Kate Middleton spectacle at coronation proves Meghan and Harry lost
The Princess of Wales stunned at King Charles’ coronation and it’s all but game over for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
COMMENT
If ever there was a moment for a bit of Latin this is it. After two hours of Bibles and blessings and lots of energetic ‘God Save the King’-ing, the expression that comes to mind here is venerunt, viderunt, vicerunt.
They came, they saw and oh boy … has the royal family just conquered.
On Saturday, as King Charles walked out of Westminster Abbey after having become the 40th monarch anointed inside the nearly 1,000-year-old architectural beast, it is was having somehow pulled off the once unthinkable: The jug-eared lost soul of a man who often seemed like well-meaning but pointless living anachronism in tweed might just have staged the monarchical PR coup de grace to end them all.
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Sure other royal houses have won glory trouncing the rotten French or letting the Prussians have what for on the battlefield but in the 21st century, the House of Windsor has just put on the sort of thrilling show that will keep the monarchy going yet.
Kate, the Princess of Wales played a sartorial blinder and turned up in a Cinderella-worthy Alexander McQueen gown and ornate floral headpiece that within nanoseconds editors around the world were probably describing as iconic.
The King looked moved and humbled by it all while Queen Camilla’s slightly stunned mullet look, to start with at least, added a sweetly human touch.
The whole thing was a production unlike anything anyone alive today under the age of 80-years-old has never borne witness to. The whole thing – the trumpet fanfares, the gold coaches, the resplendent robes, the diamonds that were comically big, the peeling church bells and the bagpipes- was over-the-top and at times, even surprisingly moving.
It was a ceremony that blended the ancient, like the use 12th century Coronation Spoon and the modern, in the form of Queen Camilla’s grandchildren taking centre stage. (What other family in the world has a nearly millennium-old bit of cutlery hanging around?)
In the coming hours and days, millions of words are about to be rightfully spilled to bang on about how majestic the whole shebang was but in amongst it all there is one undeniable fact: Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have failed.
Or perhaps more accurately the House of Windsor has triumphed.
What we have just witnessed might well end up constituted an inflection point in the royal story, a moment of renewal and maybe even something of a new beginning.
Like some sort of titled Jurassic Park, the crown finds a way.
For a while there, for years really, the Sussexes’ histrionic exit posed a serious existential threat to the monarchy. What did it say about an institution that two of its star members found the going so tough they were willing to chuck it all in?
Post-Oprah questions about possible royal racism, about The Firm’s ostensibly cold-blooded disregard for some members, about just how bloodthirsty an organisation it might be in protecting heirs swirled.
However, watching Kate sail down the Abbey aisle done up like a 21st century Roman goddess or a couture Britannia; watching a divorce from Wiltshire who loves Shiraz wear a crown; and watching the whole breathtaking spectacle of it all, something seemed apparent.
The royal house has come out on top.
For years there, as the Sussexes routinely turned up on TV screens and on podcasts to purge their grievances, the royal family often looked outfoxed, outmanoeuvred and just plain out of step.
A big part of the problem: Monarchies in the modern sense don’t look like much. Shake hands, wave, plant tree, knight and repeat.
But what the world witnessed on Saturday was a truly extraordinary, spine-tingling display of what monarchy can be; a magisterial display unlike anything else in the world.
The Sussexes and their regular bouts of prime time royal ‘J’accuse’-ing have become nothing more than a sideshow – entertaining and juicy but meaningful? Not any more.
If you think about it too much, there is something fundamentally ludicrous and ridiculous about a monarchy but for two hours on Saturday, it was nigh on impossible not to be totally swept up in the nearly otherworldly wonder and awe of it all.
To be a tad cynical for a moment, as first century poet Juvenal might have put it, this was ‘bread and circuses’ on an epic scale: Entertain the masses with the palliative feel-goodery of a huge, lovely spectacle! (Told you we were going to see some Latin.)
But still, bottom line, I think it just might have worked or at least gone a long way to washing away some of the bad taste of recent years.
What Charles, Camilla, William and Kate have just done is manage to arrest much of the brand decline of this hereditary throne business, at least for a bit anyway. It might not be a permanent stay of execution but any chance of British sans culottes carting guillotines down The Mall or at least moving trucks forcibly entering Clarence House have been delayed for a long while yet.
The Windsors are well and truly back in the wowing business.
And even though it was the King and Queen who ended up with the crowns, there was no bigger star than Kate. In not adhering to centuries of tradition and wearing a tiara, in transforming herself into some sort of figure who seemed out of history and time, like some sort of Roman goddess, what she managed to do was to make the monarchy seem great again.
What Kate’s coronation home run really represents is the awesome regenerative power of the monarchy, even in the face of crises aplenty.
What the Windsors have just proven is that, ultimately, they can get along fine without the Sussexes; that despite the convulsions of Megxit and Spare, vast hordes of people will brave the rain to catch a glimpse of them and thousands of damp people will camp out for hours, if not in many cases days, to cheer them on.
And Harry? He was left in the third row, like some provincial Rotarian who might have raised lots of money for charity for one of the King’s favourite charities.
While the royal family were forcing writers to find new and breathless ways to describe just what a good job they did on Saturday of royal-ing, the Duke of Sussex was giving off the vibe of being some sort of lost sheep, having long strayed off into the Californian wilderness.
Late on Saturday night, Sydney time, nearly hours and hours after it all began, after tens and tens of thousands of people had streamed up The Mall, Their Majesties and the Waleses stepped out onto the Buckingham Palace balcony, a resplendent image that is undoubtedly being slapped on vast reams of mugs and tea towels in Guangzhou already.
What Kate & co have just proven is that the monarchy is still very much in business. And those tea towels? They are going to sell like the clappers.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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