If Prince Harry applies to be an American citizen, he must come clean about his drug taking.
There is plenty to confess. His ghost-written autobiography, “Spare”, is littered with his accounts of smoking “weed” – cannabis. He admitted trying cocaine and said he didn’t like it.
Other indiscretions, including parading in a swastika-festooned German military uniform, are detailed in the book.
All of this would not favourably impress the US Department of Immigration. The admission of past drug-taking would be enough to scupper an application for naturalisation from an ordinary person.
Egalitarian voices in America would insist that a Prince should be subject to the same rigorous standards as everyone else. America does not give out passports like trading stamps or jelly beans.
Already there have been demands for the Federal government to release the forms Harry signed to secure his residence in the United States and “Green Card”, permitting him to earn money within the country, to see if he did make full and frank disclosures.
Anything less would cause the immediate cancellation of his permission to stay in the hilltop Camelot he and Meghan Markle have established north of Los Angeles.
Prince Harry was stupid to make his admissions in print. There is doubt that he even read “his” book, written by a prize-winning American journalist JR Moehringer whose previous autobiography, of Andre Agassi, also featured a young man highly critical of his father.
Prince Harry was dyslexic as a child. He has admitted to not reading books. But if he applies to be an American citizen, he would have to study to learn about the country and its constitution.
Replying to searching questions with, “Dunno, but I am thinking about it” would simply not work.
But that was the essence of his reply to questions about whether he would apply for naturalisation. If he did, the Prince would have to swear to renounce all “allegiance and fidelity” to other nations, including the United Kingdom.
If he did so, he would be rejecting royal lineage going back more than 1,000 years to King Alfred the Great, through his father, King Charles III, and four centuries to the Stuart King Charles II through his mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
America is a revolutionary country. When it broke from Britain in 1776, the new republic was particularly anxious that its citizens would retain no loyalty to Britain, next door in the then British colony of Canada. The American oath of citizenship was one of blood spilt and undying fealty.
America does not forbid dual citizenship but neither does it encourage it. By default, Harry could be a dual citizen of the US and the UK.
Meghan Markle did not relinquish her American citizenship when she married Prince Harry. She entered the Church of England and was confirmed as an Anglican before her wedding, even though she had attended a Catholic school in Los Angeles.
If Prince Harry applied for US Citizenship – and the Duke made it clear that he was giving it serious thought – he would lose all his titles, dignities and status as a Prince of the United Kingdom and Royal Duke.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex would become Mr and Mrs Henry Mountbatten-Windsor (the Royal Family’s surname) of Montecito, California.
To Americans, “Henry” is usually reduced to “Hank”. Before long, the ex-Prince would inevitably be known as “Hank the Yank”.
I hope he likes it. There would be no question of HRH in front of it though. It could solve a lot of problems.
It would signal the final break with this country by the couple, who could not have been more warmly welcomed by British people on their wedding day, but who ever since have found every opportunity to criticise all the leading members of the Royal Family and even the institution of monarchy itself, although it has given Prince Harry the enviable privilege and status he continues to enjoy as an Englishman in California.
