Reporter: After spending the holidays in Canada, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are back home in England. And today they shocked the world with a bombshell announcement. 

Harry and Meghan are stepping back from royal life and setting up a new home in North America. 

Prince Harry [Archival Audio]: Once Meghan and I were married, we were excited, we were hopeful and we were here to serve. For those reasons, it brings me great sadness that it has come to this. The decision that I have made for my wife and I to step back is not one I made lightly. It was so many months of talks after so many years of challenges. 

Katie Nicholl: It was an email that just, made you just stop everything you were doing. There were whispers that perhaps they were thinking about leaving Britain, but the palace just gave that absolutely no credence at all. Every time we ask, and I remember very clearly asking their Head of Comms, we were sort of told "No, no, absolutely not." And then the son published an exclusive. Dan Watton, who has brilliant sources, suggested very strongly that they were not going to be around for very long. But I don't think anyone expected that within hours of that son splash, Buckingham Palace would be announcing that Harry and Meghan were standing down as working royals.

Erin Vanderhoof: That was January 2020, and it was one of those days where I come in, the British news cycle has already been running for a morning by the time I sat down at my desk and nobody seems to know what's going on. And so I kind of had a story that was all ready to go, which as nobody seems to know what's going on. And right when we were, you know, getting ready to send it to the lawyers, we get this email that says that Meghan and Harry, they're out. 

Katie Nicholl: Within minutes of getting that email, Erin, I know you were filing. I think I was filing from the back of a taxi on my way to Westminster where I was going to the studio to report live for Entertainment Tonight. I tried for that entire journey, which must've taken about 40 minutes, to get hold someone, anyone from the palace. I think I must've called 20 different numbers, 30 different numbers, and eventually with minutes before going on air I managed to get through to a very senior aid, who was able to give me a briefing. It was very evident to me when all of those mobiles went straight to voicemail, and the switchboard was a meltdown at the palace, that this had taken them as much by surprise as it had us.

Erin Vanderhoof: I mean, it makes sense. This wasn't just a media emergency. Harry and Meghan had held official palace roles, real jobs with a staff and diplomatic duties, public engagements, charities, and patronages. So when they decided to leave it wasn't just a publicity statement, it threatened how the Royal Organization would operate. So, fast forward to February 2021. It's been almost a year since the couple announced that they were taking a step back from the royal rolls and moving across the pond, the Megxit. Right after that, the pandemic hits. Prince Andrew's in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. You know, Jeffrey Epstein. No good news for the world or for the Windsors.

Katie Nicholl: And still, Harry and Meghan's relationship with the family could be described as icy at this point, but intact. The previous spring they reportedly celebrated their son Archie's first birthday. I was told there had been family FaceTime chats. Harry was, at this point, in very regular contact with the Queen to the point that she was laughing with, with one of her friends about how often he was video calling her. But, all of that was going to change. 

Reporter: Good evening. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex tell their side of the story in a long awaited interview. 

Meghan Markle [Archival Audio]: I don't know how they could expect we would still just be silent. 

Reporter: What they had to say about the royal rift that has rattled the foundations of Buckingham palace. 

Erin Vanderhoof: The Oprah interview. Well, we'll get to that. 

Katie Nicholl: Oh, we'll get to that. Erin, we're going to give a whole episode to that, but I think what was so interesting is that just after the announcement that that interview was happening, the palace declares that Harry and Meghan's split as working royals is now permanent. Which means Harry loses all his honorary titles and titles, particularly royal ones, mean profile and money. The move revealed, not just a fractured institution, but a fractured family. And then just when you thought things couldn't get any worse... 

Reporter: You're watching BBC News from London. A short while ago Buckingham palace announced the death of his Royal Highness, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. In a statement the Palace said, "It is with deep sorrow that her majesty the Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, his Royal Highness, the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Katie Nicholl: This is _Dynasty,_ a podcast from_ Vanity Fair._ In this series we're exploring the families at the seat of power, how they claimed it, and how they maintain it. 

