Prince George Christmas video that pushed Prince Harry to the edge
A video featuring young Prince George is said to have been the last straw that saw Prince Harry and Meghan Markle step away from the royal family.
Oh, that royal family of ours. They have quite the tradition of accidentally burning things down at Christmas.
Christmas Day. 1066. William the Conqueror, having done some superlative conquering of a good chunk of England, was having himself crowned at Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, his guards, hearing crowds clamouring outside and fearing the worst, rushed outside and managed to start a riot and set fire to nearby houses.
953 years later and the royal family managed to make history repeat itself, accidentally burning down any chance of a shiny, buoyant future and triggering the greatest schism since Edward VIII buggered off to France with Wallis.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s possible to draw a straight line between the events of Christmas 2019 starring Prince George at Christmas and the reason his uncle Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex is the most famously underwhelming podcaster in the history of the medium. (That and being on the same bin run as Katy Perry.)
2019 seems like a world away now. Only Howard Hughes-esque germaphobes wore masks and ‘California’ was probably a palace pejorative. (Like ‘feelings’, ‘race’ and ‘gluten-free’.)
Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, along with their six-month-old son Prince Archie had fled the grey skies of Britain for the grey skies of British Columbia so they could recharge their chakras after a bruising year of criticism courtesy of a six-figure baby shower, their Frogmore Cottage reno that had run into the millions and their penchant for private jets. (Hang on, what polar ice caps?)
So, off they went to have what was sold by the palace as a six-week break, to which the world said, jolly good idea. Things are clearly not fine and nowhere near dandy.
We now know via approximately 167 biographies and much well-sourced reporting that the Sussexes also planned to use their time away to plot out a proposal for a new working model, their willingness to toe lines and follow palace hegemony over.
Something was going to change, no matter what. However, events to come back in London meant what might have just been a tweaking of the Sussexes’ schedules to spend part of the year in the Commonwealth instead ended up devolving into a historic rupture.
Things began on Christmas Eve, AEDT, when the official Buckingham Palace social media accounts put out a video of Her late Majesty The Queen along with the then-Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, Prince William and George, all gathered at Monarchy HQ for a pudding stir for Royal British Legion initiative.
It was charming stuff, most notably young Geroge’s furrow-browed focus and vigour such that the late Queen, towards the end, pointedly gets out of the firing line.
Then, within hours, came the screening of Her late Majesty’s annual TV address, her ramrod straight bit of teleprompter reading that always aired around the same time the entire UK was digging into the Quality Street on their sofas.
In an instance that gives new meaning to the phrase ‘conspicuous absence,’ there on her desk for the TV outing were photos of William and Kate, now the Prince and Princess of
Wales and their kids, Charles and now Queen Camlla, Prince Philip and George VI. Ten points for anyone who can guess what – or who – was missing.
The excising of Harry and Meghan from the tableau had been a last-minute change, according to Christopher Andersen’s Brothers And Wives.
According to Andersen, just before Her late Majesty was due to begin filming, she “looked over the table where the photographs she had so lovingly selected were arranged. All were fine except for one, she told the director as she pointed to a heartwarming portrait of Harry, Meghan, and eight-month-old Archie.
“‘That one,’ said the Queen, surveying the other images of past and future monarchs and their families. “‘I suppose we don’t need that one.’”
The glaring removal of the duke and duchess from the picture, in the most literal sense, was being keenly noted back in Canada, according to Omid Scobie’s first outing as Sussex-disciple-in-chief, Finding Freedom.
Scobie, along with co-author Carolyn Durand writes that “for Harry and Meghan, it was yet another sign that they needed to consider their own path”.
Then on January 3, Buckingham Palace’s courtiers managed to put down their restorative pint glasses of Fernet-Branca and Alka-Seltzer long enough to put out a new official photo which had obviously been taken during the earlier pudding parade. There was the monarch and Her late Majesty’s three direct heirs undertaking that most fundamental of royal activities, posing.
📸 To mark the start of a new decade, a portrait has been released of Her Majesty The Queen and Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales, The Duke of Cambridge and Prince George.
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) January 3, 2020
The portrait was taken by Ranald Mackechnie in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace. pic.twitter.com/ER5nqBMpz0
Four generations of royal cooks got stuck into Christmas pudding preparations at Buckingham Palace this week. The Queen, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cambridge and Prince George helped make the puddings to launch the @PoppyLegion “Together at Christmas†campaign
— Roya Nikkhah (@RoyaNikkhah) December 21, 2019
📷 @ChrisJack_Gettypic.twitter.com/7korn8iC6N
Taken at face value it was a truly charming shot, a delightful visual reminder of just how strong the future of the crown was, the line of succession and fodder for decades worth of Hello! covers all but guaranteed.
Except over in Canada, this bit of Palace semaphore had not gone unnoticed by Harry, even though Meghan had bought him a thousand-piece jigsaw of a Sherman tank to keep him occupied.
The pudding video, the Christmas address, the new portrait. The message coming out of the SW1 postcode crystal clear: Harry did not matter, all of these instances dangerously pointed reminders of his hierarchical irrelevance.
The takeaway: The Sussexes were unneeded, peripheral, secondary. Tom Bower in Revenge offers a slightly more brutal reading of the underlying palace message: “Without any formal announcement, the monarchy would be ‘slimmed down’. The irritants, especially Andrew and Harry, would be removed earlier than planned.”
Whether the portrait, the pudding video and the TV address were meant to be cutting slights or just a perfect example of Firm obtuseness, the end result was the same. It was the icing on the pique cake, further proof of a ruthless institution that did not value Harry or his carefully glued together vision boards. (I’m guessing.)
He had feelings, dammit. And pride. And, I’d assume, a little voice in his head telling him he deserved better than to be pointedly reminded how little he mattered by a family who, we have since learned, seemed wholly disinterested in his or his wife’s wellbeing.
Within days of that portrait being released on January 3, Harry and Meghan would fly back to the UK and within a week the world would be reeling from them having pulled the grenade pin on Megxit.
How might things have played out if Buckingham Palace had acted with even a soupçon of sensitivity and tact? With some tiny hint of awareness of how close to the edge the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were? Of quite how tectonic the consequences would be for the crown, not only now, but for decades to come if they were truly pushed to the edge?
Courtiers didn’t have to agree with how the Sussexes were feeling back then but the politic, the intelligent, the long-term-good-of-the-crown approach would have been a much more feelings-forward play.
But no, which is why in a few weeks, the extended royal family will gather at Sandringham as they have done for more than a century. And 8500 km and a world away, Harry will be pondering how to carve a tofurkey.
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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