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Meghan and Harry will officially be leaving the Royal Family on March 31. From that date onwards, they will no longer be able to use their HRH titles, will be funded solely by Prince Charles’ Duchy of Cornwall estate and will no longer be senior royals. As Harry explained in a hoax phone call leaked earlier this month, he thinks he is “much more normal than my family believes”. He also indicated he and Meghan are excited about casting off the restrictions and conventions of royal life.

However, the last time the Royal Family tried to communicate how ‘ordinary’ it is, many believed it backfired spectacularly. Sir David Attenborough was a BBC controller in 1969, when the monarchy brought out its documentary ‘Royal Family’ which followed the royals day-to-day lives for 18-months. In response to the documentary release, Sir David said: “You’re killing the monarchy, you know, with this film you’re making.” The prestigious documentary maker explained: “The whole [royal] institution depends on mystique and the tribal chief in his hut. “If any member of the tribe ever sees inside the hut, then the whole system of the tribal chiefdom is damaged and the tribe eventually disintegrates.”

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and Sir David Attenborough

Sir David has been a long-time friend of the Royal Family

Indeed Ingrid Seward wrote in the 2000 biography ‘The Queen and Di: The Untold Story’ how Sir David’s warning should have indicated to the Royal Family what it was letting itself in for. She wrote: “It was a warning which was ignored, and, in retrospect, the programme came to be seen to have given fateful encouragement to exactly the kind of intrusive interest in their lives which the Royal Family were at such pains to avoid.” Parallels can be drawn between the Firm’s attempts to seem more accessible and the Sussexes’ decision to break away from the royal institution. The couple have made it clear they will be focusing on the charitable entities which interest them most, such as climate change and women’s rights. They have indicated that they intend to be more outspoken than previously too, now they have shaken off royal neutrality. READ MORE: Shock claim Harry and Meghan face ‘popularity erosion’

A still from the 1969 Royal Family documentary

Yet, writing in The Atlantic in January, Tom McTague explained: “Harry and Meghan’s popularity is, in part, tied to this unifying neutrality. “Choosing to intervene politically might give them a quick hit of satisfaction but erodes the basis of their popularity. “Once they start to behave like ordinary people, giving ordinary opinions, then people will treat them as ordinary.” Indeed, a 2011 Daily Telegraph article explained how the monarch came to “regret her decision to allow the cameras in” after the documentary was released. DON'T MISS

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The documentary was considered to normalise and the monarchy and remove its mystique

Attenborough with Charles and Anne as children

The Queen ordered the documentary to lock it up in a vault shortly after its release – it has not been seen in its entirety since. The documentary was suggested by Prince Philip, in partnership with his private secretary Heseltine. The pair thought the Royal Family’s fall in popularity throughout the Sixties was down to the elusive nature of the Firm. Philip reportedly wanted people to see the monarchy “as individuals, as people, I think it makes it much easier for them to accept the system”,especially if they removed “remoteness or majesty” in the perception of the Royal Family.

Harry and Meghan aired their own controversial documentary in October last year, 'Harry and Meghan: An African Journey'

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