Erin Vanderhoof: This season, we're talking about the British Royals, the Windsors. We're taking you inside one of the most powerful families in the world. We're going to look at it all: incredible wealth and privilege, very bad behavior, clashes with the press, and of course, some epic love affairs and royal weddings. I'm Erin Vanderhoff, _Vanity Fair_ Staff Writer. 

Katie Nicholl: And I'm Katie Nicholl, _Vanity Fair_ Royals Correspondent. Welcome to _Vanity Fair's Dynasty: The Windsors._ 

Erin Vanderhoof: Episode one: Never Complain, Never Explain.

In America, from the time that we're children we're taught about these pieces of paper. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We put them on display in Washington DC, but we also breathe life into them because they're imbued with our ideals. Britain also has documents at the basis of their system, but to symbolize the story of how they became a nation though, the UK has as a family. Elizabeth's role is Queen emphasizes that her blood is the same as William the Conqueror and all of the monarchs who followed him. The royals connect the country to its very beginnings. So in that way, the royal family's power comes from their family line and continuing it means marriage and children. 

Katie Nicholl: Exactly and that's precisely why discord within the family is so damaging and such a threat because it's not just like the family squabbles that you and I might have, the stakes for the royal family are much, much higher. Look at Harry and Meghan. The rejection of their roles sent shockwaves through the palace. It wasn't technically a constitutional crisis, but it rocked the institution to the core and actually caused a complete revision of the top tier of royals. 

Erin Vanderhoof: The Oprah interview changed how a lot of people felt about the royals.

Katie Nicholl: Meghan and Harry lifted the lid on life inside the monarchy. They described why they were so unhappy they had no choice but to leave. 

Meghan Markle [Archival Audio]: That's the sad irony of the last four years is I've advocated for so long for women to use their voice, and then I was silent. Uh... 

Oprah Winfrey [Archival Audio]: Were you silent or were you silenced? 

Meghan Markle [Archival Audio]: The latter.

Katie Nicholl: We heard Harry accuse his family of cutting off his finances, a row of titles, and then the devastating revelation from Meghan who said she was so unhappy she'd had suicidal thoughts while she was pregnant with Archie. 

Erin Vanderhoof: One of the most shocking moments of that interview came when Meghan and Harry alleged that somebody in the royal family had been making comments about the color of their unborn child's skin and what it might look like. They left the family member who made the racist comments unnamed, but that just sparked its own frenzy of speculation. And it just kept getting uglier. A well source report detailed complaints from former staffers of Kensington Palace about Meghan's alleged bullying behavior during her time as a senior royal, and the palace decided to investigate. Meghan denied the allegations, which she called "just the latest attacks on her character." It was clear that the war was on. 

Katie Nicholl: It was certainly curious timing. I think this was the palace going into battle mode. It had braced itself for the interview, and a few days after Oprah aired, the Queen releases a state. It's just 60 words, succinct, and to the point. 

Erin Vanderhoof: Here's the Queen statement as read on Entertainment Tonight on March 9th. 

Reporter: "The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan. The issues raised particularly that of race are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately. Harry, Meghan, and Archie will always be much loved family members." 

Katie Nicholl: The three words that jump out to me most in that statement are "recollections may vary," which I think is just a stroke of genius. And the Queen does have brilliant speech writers. Who knows whether they were her words or theirs, but they certaintly made it clear that there was more than one interpretation to what Harry and Meghan had alleged on Oprah. Now, just after this statement has been made, William and Kate are on an official visit to a school in London. And a reporter asks if he's spoken to his brother to which he replies, "No." Then... 

Reporter: And can you just let me know, is that the Royal family a racist family, sir? 

Prince William [Archival Audio]: We're very much not a racist family. 

Erin Vanderhoof: To call this a PR disaster would be an understatement. It was more than a simple lifting of the veil. It was a rare siege on the palace walls. The institution was unprepared. The allegations that Meghan and Harry shared really prompted many to question what place a hereditary monarchy has in the modern world. And just as all of that is playing out, the palace announced that Prince Philip had died on April 9th. His funeral was to be held on the 17th. 

