King Charles’ shock new titles for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry
The King has embarked on a ‘radical’ new strategy, and the fallout for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry is extreme.
COMMENT
Generally when it comes to presents, the royal family has only a few sorts they ever give, one of which lend themselves to some hapless aide having to bother wrapping them: Horses, dogs, gag gifts (like the singing Big Mouth Billy Bass that Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex famously once gave his Granny), more horses, and titles.
And getting a new one of the latter is generally a cause for celebration, a jolly present for a jolly occasion like a wedding or managing to make it to 30-years of royal duty and not once yelling at a snotty second-grader at a newly-opened Scout Hall when one has a dashed hangover.
But Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex? They have, reportedly, gotten a new ‘title’ from King Charles but it is no cause to pop the Krug and has definitely not been handed out in recognition of their service to crown, country or the cottage industries of the Cotswolds.
Rather, the Sussexes have been earnt the label of the “Others” in a big royal reshuffle, a sobriquet which makes it sound like they will never again be permitted on the furniture in Buckingham Palace’s Good Rooms.
The source for this particular morsel is the Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column. (No Hardcastle actually exists, it’s a made up byline, however it’s generally considered well-sourced.)
According to Hardcastle, four months on from Charles’ coronation and debut go at not falling over while holding a sceptre, His Majesty has been hard at work and “has radically reset his late mother’s concept of the ‘Family Firm’”.
His Majesty’s move is far more than a decree than him just putting the kibosh on pilfering from the Palace stationery cupboard. (Just what is Fergie going to do with all those Post-It notes anyway?)
Rather, this “reset” has seen the King break his family down into four categories, “Senior Royals, Working Royals, Non-Working Royals and Others,” according to Hardcastle.
And it is into that final inglorious group, the “Others”, that the Sussexes have been lumped along with disgraced ducal potato and the second worst Duke of York in history, Prince Andrew. (Number one, by far and away, was James, Duke of York, later James II, who oversaw the Royal African Company, which monopolised the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th century.)
Even here though, Harry and Meghan are coming off second-best with “Andrew getting preferential treatment over the Sussexes,” per Hardcastle. “He was allowed to join Edward at the one year memorial service for the late Queen at St George’s Chapel in Windsor while Harry, on the same day, struggled to get permission to pay his respects at her tomb there.”
Dear lord, this all must sting in certain bergamot-scented California environs. (A soft linen sofa cushion is excellent for screaming into, just FYI.)
Say what you will about Harry and Meghan, and I’m paid to, but they have never, ever palled around with a convicted sex offender or come to a financial settlement with someone who has accused them of multiple counts of sexual assault in a civil court.
(That the couple didn’t even make the “non-working” royal category does not suggest any hands-across-the-water-style rapprochements are on the cards.)
In a move that truly befuddles and confounds me, for some god-knows reason that I struggle to fathom, Charles has clearly softened his attitude and stance towards his reputationally leprous younger brother.
While earlier this year, the King had tried to oust Andrew from Royal Lodge, the 30-room bit of prize real estate he has called home since the Queen Mother’s 2002 death, it now looks like His Majesty has surrendered to his pompous brother’s intractability and refusal to downgrade.
This week the Mirror’s Russell Myers revealed that the unemployed duke “has been granted permission by the King to stay indefinitely at his Royal Lodge home, after thrashing out a deal with the monarch.”
The smoke signals coming from the Palace about Andrew are that he’s made it back into the inner circle.
In August, during the King & co.’s annual Scottish retreat, Andrew was driven to church by his nephew and niece, William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, in what was a very deliberate bit of theatre. Here were the Waleses being used to signal that Uncle Andrew, a man who has not left British soil for some reason since 2019, being welcomed back into the family fold.
While there is no question that the Duke of York will ever be given the chance to resume public duties, this very apparent bringing him in from the cold defies belief, good sense and the view of 88 per cent of Brits who think he is a massive plonker. (Well, who view him negatively, according to the most recent YouGov polling.)
Andrew has also retained the right to host his annual shooting weekend at Windsor, the Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes has revealed.
His perks don’t end there, with reports that he and housemate Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York have meals sent over from the Windsor Castle kitchen up the road and that the 21-acres of grounds are looked after by royal gardeners.
(That would give him plenty of space to ponder historian Andrew Lownie’s courtroom attempts to find out if Scotland Yard ever actually investigated his accuser Virginia Giuffre’s claims. Lownie’s Freedom of Information Act request was knocked back late last month with the famed police force refusing to “confirm or deny” whether they had eve officially looked into the allegations.)
Contrast Charles’ handling of the ongoing disaster that is Andrew with his of the exasperating Sussexes.
Within 24-hours of Harry’s memoir Spare being released, the King had started proceedings to boot them out of their UK home, Frogmore Cottage, Page Six reported at the time.
In September, the Sunday Times reported that “courtiers have discussed leasing a property” to the Sussexes inside Kensington Palace, but that was a claim which was “hotly disputed” by the Palace.
It is impossible to read this situation as anything but the King having little appetite or interest in extending the same sort of leniency towards Harry and Meghan that he has to Andrew.
Given that His Majesty has control over hundreds of grace-and-favour properties, if he was dead set on finding a new UK address for his son and daughter-in-law, he would be able to do it in less time than it would take for a footman to deliver his midmorning oatcake. (And still have time left over to re-alphabetise his collection of seed catalogues.)
In September, when Harry returned to the UK for less time than it takes to get to the front of the bar queue at Chelsea’s Hollywood Arms, his old watering hole, his request to spend the night at Windsor Castle was knocked back. (Though Charles did invite his vexatious, truth-telling son to stay with him at Balmoral.)
This inconsistency on His Majesty’s part, this two-track approach to Andrew and the Sussexes, The Firm’s biggest headaches, is just bad news, full stop, the end.
Andrew might still be a part of the actual family but that does not mean the King should be parading him about in front of the cameras with William and Kate or letting him continue to live like Lord Muck in an enormous pile the size of a modest hotel.
If there is one rule for Harry and Meghan, all cold shoulders and ‘no room at the inn’ type official emails to Montecito, then the same standard should apply to the Duke of Yuck.
Or conversely, Charles should offer the Sussexes some sort of clemency Andrew is now enjoying.
It is a horrible look for the King that the Duke of York can now gobble down Victoria sponges sent over from castle kitchens while gleefully contemplating the wholesale slaughter of some birds while Harry can’t even get his family, one of the largest property holders in Britain, to stump up a spare room.
If this is what His Majesty’s ‘radical reset’ looks like then god help us, pheasant everywhere and all those cousins of his still living at Kensington Palace, if he ever really does a hard reset.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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