It’s amazing to see, in retrospect, how much of Byline Times’ reporting was completely accurate. In October, Byline dropped their exclusive cover story on exactly what was going on behind-the-scenes in the first half of 2020, when Prince Harry and Meghan were exiting the UK and the monarchy. Byline reported that then-Prince Charles withdrew £700K in funding at some point, and it was all because Harry would not drop his pursuit against the Sun and against Christian Jones, who was Prince William’s press secretary at the time. Omid Scobie’s Endgame and Byline Times’s October story both laid out Jones’s relationship with Dan Wootton, and Jones was the one who leaked the entire Sussexit story to Wootton. Byline reported that, as Harry pursued legal action against the Sun in early 2020, the palace ordered him to stop because they didn’t want to see the entire rotten clownshow between the Windsors and the media exposed.
Byline gave another motive for the royals: they believed that by cutting the Sussexes loose financially, they would bring Harry and Meghan “to heel,” broke and humbled back in the UK. Byline spelled it out: the monarchy chose Christian Jones over Prince Harry. Omid Scobie spelled it out the same way, and he had even more details on how it went down, including an interesting timeline.
Harry was ready to pursue action against the Sun in early 2020:The Duke of Sussex wasn’t relying on his brother’s cooperation anymore because, by this point, he had all the evidence he needed: relevant documents, intel from Scotland Yard, and information from other journalists (including sources at the paper itself) who had passed details along to his team. Armed with a dossier, Harry went to the very top of the institution with a formal complaint and a suggestion that they take appropriate action against The Sun. The response Harry received, however, was far from what he expected.
The Lord Chamberlain overstepped: There, on Buckingham Palace–headed paper, was a reply from the Lord Chamberlain at the time, Earl William Peel, who had a particularly close relationship with Charles. The letter, a source said, included “some of the most strong” language seen on official household stationery, aimed at Harry, not Jones. “It was a threat,” said a source close to the situation, who added that the Queen wasn’t consulted before the Palace issued it. “[The Lord Chamberlain] said either drop the charges or face severe consequences in twenty-four hours.” A message from a lawyer for Jones, arranged by the Palace, soon followed. The decree: stand down from legal action against Prince William’s aide.
The palace in ass-covering mode: An exasperated Harry pointed out to Palace aides that he was not suing the aide or anyone on this matter—he simply had a desire for the situation, a public official with deep connections to private information about a senior royal being shared with a national newspaper, to be properly dealt with. For the duke, enough was enough. The Sun had a long and controversial history of inappopriate relationships with public officials, and the Palace, at one point, was also keen to put an end to these practices. “The Palace basically accused Harry of wanting to sue his brother’s [private secretary] and causing great distress to Christian,” the source continued. When they asked him to provide more evidence, Harry refused. “At this point he already had plenty and, given how defensive they were being of Christian, it was clearly going to be used to help him and not Harry.”
When the Sussexes were cut off: Within weeks, it was clear to all involved that the Lord Chamberlain’s threat of “severe consequences” was no bluff. Harry received two further letters in July 2020, one from Charles’s private secretary Clive Alderton and the other from the Queen’s, Edward Young, both stating the same thing: he was to be officially and immediately cut off from all financial support, including official security, which Charles had been privately covering with his Duchy of Cornwall income.
The palace sanctioned everything Christian Jones did: “I have never seen the Palace circle the wagons like they did with Christian,” a source later reflected. “In my experience, anyone who puts a risk to the survival of the monarchy is out.” It seems, however, that the actions of Christian Jones, who continued to work for Prince William until April 2021, were seen as a help, not a hindrance. As it turns out, William knew about Jones’s friendship with Dan Wootton since day one. Multiple sources confirm that during an early 2018 interview with Simon Case for his job at the Kensington Palace press office, Jones, in the interest of transparency, shared that he has a “working relationship” with Wootton.
[From Omid Scobie’s Endgame]
While I’ll never wrap my head around how the British media operates and how the British legal system is built to protect the media, it’s just sort of mind-blowing to think about how Harry really tried to operate in good faith throughout this entire ordeal. Even as late as January 2020, he still seemingly believed in William and believed that William could be reasoned with, or that William would take his side once he saw all of the evidence. Harry also seemingly believed that the institution would share his outrage that William and Christian Jones were both so compromised by Wootton, to the point where the Kensington Palace clownshow bungled every part of a sensitive royal story. Instead, the institution went into ass-covering mode and Charles withdrew funding and security, all because Harry could have exposed the whole rotten system.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
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