Katie Nicholl: The Duke was 99. He'd been in hospital for a few weeks, but he was allowed to go back to Windsor Castle. And I think it was still a sense of shock when his death was announced that he passed away in the early hours of the morning. I headed straight to the BBC's TV studios in Central London because we had a whole program planned that evening of coverage of the Duke's life. 

Erin Vanderhoof: I remember turning to the feed and seeing you there wearing black. You were on a panel presenting for the BBC. 

Katie Nicholl: Yeah, I had my black dress ready for some time, given that he was about to turn a hundred and he'd been in hospital. Nonetheless reporting on such an occasion was a real privilege. And it was also very moving. I think partly because we were in the middle of a pandemic and nothing, not the floor of the studio, to Windsor castle, felt normal. Philip's funeral wasn't a state funeral as such, it was a ceremonial royal funeral. Very much in accordance with the Duke and what he had wanted, but because of COVID it was very scaled back.

Erin Vanderhoof: Right. A state funeral would have included the whole country. There would have been crowds in the streets. We would have seen government officials and diplomats, dignitaries coming from other countries. 

Katie Nicholl: It felt more intimate, I think, than, than other royal funerals. It felt more like a family funeral. Philip was the patriarch of the family, and now the nation realized, I think just what they had lost too. The father of the nation. And Prince Philip was the family linchpin. He kept it all together while the Queen was busy being, well, the Queen. And being a former Naval officer, who'd fought in the Second World War and was mentioned in dispatches, there was a strong military presence at his funeral, which felt very fitting and right. 

Erin Vanderhoof: Up close to the hearse, it was just a few family members who were walking behind. You saw Prince Andrew, you saw Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Edward, and of course, some of the grandchildren. Prince Harry, Peter Phillips and Prince William.

Audio from Prince Philip's Funeral: We are here today in St. George's Chapel to commit into the hands of God, the sow of his servant Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. With grateful hearts we remember the many ways in which his long life has been a blessing to us. 

Erin Vanderhoof: You know, you realize it's one of the, you know, in some ways, maybe the last time that you're ever going to see that group of people all gathered together for, you know, a moment like that.

Katie Nicholl: It was a moment that ties together so much about the royal family, and so much that we're going to be talking about on this podcast. Of course the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, at home in the couples Montecito mansion, heavily pregnant, and watching on the television. How strange that must have seemed when you consider that the last big royal event was their wedding, also at Windsor. 

But Meghan had always liked Philip, and Meghan had actually sent a note with a beautiful flower arrangement, which included some of Philip's favorite blooms to be displayed on the green at Windsor castle. 

Erin Vanderhoof: Both Harry and William had a really close relationship with Philip just as a grandfather. Philip and the rest of the family would give each other gag gifts for Christmas at Sandringham. And he seems to have been a real idol for Harry. It did feel like a family funeral, his children and his grandchildren were at the center of the event. 

Katie Nicholl: And at the funeral itself, because of restrictions on guests numbers, there was only one non-royal in attendance, Lady Penny Brabourne. Philip's long time confidant and carriage driving companion.

Erin Vanderhoof: Ah yes, his carriage driving companion. 

Katie Nicholl: Indeed, but it was such a beautifully and carefully crafted ceremony right down to the specially made Land Rover, which carried his coffin and which Philip had designed himself. I mean, he'd had such a role and played such a part in this meticulous planning for his very own funeral. I mean, everything from the display of his carriage driving gloves and his hat that sat so poignantly on that empty seat. And then his family and all the reality of this awful fallout laid bare for the world to witness.

Erin Vanderhoof: Among those marching behind that Land Rover silently were Harry and William. It was the first time they had been seen together publicly since Harry left the country in frustrating circumstances a year before. That was such a strange period for them. So I can imagine it was probably better for them to get together in a moment where they couldn't really talk. From what we know, Harry and William's relationship had been suffering, had been on ice, had been just like a cause of tension and strain for everyone in the family for years before he left the country. But at this point it was sort of reaching its nadir. In your reporting, what did you learn about what really happened between William and Harry that day?

