It has been an emotional rollercoaster since the Sussexes announced their separation from the House of Windsor almost a week ago.
First came the fury – how could they, without telling the aged monarch? Then there was the hurt that follows rejection. And, finally, a little sympathy began to creep in, as the rival royal households leaked their versions of events to the press.
This is what it has felt like on the outside; imagine being an actual member of the Firm these past few days, in the eye of the public storm but also presumably reeling from private dismay.
We don’t know, but should charitably assume that the Queen, Charles and William all treasure their relationship with Harry, and are therefore deeply saddened by his and Meghan’s universal declaration of independence.
However, the rift has not emerged from nowhere; the estrangement between the brothers, and apparently their wives too, has been the most gripping episode of the royal soap for months now.
Harry even seemed to confirm rumours of a split with William in the now infamous interview he gave Tom Bradby in southern Africa last autumn.
If the most senior members of the family were outraged by Harry and Meghan’s bombshell last week it was more likely over the breach of protocol than the couple’s proposal for a new life abroad. This, they surely saw coming.
Initially, the speed of subsequent events, leading to the hastily convened summit at Sandringham on Monday, suggested the Queen had taken charge of the situation to contain the fall-out.
This is still plausible, and statements released by the Palace in the immediate aftermath did attempt to pour calm on the troubled waters.
But developments over the past few days point to a more cynical interpretation: Harry is safer in the fold than out. Once again we have the well-connected Bradby, a friend of both princes, to thank for the enlightenment.
He warned, in a Sunday newspaper, that unless the Sussexes get what they want they will “tell all”.
“I have some idea of what might be aired in a no-holds-barred interview and it wouldn’t be pretty,” he wrote.
A royal source reportedly said William, in particular, was concerned that the couple may be planning to “sound off”.
We can read into this what we will, but the warm words about a “transition period”, issued after Monday’s summit, betray a terror over the alternative to a peace deal.
A protracted war, said Bradby, would be “very bloody indeed”.
There is much at stake. William’s popularity has soared recently, in inverse proportion to Harry’s. Some opinion polls put him above even his grandmother in the public’s affections.
And Catherine can do no wrong either in her role as a hard working trouper, in stark contrast to her spoilt sister-in-law.
These reputations may be well deserved but the public is fickle. Any revelation that tarnishes the squeaky clean Cambridges, whether it is related to their treatment of the Sussexes or not, will have to be resisted at all costs. Harry may be dispensable but William is not.
Which leads one to wonder what it is exactly that the Duke of Sussex has on his brother, or other close family members.
The rumour that William is a bully seems far-fetched; these two have always knocked about together in evident sibling harmony.
More serious slurs of racism and sexism among the royals sound wide of the mark too. Bradby alluded to damage to the family’s “international standing”, but in a very long reign, there has never been a hint of questionable attitudes from the Queen.
And Charles, for all his other minor faults, is something of a social progressive who appears to have welcomed his mixed race daughter-in-law into the family.
If Harry and Meghan just want to talk more about their “plight” as put-upon public property, then the Windsor heavyweights would not be bending over backwards, as they are now, to accommodate their demands.
Given the public backlash after the Africa heart-to-heart with Bradby – when they aired their first-world grievances against a backdrop of bleak poverty – the Queen, Charles and William would not be unduly worried about any more of the same. The only people the Sussexes can harm are themselves.
So there must be something much more meaty. Something that threatens the monarchy itself – not the Queen, who is beyond brickbats, and maybe not Charles, but William, in whom all hopes for the future of the institution reside.
This is the only explanation for the display of tolerance towards Harry and Meghan, who are being handled with kid gloves.
But being completely objective, I think we should let them go, with our blessing, and hope they make it big, and don’t come back.