Prince Harry Mirrors Edward VIII In Moving Away From Royal Family For Love

Oct 14, 2022 by apost team

Family affairs can get extremely messy, and the British royal family is no exception. If anything, dramas within the royal family are exacerbated by virtue of the fact that they have no choice but to live in the public eye their entire lives. Living life as the press hounds you for photographs and writes scandalous – if not entirely false – stories about you and your loved ones can take a devastating toll on your mental health.

Life within the four walls of the palace also comes with its own stressors as members of the royal family are duty-bound to follow traditions and serve as a paragon of perfection to their subjects.

The immense strains of a royal life were well exemplified by the life of Edward VIII, who was king of England for just one year in 1936 before he abdicated the throne voluntarily. Edward lived a life of luxury but also one of many expectations in his youth.

However, he was keen on participating in the First World War when it broke out in 1914. While political fears for his safety kept him from the front lines, he engaged when he could. His popularity with the people soared after the war, aided by his natural charm, good looks and the fact he was still a young bachelor. 

In many ways, Prince Harry’s own life mirrors that of Edward’s. Like the former king, Harry endured tremendous scrutiny from the minute he was born, being the second son of the popular Princess Diana. Her tragic death prompted even more attention, which Harry was able to get away from by joining the army. And like Edward before him, the tensions and high expectations of royal life forced both men to flee London with their American wives. Read on to learn more similarities between the two royals.

Edward, once the Prince of Wales, was quite popular in his youth, much like Prince Harry. According to The History Press, Edward was “charming and informal … a popular prince touring Britain and the empire, fond of golf, tennis, parties and dancing.” Edward was also known to have been quite a ladies’ man, which worried his father, King George V and then prime minister Stanley Baldwin. In much the same vein, Harry was voted the most popular member of the royal family in 2018 with 77% of respondents backing him, followed by his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II with 74%. His wild partying days were also heavily covered by the press. 

However, a stint in the army was just the thing to calm them. Edward joined the Grenadier Guards in June 1914 while Harry signed up for the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in May 2005. Edward was awarded the Military Cross in 1916 while Harry was secretly deployed to Afghanistan in 2007. Harry took his army service seriously, as he told the press in 2013, “Our job out here is to make sure the guys are safe on the ground and if that means shooting someone who is shooting at them, then we will do it.” That same year, he also told The Guardian:

“It's very easy to forget who I am when I am in the army."  

As young royals, both Edward and Harry had busy love lives. According to the New York Times, Edward was "linked at one time or another with the names of most of the world's eligible princesses.” As a bachelor, Harry was rumored to have had dalliances with models, singers and socialites such as Chelsy Davy, Cressida Bonas and Ellie Goulding. But for both Edward and Harry, two American women would change the course of their lives forever.

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Edward met American socialite Wallis Simpson in January 1931 through a mutual friend. At the time, Wallis was still married to her second husband. Unbeknownst to the public, their relationship later became a point of contention within the royal household. Wallis eventually divorced her second husband but it was not until after Edward had acceded the throne that the press caught wind of their love affair. In November 1936, Edward told the prime minister he intended to marry Wallis. At the time, however, the Church of England would not perform the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Finding the possibility of the twice-divorced Wallis becoming Queen Consort untenable, Edward was pressured by his ministers with the threat of a constitutional crisis should he marry her. In the end, he chose to abdicate his throne, the first time in British history that a king did so voluntarily.

As for Harry, his relationship with Meghan Markle incited scandal as well. After meeting on a blind date set up by a mutual friend, the pair fell in love and married in 2018. But it wasn’t until years after their wedding that they revealed the extent of the hardship they faced. This culminated in the pair leaving their roles as senior royals in 2020 and relocating to America. In a March 2021 television special with Oprah Winfrey, the couple openly criticized the royal family and its culture. They talked about various topics including how some family members worried about the color of their then-unborn son’s skin, Harry’s estrangement from his father, King Charles III and Meghan’s very dark, depressing thoughts.

While Edward remained with Wallis until his passing on May 28, 1972, only time will tell if Harry and Meghan will be able to go the distance together. 

Do you think Edward and Harry are similar? In which ways do you feel like they are most alike? Let us know and be sure to pass this on to friends and family to find out what they think.