Katie Nicholl: We had a very good vantage point where we were reporting for the BBC, we were the only studio actually on site. I think the point was that we all just breathed a collective sigh of relief that they were actually talking because up until that point, they hadn't been. And of course, as commentators, we were very aware that the focus needed to be on the Duke. This was about paying tribute to his life, and of course that was what we were going to do. But there was also a sub story here and a narrative that people wanted to see play out. And of course that was, would Harry and William actually speak to each other. There hadn't been time for meeting before the funeral because Harry was in isolation. So I think there was an awful lot of pressure on them both and it was down to Kate, who sort of seemed to slip into that role of family linchpin on that day. She jollied them together, made it all look very natural as they walked up the hill to the castle. But I think it was, it was a performance for the cameras more than breaking down any rift. The reality was that there was still very much a rift. William was fuming and it was going to take much more than a little walk up Castle Hill to sort this out. And in fact, when the family got back up to the castle, um, the Queen, the Queen retired and Harry went off with his cousins to go and spend some time at Frogmore. I understand there was a bit of an impromptu wake. A few drinks taken and a few tears shed, but William and Kate were not part of that. They'd in fact left after about 20 or 30 minutes. Their convoy was seen leaving Windsor Castle, and I think it speaks volumes that they just didn't want to hang around. I'm also told that certain family members, Princess Anne for example, and uh, Sophie Wessex who's incredibly close to the Queen, were not overly welcoming to Harry. In fact, I was told Harry went back to America feeling even more ostracized from his family.

Erin Vanderhoof: Moments where you hear about their kind of squabbles and their frustrations with each other, especially when they're emotional and like understandable and relatable, it reminds you that the Windsor's serve as a figurehead for the country, but they're also just a family. And like families, they have issues.

Katie Nicholl: They're not just a family are they? You know, they are an institution. And so because of that, it's crucial that they stay in line and play their part and I think Prince Philip innately understood that. And you saw that in both his public role and his private role. So when you think of him as a Royal Consort, you know, he knew his place. He absolutely understood that it was his place to always be two steps behind the Queen and he was incredibly important to his family. And it was really because of family that William and Harry were able, for one day, to put their differences aside.

Erin Vanderhoof: In fact Harry had emphasized just how important Philip was to him when he gave his own children the last name Mountbatten Windsor. The name is a testament actually to what an incredible match that Philip and Elizabeth were for one another. They're in dying commitment to one another and their duty is what binded them. But, their path to marital bliss was not smooth by any means. I don't think you can say that anything was smooth for Prince Philip. His early life was so traumatic and I think this is one of the cases where you can actually say that about a royal. He was born as a Prince of Greece, but then his entire family was pushed into exile when he was just an infant. He actually escaped the country in a fruit crate. After the Grecian monarchy fell, his mother began to have severe mental health challenges. He was really bouncing around between relatives across Europe before he really settled. So in his childhood, he saw the collapse of two things he would come to prize so deeply and really commit his life to: upholding royalty and keeping his family together. 

Katie Nicholl: He was sent to Britain alone at a very young age. Educated at Gordonstoun, a Scottish boarding school, which was really the making of the man he became. 

Erin Vanderhoof: His uncle, Lord Mountbatten, really took Philip under his wing. And Mountbatten was there for Philip and Elizabeth's fateful meeting in 1939 when Philip was training as an officer at the Dartmouth Naval College. The two teenagers really got along, but because Elizabeth was 13 and you know, there was a war going on, they couldn't really date. They just wrote letters for years. In 1947, 8 years later, the announcement of their engagement set our whole story into motion. That decision is what started a dynasty. 

Reporter: All the time, he was corresponding with Elizabeth. And in 1947, they became engaged.

Katie Nicholl: I think we often think of the Queen as so sensible. Her black patent Launer handbag and her solid heals, but we mustn't forget that she was once a young woman who often wore furs and diamonds, and who was head over heels in love. Sally Bedell Smith, a royal historian. 

