Some of royal family were ‘obsessed’ with tally of official engagements – Harry

Certain members of the royal family were “obsessed” with having the highest number of official engagements each year, the Duke of Sussex has said.

Harry, writing in his autobiography Spare, said they “feverishly” strived to notch up the most public duties recorded in the official Court Circular.

The duke branded the daily list of royal engagements a joke because it was self-reported and was “rigged”.

He did not name any individuals but said that although the Court Circular was not discussed directly by the Windsors it caused tension under the surface as the end of the year approached and final tallies were compared in the press.

“Certain members had become obsessed, feverishly striving to have the highest number of official engagements in the Circular each year, no matter what,” Harry wrote of his experience at Christmas 2013.

He said some members included public interactions that were just blips – the kinds of things “Willy and I” would not include.

The duke said the daily list was rigged as the late Queen and his father, now the King, had decided how much support and money he and the now-Prince of Wales could allocate to their work.

He said it was “grossly unfair” to be “publicly flogged for how much Pa” permitted us to do.

The Princess Royal is often labelled the hardest working royal after regularly having the most official duties in the Court Circular each year, followed by Charles.