EXCLUSIVE A sermon for Duke of Sussex from priest who preached to him at Eton: Harry, you must give up being the victim - and forgive from the heart

Daily Mail​

12-05-2025

A priest who spoke from the pulpit to Prince Harry at Eton has urged him to shed the 'role of victimhood' in a sermon she has written to help him overcome his 'grief and confusion', MailOnline can reveal.
Angela Tilby, who attended the funeral of his mother Princess Diana, believes the Duke of Sussex, 40, has warned him that his own actions have 'worsened his alienation from his family'.
'I grieve for that ginger-topped teenager I once preached to', she said, adding: 'I believe that he is a decent man. But, so far, he has found no way to switch off the trauma in his head'.
Revd Tilby has written a piece for the Church Times entitled: 'A sermon that Prince Harry should heed'.
She has urged him to follow Christ's teachings to 'forgive from your heart', saying it will be liberating.
The Church of England priest claims that Harry's decision to give a BBC interview to blame an 'establishment stitch-up' for his Court of Appeal defeat, 'sounds as though it comes from the 12-year-old who was required to walk behind his mother's coffin'.
Revd Tilby also questioned whether he has truly forgiven his family, as he claimed to the BBC.
She wrote: 'He has said too much for relationships to heal. He claims to have forgiven his father and the Royal Family; but it is clearly a qualified forgiveness.
'What he might have picked up from attending morning service in Eton chapel was that forgiveness involves not only making peace with the offender, but, eventually and at great cost, giving up the role of victimhood. The latter is far harder, far more demanding, and, in the end, far more important.
'The logic of the Christian faith suggests that it is only when victims forgive 'from the heart' that they that they themselves can find liberation'.
Angela Tilby, who is Canon Emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and Honorary Chaplain at Portsmouth Cathedral, said she was invited to preach at Eton College in 2002.
She wrote: 'I recognised the ginger top of Prince Harry, who appeared to be immersed in amused conversation with his neighbour, which made me smile.
'Five years earlier, I had been present at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, and heard Earl Spencer berate the Royal Family for its treatment of Diana and promise to protect her two sons.
'Harry, with William, will have heard all that. He would also have heard the wave of applause from the crowds outside surge through the Abbey congregation. He may have felt, as many of us did on that day, as though a revolution was imminent.
'Yet the moment passed. Years intervened. Harry had his teenage follies and his first love affairs'.
Revd Angela Tilby says she believes that some of the criticism he and Meghan have received has been 'cruel and vulgar'.
She also said it is sad that he feels he 'will never feel safe enough to bring his family to Britain, even though it is his homeland'.
But there are signs that he is struggling to shake the grief and victimhood he felt as a child, she suggested.
'His book, Spare, worsened his alienation from his family. He has seen his African charity fall apart amid acrimony. His BBC interview last week, in which he said that his security concerns had been dismissed by 'a good old Establishment stitch-up', reveal his ongoing grief and confusion', she wrote.
'The repeated demand for police protection, and the insistence that his father could simply sort this out by ordering it, sounds as though it comes from the 12-year-old who was required to walk behind his mother's coffin'.
Speaking to the BBC after he lost a court appeal over his security arrangements on May 2, the Duke of Sussex launched a blistering attack on the King.
He complained that his father 'won't speak to him' and that he doesn't know 'how much longer he has left'.
Prince Harry also revealed he will not bring his wife or children back to the UK - and said he had had 'so many disagreements' with his family, some of whom 'may never forgive' him for writing a book.
The comments on King Charles 's health are thought in particular to have raised eyebrows behind palace doors - given his treatment for cancer remains ongoing.
Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond said: 'I suspect that Harry said more than he had perhaps intended because he was consumed with anger that the court decision had gone against him.
'When the court ruling didn't go his way, he was, in his own words 'gutted and devastated'.
'And he was clearly seething with fury. And that is rarely the best time to air your thoughts.'
She added that she thinks Harry has now lost the support of the 'majority of the British public'.
The Duke had been pursuing a case through the British courts after his level of security changed when he and Meghan stepped down as working royals.
Howeve, Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, told Prince Harry his 'grievance' over downgraded security had not 'translated into a legal argument'.
And he ruled the original security decision had been a 'predictable' and even 'sensible' reaction to Megxit – when Harry and Meghan stepped back from being senior royals and left Britain.
The Duke, who claimed to be the victim of an 'establishment stitch-up', has now been put on the hook to pay £1.5million in legal costs after losing the case ten days ago.