Sally Bedell Smith: And there was a letter that the Queen mother wrote to, um, her Lilibet, um, when she was on her honeymoon. She said, "I'm so happy that you have a marriage of the head and the heart."

Erin Vanderhoof: It really was the triple crown. He was royal, he was culturally British, and she was in love with him. And it made for a marriage that lasted more than 70 years. But all of those elements turned out to be really, really hard to replicate. After the break we'll learn why.

Reporter: Did you try to be faithful and honorable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage? 

Prince Charles [Archival Audio]: Yes, absolutely. 

Katie Nicholl: More to come on _Vanity Fair's Dynasty: the Windsor's._

Royal Wedding Vows: Will thy love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other, keep the only unto her so long as you both shall live?

I will. 

Katie Nicholl: But you know, looking back over 70 years, it can seem that it was always so, but in fact the young couple was tested very early on. Philip was a man of mid-century ideas, an innovator, and very much an alpha male. But with a regent for a spouse.

Erin Vanderhoof: So let's go back to the name. For royals, everything is in a name and the Windsors are intimately familiar with that. They used to be the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas. It was very German and that didn't really fly during World War One. So, around this time they chose a proper British name. They plucked it from the castle that belonged to the family, birthing a brand, and an enduring royal line.

Katie Nicholl: But when Elizabeth and Philip were about to start their own family, Philip, probably like most men of his era, thought his children should have his name. And remember they weren't Queen and Consort yet. This is British historian, Andrew Lownie. 

Andrew Lownie: Philip was very keen that his own name, uh, which course he'd only just taken on literally a year before Charles was born, should be the name. Uh, and the Queen I think was, was tempted by this. Mountbatten pushed it, he felt that that the dynasty of Mountbatten had been created. 

Katie Nicholl: Lord Mountbatten's father had changed their Germanic name, Battenberg, to an English one, Mountbatten. 

Andrew Lownie: But the rest of the royal family were rather against us and officials were against it. Having changed the name once to Windsor, they should stick with Windsor.

Katie Nicholl: Elizabeth agreed. There was no political appetite for a brand change of this kind. Elizabeth was heir to the throne. Her children must be Windsors. 

Erin Vanderhoof: This doesn't sit well with Philip. According to his biographer, Ingrid Seward, he started getting frustrated by even the little parts of royal life. The lack of control he had over his own schedule and even the bagpiper under the Queen's window every morning. 

Andrew Lownie: So there was real tension in the early years of the marriage because he wasn't properly given a role. Um, when he tried to create roles for himself, he was, he was rebutted. I think there's always this, this, uh, tension between public duty and private pleasure, uh, in the royal family. And of course, this is where the problems begin. 

Erin Vanderhoof: He described his purpose as "nothing but a bloody amoeba." If you're not a microbiologist, it's a single celled organism, tiny and insignificant on its own. 

Andrew Lownie: It was a very interesting moment. Uh, when there was this tension. Uh, Philip was very upset, he said, "I've just," you know, "I can't even give my own name to my children. I'm just basically a, someone who's being used sperm to be used to produce, you know, the next heir." And he saw his masculinity and virility challenged by this. 

Katie Nicholl: When do you think back, that sort of gender stereotype very much was that the woman was at home. The husband or the father, in some cases, was at work. Well, you saw a total inversion of the traditional roles here. After Elizabeth's father died and she ascended to the throne, the Queen was the head of state, she was the ultimate boss. And Philip had to play second fiddle to his wife, in public at least, and he had to find a role for himself. There was no predetermined role for him as the Queen's consort and it wasn't easy. It took him quite a while to find his way. But from early on, Philip developed a role as an innovator. The modernizer of the royal family. He had computers installed at the palace and embraced the medium of television. In fact, he was the first member of the royal family to give a TV interview back in the sixties when the British public felt that the royals were a little outdated, Philip recognized that they needed to shake things up in order to save the monarchy. It was one of the reasons he pushed to have a documentary made about their lives, the _Royal Family._ 

Erin Vanderhoof: It's almost like a black market good among all the royal watchers. This documentary that was first broadcast in 1969. It shows the royals just hanging out at home and ever since it aired the Queen apparently doesn't want us to be watching it, so the BBC actually hasn't aired it in full since the 1970s. Still, every so often it comes up on YouTube. It's up for just a little while, you can watch it, and then it gets smacked down. 

