All being well, despite a heart operation and an extended stay in hospital, the Duke of Edinburgh will celebrate his 100th birthday on June 10.
It will be a glorious family reunion after months of separation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Prince Harry, who has not seen his grandfather or any of his relatives since last March, was due back from Los Angeles for the event.
But after the Oprah interview, how can he return?
One can only imagine his grandparents’ horrified reaction to the two hours of self-centred blood-letting.
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Two days after Prince Philip’s big day is Trooping the Colour, marking the Queen’s official birthday – which Harry planned to attend as all the family gathers on Buckingham Palace’s balcony to watch the annual RAF fly-past.
How comfortable will he feel standing next to the father he has told the world let him down?
On July 1, what would have been his mother Diana’s 60th birthday, Harry and William were to unveil the memorial statue they commissioned together and which will sit in the garden of Kensington Palace.
Are the brothers going to stand amicably side by side, smiling for the cameras in front of millions of viewers, after Meghan has accused Kate of making her cry?
Rumours have circulated ever since Meghan’s wedding that she reduced Kate to tears at a bridesmaids’ fitting. Meghan told Oprah she was the wronged one.
Prince William is fiercely protective of Kate and will not take kindly to this accusation.
And in the light of last week’s announcement that the Palace is to investigate a formal complaint of bullying by two members of Meghan’s staff, one wonders which of the wives did the crying.
Who could have guessed that things would go so spectacularly wrong? And so quickly? More importantly, can there be any coming back from this tragedy?
Because from every perspective this is a tragedy.
Damaging to the monarchy, to individuals within the Royal Family and to the UK.
What’s more, it is history repeating itself.
Harry and Meghan’s wedding was not even three years ago.
William was best man, a seemingly delighted Prince Charles walked his daughter-in-law down the aisle in the absence of her own father.
Everyone was smiling, everyone apparently happy. Harry had found love at last.
Meghan’s welcome into the Royal Family seemed beyond doubt.
That she was of mixed race was a bonus.
At last the monarchy would be of relevance to everyone. A bright future beckoned.
Today, with clips and quotes from the Oprah interview everywhere you look, those scenes feel like ancient history.
The joy of that day, which so many millions of people shared, has turned to dust.
Between them Meghan and Harry said shocking things and made damning accusations. And whether true or false or somewhere in between, those accusations have gone global.
It was much the same when Diana’s account on Panorama of her marriage and life within the Royal Family went global 25 years ago.
She said damning things about Charles.
Again, it was irrelevant whether they were true or false or somewhere in between. They were said and could not be unsaid.
Like Harry and Meghan’s words, they are now available to everyone with a computer or smartphone.
Meghan may not care about the reputation of the British monarchy or her in-laws or even the UK.
It is not her country and I imagine she is triumphant about having had her say about it in such spectacular style. Her place in the history of television is assured.
But Harry? He and Meghan have effectively lobbed a grenade into the heart of all that he once held dear.
What will he tell Archie and his little sister when they are older? It may well be that they never see their royal relatives – and cousins who should have been so close will be strangers. Will he be happy to watch this interview in future years?
Will he be happy to have been part of such a self-indulgent public denunciation of his family? And of the institution, with all its faults, to which his supposedly beloved grandmother has selflessly devoted her life?
Did he think through the consequences, I wonder – any better than he thought through the plans to be part-time royals when he and his bride moved to America in 2020.
He thought they could live abroad, earn money but still do royal work and keep their royal patronages. The Queen thought otherwise.
Now he evidently thinks that the damage to family relationships can be put behind them.
Of his father, with whom things had recently become so bad that Charles had stopped taking Harry’s phone calls, he said, “There’s a lot to work through there. I feel really let down because he’s been through something similar [with the Princess of Wales]. He knows what pain feels like and Archie’s his grandson. I will always love him but there’s a lot of hurt that has happened”.
He would make it “one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship”. As for his brother, with whom there has been talk of a rift for years, he said: “I love William to bits. We’ve been through hell together. We have a shared experience but were on different paths.”
Later he added: “Time heals all things. Hopefully.” Really? I hope he is right – but I fear there may be some things not even time can heal.
No one could have blamed him last year for leaving home, for taking his family away from what they saw as the “toxic” media in danger of persecuting his wife as they did his mother.
We know now that Meghan had thoughts of suicide, of being a racism victim and of fear for her mental health. Meanwhile, she was “silenced”. All incendiary concepts. Race was not an issue with Diana – but in other respects, there are echoes of her here.
Harry is like his mother in many ways – emotional, impulsive, a risk-taker. He talked about her a lot and is evidently still angry, with unresolved grief, about what happened to her.
He was just 12 when she died and the image of him and William bravely walking behind her cortege is vivid.
For him, the memory of her arms around him must be precious. My guess is he was looking for someone to enfold him like that again. In Meghan he found that – and will protect her in a way he could not protect his mother.
But was sitting down with Oprah the best way to do it?
Harry was a soldier who fought for Queen and country. Like the monarchy, the Army exists on duty and loyalty.
Leaving Britain was not disloyal. But what he and Meghan did in that Californian garden certainly was.
