'Prince Harry being let down indicates Prince Charles failed as a father'

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey revealed a whole lot including how the Duke of Sussex and his father Prince Charles have a strained relationship.

"I feel really let down because he's been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like, and Archie's his grandson," he said.

"At the same time I will always love him, but there's a lot of hurt that's happened. I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship, but they only know what they know."

Author Clive Irving weighed in on Harry's words and told Express.co.uk that the current crisis indicates that Charles "failed as a father".

"The monarchy is an institution but a peculiar one, can’t make up its mind if it’s a public or private one, though in fact it’s both," he said.

"Its role is to provide public performances while, at the same time, the performers demand privacy and secrecy. That gets tricky with a problem like racism. Is it institutional racism or outbreaks of individual bigotry? At heart it is an old-fashioned family culture and bound to include a range of problematic people.

"The old Victorian word was ‘people of quality’ – these are all supposed to be such people. But Andrew is definitely not a person of quality. Nor was his wife. Will and Kate are people of quality. And, of course, the Queen and Philip are."

He added that Charles' strained relationship with his late ex wife Princess Diana may have also contributed to the reason why Harry's relationship with his father went south.

"Charles thinks he is, but he’s one of the reasons for this current catastrophe.

“He demonstrably failed as a father to his own family. You can detect that in Harry’s careful cry ‘I feel really let down.’

“Harry and William had a father who didn’t love their mother. They were left to figure out whether he loved them. They are probably still undecided on that. That has consequences.”