Katie Nicholl: You can totally understand why they did it, and it was Prince Philip's idea and he was absolutely right. At the time, there was a growing sense of apathy and the royals needed to find a way to connect with the public. Well, television was becoming an increasingly important medium. Philip recognized that and saw that this was a perfect opportunity for the royals to connect with the public. So you saw senior royals doing very ordinary things. The Queen taking Edward out to buy an ice cream with her very own change from her very own purse. Well that was quite something. And then to see Prince Philip grilling on the barbecue and the whole family having a huge amount of fun flying down this makeshift slide on the deck of Brittania. You know, you're seeing them up close and personal in a way that you've never seen them before, so it's not really surprising that this got the highest ratings of any TV show at the time. I mean, it was absolutely compelling viewing. 

Erin Vanderhoof: Didn't she just speak to somebody who worked on the production? 

Katie Nicholl: Yes, Erin I spoke to Philip Bonham-Carter, who is related to the Bonham-Carter dynasty, um, but he was also the cameraman on the _Royal Family_. So when I was researching for my latest book, _The New Royals_, I wanted to go back to that time and learn more about it. And Philip was fascinating. I mean, he spent nearly a year with the family making this documentary and he saw so much. I mean, he saw Charles and Anne having a pillow fight in their cabin on Britannia, the royal yacht. He remembers seeing Edward and Andrew having a snowball fight at Sandringham one winter. And he said to me, he just couldn't believe the close access that they had. It was just, even at that time for him, unbelievable. But the flip side was that it let just a little too much daylight in on the magic of monarchy, which is why once it was screened, the Queen is rumored to have said that it was never to be seen in its entirety again. 

Erin Vanderhoof: But Philip's plan worked. Tons of people watched it and the British people loved their royal family. In fact, they wanted to know what was going on like every day. As the kids say, the brand was strong. But they didn't know what laid ahead.

Reporter: It is announced from Buckingham Palace that with regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate.

Erin Vanderhoof: The publicity and the pressure would ultimately prove just to be too much for their children. Three out of the four would eventually divorce and the worst breakup would send the monarchy and it's carefully constructed brand into a spiral. 

Reporter: Then the betrayal with Camilla Parker Bowles beginning. It seemed even as Diana and Charles took their wedding vows, Camilla present against Diana's express wishes.

Did you try to be faithful and honorable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage?

Prince Charles [Archival Audio]: Yes, absolutely. 

Erin Vanderhoof: It's not that the Queen and Prince Philip didn't have marital challenges, because they did, but their children were just more exposed and either less able or less willing to embrace the limitations that have been placed upon them. They also had new challenges to contend with. Uh, 24 hour news cycles, growing public interest in the minute details of their personal lives, and the constant need for perfection that royalty demands. In a way, the Queen is now the last witness to the old world and the old way of monarchy. 

Katie Nicholl: And now we have the Queen sitting alone in the church without her partner after 73 years of marriage. A marriage that established the Windsors as a great royal house, as a dynasty. While the Queen had been carrying out solo engagements since Philip's retirement back in the summer of 2017, he was still there for her as a sounding board and, and crucially when she needed help sorting out the dilemmas of her family. And for me, what makes this all the sadder is that he never made it to his 100th birthday and the last year of his life had actually been a really happy one. When the country went into the first lockdown, Philip moved into Windsor Castle with the Queen and they created their own bubble. Previously, Philip had been living at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate enjoying his retirement. Painting, reading, and even carriage driving late into his nineties. And I know to many people, the idea of living away from each other in separate houses in different counties might seem strange, and essentially they were living separate lives, but the lockdown meant they have the chance to be together again for the first time in many years. And they would take walks around the castle. Every night they had the table laid for them and they would dine adure and just enjoy being with one another. 

