Beyond the drama of feuding siblings and Machiavelli royal advisers working with a hostile press, a key question looming over Netflix’s documentary about Prince Harry and his wife Meghan is whether it will cause lasting damage to King Charles and the British monarchy, reports Reuters.

During the six-hour show, Harry and Meghan launched a barrage of accusations against what they described as an institution that lacked compassion, was indifferent to their emotional well-being and was willing to let them suffer if it meant better media coverage for other senior members of the royal family.

“It’s like living in a soap opera where everyone sees you as entertainment,” Harry said in one of the final episodes, aired on Thursday.

When the couple tied the knot in a glittering ceremony in 2018, their union was hailed as a breath of fresh air, the epitome of a modern monarchy: a then very popular prince and a glamorous mixed-race American actress.

But as they revealed in their documentary series, that fairy tale soon turned into a nightmare amid a series of negative media coverage, with Harry blaming those working for Prince William, his older brother and now heir to the throne.

“He looked cold, but he also felt cold,” Harry said of his family’s feelings towards him. In 2020, the couple decided to step back from their royal roles, moving to California and becoming financially independent.

The departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex was bad news for the institution, said Catherine Mayer, author of the recently published biography Charles: Heart of the King.

“Meghan and Harry’s departure from the royal ranks has done far more damage to the monarchy than discrediting them is understood or accepted,” she told Reuters.

“Her arrival was a source of great hope for black people, but also for young people. Her departure is seen as a failure and a betrayal, and it is extremely damaging to the monarchy because the monarchy needs consensus to survive,” she says.

• Read also: Prince Harry blamed the tabloids for his wife Meghan Markle’s miscarriage

Public opinion polls show that this is not the case

Harry, who once topped such ratings, and Meghan are now the most unpopular members of the British royal family, apart from their uncle Prince Andrew, who settled a US sexual assault lawsuit in February, according to a YouGov poll last week.

William and his wife, Kate, were the most popular, although polls show that young people are far more ambivalent about the monarchy in general than older Britons.

The royal family was already in a similar position. In the early 1990s, the breakdown of Charles’ marriage to his first wife, Harry’s mother, the late Princess Diana, was overtaken in the media spotlight.

After Diana’s public accusations against the royal household and her death in 1997, the future of the 1,000-year-old institution has at times looked uncertain. But it’s back to being more popular than ever with Harry and his brother William at the fore.

The royal family remains strong / Harry and Meghan are losing popularity

According to Harry, Meghan’s later popularity was seen as a problem, stealing attention from those who were “born for it”, a less subtle allusion to his brother and father.

If Harry’s assessment that the stories against him and Meghan were fabricated is true – a claim dismissed by newspapers and consultants who have spoken publicly – then the campaign could be considered a success.

A Savanta survey found that 59% of respondents in the UK said that showing a documentary about Harry and Meghan was a bad idea, with half saying they did not believe the show was an accurate portrayal of the couple’s experiences.

“Personally, I don’t think it will do lasting damage to the monarchy,” royal biographer Claudia Joseph said of the Netflix documentary.

“I think people who are royalists will continue to be royalists and see this as a push for Meghan and Harry, and people who are republicans will continue to be republicans and blame the royal family for the way they have treated Harry and Meghan.” she says.

Or, as Tarek Hilal, a 45-year-old local Londoner, said on Thursday: “In the long run, it’s just not going to change anything. A storm in a cup.”