he wanted to “chuck” his royal job.

In a letter from April 28 1920, he said: “Each day, I long more and more to chuck this job and be out of it.

“The more I think of it all, the more certain I am that, really, the day for kings and princes has passed.

“Monarchies are out of date.

“Now I know it’s a rotten thing for me to say, and sounds Bolshevik.”

This is an eerie echo of Harry’s shocking 2017 interview with Newsweek when he said: “We are involved in modernising the British monarchy. We are not doing this for ourselves but for the greater good of the people.

“Is there any one of the Royal family who wants to be king or queen?

“I don’t think so, but we will carry out our duties at the right time.”

Harry also told biographer Angela Levin he had considered leaving the Royal Family himself when he returned from Afghanistan in 2008.

Speaking to the Today programme in January, she said Harry told he was fed up “with living in a goldfish bowl” and he wanted to get out of the Royal Family.

However, his grandparents the Queen and Prince Philip were in the process of reducing some of the royal responsibilities and so he said he was willing to step up to help them.

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Yet, the Duke of Sussex has always been considered as one of the cheekier royals, and even described himself as having a “naughty streak”.

Again, this draws comparisons with Edward VIII – known to the family as Uncle David.

In the 2017 Netflix documentary the Royal House of Windsor, royal author Robert Wainwright said: “David was rebellious.

“He felt constrained by being an heir to the throne, didn’t particularly like it. And he was determined to go his own way.”

Historian Dr Piers Brendon added: “David’s letters to Freda Dudley Ward are extraordinary in the way he expresses his hatred of the life that he’s leading.

“I think basically his problem was that he liked the pluses of being a royal and not the minuses. He didn’t like the duty aspect of it.

“He didn’t like the flummery, all the ceremonies that he had to go through, all the sort of formalities that he found odious and tedious. All the sorts of things that royalty do, he hated that.”

Harry was also resistant to the pomp and ceremony that accompanies life in the Royal Family.

BBC royal correspondent Jonny Dymond told BBC Radio 4’s ‘Beyond Today’ podcast in January Harry had been “struggling for some time.

He said: “Well before Meghan came on the scene, Harry was struggling.

“It’s obvious he doesn’t like the job. He must have been thinking through his 20s and his 30s – how do I get out of this?

“Along has come a strong, clever, understanding woman who loves him and together they have found a way out – or they think they have.”

Mr Dymond added in a separate BBC video: “If you hung around with them as I did and followed them when they did their tours and their trips, there were great chucks of the job they simply didn’t like.

“Harry came alive with the big crowds. But he hated the ceremonial and he couldn’t bear the cameras.”

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are currently living in Canada and by Springtime, will have completed their transition period to becoming ‘financially independent’ of the monarchy.

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