Erin Vanderhoof: On their wedding anniversary that summer, they released a portrait that showed the two of them side by side sitting on a couch in Windsor looking so happy to be in each other's presence with a homemade card from their great grandchildren. And it was just a real, you know, picture of marital happiness. At the same time, the presence of the woman we mentioned before, you know, his carriage driving companion, suggests that the challenges of being human and royal have been sewn into the fabric of the Windsors from the very beginning. Even the family's most successful couple might not have been able to develop their strong bond under the pressures of clickbait media. Still, Elizabeth and Philip's rein serves as a template of a successful royal marriage. They demonstrated that healthy relationships help build a public image, and that's the secret to a healthy monarchy. 

Omid Scobie: She's the longest reigning Monarch in history and lived through, what is it, numerous constitutional changes; prime ministers and all the family crises that have gone on in the background. A journey which started at such a young age. 

Erin Vanderhoof: This is Omid Scobie, Royals Editor for Harper's Bazaar. 

Omid Scobie: We're so used to Prince Philip having been that sort of pillar of support for her majesty and now, of course, we're seeing family members step into that place instead. You know, she hasn't really had a public engagement without one of her other, or one of the other, either one of her children or Prince William by her side throughout that. And I think that that's really changed the way in which she carries out her work, but also shows the incredible void left behind by Prince Philip when it came to supporting the monarch in her role. 

Queen Elizabeth [Archival Audio]: He doesn't take easily to complements, but he has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years. And I, and his whole family and this and many other countries owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim. 

Erin Vanderhoof: Philip came into the royal family as an outsider initially. And as an outsider, he was able to bring an entirely new perspective. His perspective provided the public with more access and better insight into life behind those palace walls. But once the doors were opened, they could never really be closed again. The Windsors were soon trapped in a whirlwind of global fascination, and it has plagued them to this day. There really is another Elizabethan age that's coming to a close and so much of what the royal family means to British identity is just going to have to be re-articulated and re-understood. At the best of times, the idea of Britain at the center of a Commonwealth of nations was aspirational. And as you can see from the fraught and controversial trip that William and Kate just took to the Caribbean, it's being re-evaluated by the nations and the people in it. These are tectonic questions of history and power. We're coming off of this simultaneously incredible reign where the Queen has become one of the most beloved figures in the world. At the same time, it's also been a tumultuous couple of decades for the family in their own personal lives.

Katie Nicholl: Can the royal family still be a meaningful and relevant institution in an increasingly complex and fast moving world? Next week on _Vanity Fair's Dynasty,_ Will and Kate. We're tackling the love story so crucial to the future of the Windsors. We'll look at their courtship, their marriage, and what it says about influence and privilege in the 21st century. 

Michelle Ruiz: To have a wedding, draws all the eyes of the world onto the family in a very positive and favorable way. And it kind of carries the Windsors through to, whatever the next scandal may be, it builds up a tremendous amount of good will and like love for this institution that can be incredibly problematic. 

Kristen Meinzer: I think that there was also hope that these younger royals were going to connect with the people in a way that would continue the legacy of the Queen because frankly, Charles has never been popular. 

Erin Vanderhoof: Money, class, and love, and some really embarrassing picnics. 

Katie Nicholl: All that on the next episode of _Vanity Fair's Dynasty: The Windsors._ 

Erin Vanderhoof: Dynasty is hosted by Katie Nicholl and me, Erin Vanderhoof and is produced by _Vanity Fair_ in partnership with Somethin' Else. Lizzie Jacobs is our Executive Producer, Darby Dorras and Bryant Urstadt are our Editors, Rob Dozier, Zoe Edwards, Cheeka Eyers, and Sylvie Lubow are our Producers, and Ginny Bloom is our showrunner. Basak Erten and Jessica Jones are our Associate Producers, and Ike Egbetola, Lilly Hambly, and Peyton Hayes are our production coordinators. This episode was engineered by Josh Gibbs and the theme music is by Wooly. Dynasty was conceived by _Vanity Fair_ Executive Editor Claire Howorth. Claire and Katey Rich are our staff editorial consultants.