The Windsors are ‘massively irritated’ that Prince Harry’s Sun lawsuit will go to trial

The British media can’t decide how to talk about Prince Harry’s lawsuit against the Sun. This week, the judge ruled that Harry’s case can go to trial, but the judge also boxed in Harry’s case by throwing out the part about the palace’s “secret agreement” with News Group Newspapers and the phone-hacking part of the case too. Still, Harry gets to put the Sun on trial and anything can happen. Which is bad news for the Windsors, because they still have all kinds of secret deals and arrangements with NGN and the rest of the British tabloids. So, the Daily Beast’s Royalist column reports that the Windsors are massively irritated by all of it.

King Charles and Prince William and their spouses will be “massively irritated” by the implications of a court judgment Thursday that Prince Harry will return to the High Court witness box, potentially spilling more embarrassing details about his family, a friend of the family told The Daily Beast. However, the friend added that the royals would do their best to avoid being “distracted” by Harry’s legal battles as they launch into a busy two years of global travel to try and shore up the royal brand overseas.

The family friend told The Daily Beast: “Everyone in the family completely accepts that Harry is a private citizen and can do what he likes without reference to the family. That doesn’t mean they have to like it. Of course they are massively irritated by the prospect of more blockbuster Harry trials but they have been expecting it; there is also the defamation case against the Mail don’t forget. Their goal is just to keep plugging away and not get distracted by any of it.”

Another source said that Harry or Meghan making court appearances, publishing further books or making films was now widely considered inevitable, and that the policy of not commenting or reacting had been judged a success by the family and there would be “no change” to the overall strategy.

The royals are thought to be keen to make maximum use of Charles and Camilla’s good health to get them to make frequent overseas trips, especially to farther flung destinations which have not been visited by a reigning monarch since the queen gave up long haul travel in 2013.

A friend of the king’s told The Daily Beast that the king would “not give a second’s thought” to Harry’s litigation timetable when making his plans for overseas travel for the next two years. The trouble is, of course, that the rest of the world, not to mention the global news cycle, might not be quite so blasé.

[From The Daily Beast]

So… they’re massively irritated while also acknowledging that Harry has every right to sue the media while also insisting that Harry has no right to bring up all of the Windsors’ secret arrangements with the media. AND they’re just going to ignore Harry, because that’s gone so well for them for the past four years. This is hilariously worded: “The royals are thought to be keen to make maximum use of Charles and Camilla’s good health” – sending two septuagenarians out on two years of royal tours to distract from the fact that they choked on the terms of the Sussexit and left a rogue prince out in the world, calling them out on all of their bullsh-t. What could go wrong.

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