Andrew Lownie Tries to Rehabilitate King Charles by Throwing Harry and Meghan Under the Duke of Windsor’s Bus

Andrew Lownie has offered the Daily Mail a remarkably convenient new framing for King Charles: the compassionate father supposedly determined not to repeat the Royal Family’s treatment of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The timing could hardly be better for Charles. Buckingham Palace has just had to clean up the confusion caused by its own “private citizens” guidance on Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex, while Charles Spencer’s Swan Song: Diana, My Sister has generated damaging headlines about the King’s alleged behaviour after Diana’s death.  

Now Harry and Meghan have somehow become supporting characters in a story about Charles’s compassion.

Harry has long argued that the press does not merely observe royal conflict but helps drive it. In Spare, while describing increasingly aggressive paparazzi, he wrote that they became “more emboldened, more radicalized” and that “their mullahs were editors.”

Harry Is Not Edward VIII

The Windsor comparison starts falling apart almost immediately. The Mail says Edward VIII abdicated because marrying American divorcée Wallis Simpson conflicted with his position as head of the Church of England. That reduces a constitutional crisis to a morality tale.

Edward wanted to marry Simpson and remain King. Stanley Baldwin warned him that neither Britain nor the Dominions would accept the marriage because a King’s wife would automatically become Queen. Edward’s proposed morganatic marriage, wife, but not Queen, also failed to win government support. He chose Wallis and abdicated.  

Harry was never King. He was born the second son and today sits fifth in the line of succession. He and Meghan stopped working as senior royals; they did not abdicate a throne or trigger a constitutional crisis. Comparing the two situations imports all the Windsor baggage without the constitutional facts that created it.

What Exactly Is Charles “Fostering”?

Lownie says Charles does not want Harry and Meghan “outcast” and suggests they are now “fostering a relationship” with him. There has been a genuine thaw, including recent family contact. But one thaw does not erase the broader record.

Initially, Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces and Senior Presidential Adviser for Special Operations announced on X that he was pulling his country’s entry to the Paralympic-style event for military personnel over the ongoing ‘Harry-Meghan nonsense’ following the couple’s bombshell return to the UK.

But in a show of support for his son’s charity, the monarch’s right-hand man Private Secretary Sir Clive Alderton discreetly called General Muhoozi Kainerugaba to smooth over relations – and Uganda was soon allowed to return to the games.

Daily Mail

The Palace recently circulated guidance describing Harry and Meghan as “private citizens” whose charitable work takes place in a private capacity. Uganda’s military chief subsequently withdrew his country from Invictus, saying he would not participate without the King’s approval. Uganda’s defence spokesman later acknowledged that the Palace letter “did cause confusion.”  

Only afterward did Charles’s private secretary, Sir Clive Alderton, call Uganda and clarify that the King had “no problem” with its Invictus participation.  

The Mail presents that phone call as Charles showing his “softer side.” That skips an awkward detail: Palace messaging helped create the confusion that Palace staff then had to resolve. You do not get to light the match, help put out the fire and then demand applause for being the firefighter.

Affectionate Quotes Are Easy

The Mail also reminds readers that Charles once called Harry his “darling boy.” Fine. But Harry spent years fighting over his UK protection and formally requested a fresh assessment in 2025 after reported security incidents. Nearly a year later, following the Sussexes’ return to Britain, officials finally confirmed that his security would undergo a full review.

Charles Spencer has publicly argued that, having watched his sister die in circumstances he considers preventable, he would favour protection for Harry and Meghan. But question is, does King Charles feel the same?

Affectionate quotes are easy for King Charles to dole out. Security is where sentiment meets consequences. Then there is Frogmore Cottage. Harry and Meghan repaid the £2.4 million spent on renovations, yet Charles later asked them to vacate the property after Spare. Apparently nothing says “compassionate father” quite like taking away your son’s only royal home in Britain after he has already reimbursed the taxpayer.

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So Lownie’s claim that Charles is saving Harry from becoming an outcast collapses under one question: outcast from whom? Harry has never been treated as an exile by Diana’s family. He has retained close ties to the Spencers, while Charles Spencer has now publicly defended his nephew’s need for protection.

By Spencer’s account, Harry and William’s presence behind Diana’s coffin also served another purpose: shielding Charles from the hostile public reaction officials feared he might face alone. Spencer says Palace officials told him the boys wanted to participate, something he now believes was a lie. Harry was 12. Spencer had opposed putting him in the procession from the beginning, calling the idea “barbaric.”

Lownie can call Charles’s approach “compassionate.” But presenting Harry as a modern Duke of Windsor while using recent Palace damage control as evidence of paternal tenderness is not much of a historical comparison. It is remarkably convenient reframing for a King facing some very inconvenient history.