Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s upcoming UK visit could spark further tensions
With news the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to return to the UK for a round of charity events, tensions are about to be dialled up.
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As far as the world is aware, the Queen generally only has two expressions: Regal and Horse.
The first is the sort of thin-lipped, dour rectitude we are used to seeing when she is firmly on duty and the second is the deep soul-level joy that is blazingly apparent every time she is near anything equine.
(There can be no greater example of the former than during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games when Her Majesty had the mien of a woman about to sit through a community theatre production of the Cherry Orchard than someone presiding over a giddy and proud nation.)
Occasionally, very occasionally, we get a happy Queen (near babies, dogs) or a cheeky Queen (when she joked back in June about how many people might have fallen into a water feature at Parliament House in Canberra) but she is by and large a Sphinx-like enigma who keeps her emotions, like footmen and corgis, in ruthlessly efficient check.
So what does an angry Queen, an annoyed monarch at the end of her rope, look like?
The world might not have long to wait to find out with the events of the coming two to three months shaping up to be potentially deeply provoking for the largely unflappable sovereign.
While currently the 97-year-old is knee-deep in heather and gorse as she enjoys her usual lengthy summer break in Scotland, with nothing but breeze of the River Dee and the plaintive bleating of a self-pitying Prince Andrew to intrude, in only two weeks time that peace is set to be shattered by the return of her grandson and granddaughter-in-law Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
For more than 30 months, the Sussexes have largely stayed away from the UK, only making occasional dash back to the motherland (or should that be the grandmotherland?) for family events such as Prince Philip’s funeral, June’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, or their drive-by meeting with Her Majesty on their way to the Netherlands in May.
Most of these visits seem to have been motivated by family duty rather than any sort of personal interest in going back and on each of these occasions Harry (and at times Meghan) have hightailed it out of UK airspace the minute they could.
However, this upcoming trip is an altogether different kettle of fish.
Rather than the sort of twitchy, brief sortie we have seen in recent years, this time the good ol’ Harry’n’Meghan show is about to descend on London with a serious thud.
First on their agenda will be the One Young World 2022 Manchester Summit on September 5th (the Daily Mail has reported some tickets cost up to $1720 a day), before dashing to Germany for the Invictus Games Dusseldorf 2023 One Year to Go, with them then heading back to the UK to attend the WellChild Awards 2022 on September 8th.
The last time the UK witnessed the Sussexes in megawatt star mode, their smiles turned up to 11, their exemplary dental work on permanent display, was back in March 2020 when they returned to London for their final flurry of official events before their “free” new lives started.
It was to be their last hurrah as card-carrying frontline members of the House of Windsor; the new world and the deep, deep pockets of corporate America were calling.
Their grins, back then, felt unmistakably forced.
In the days and weeks after the couple announced to the world, by Instagram no less, that they wanted out, they faced a deeply nonplussed, intractable Queen. They could either be royal or not but she would not allow them to occupy a lucrative chimera of a role of their own creation.
That is, they could not have star royal billing and take millions from big business.
So, off they went to California to talk about compassion and making podcasts and TV shows, all lofty, impressive goals which have so far translated into sound and fury signifying headline-making white noise.
In short, they made their choice.
But now? Now it looks like they are about to go back to Britain for a trip which could carry with it the patina of royalty: the fleet of stealthy black Range Rovers pulling up to events, the cheering crowds and the big speeches, all happening alongside organisations that date back to pre-Megxit.
The problem is, having picked “freedom” and life outside palace walls, with this UK trip, it looks a lot like they are now intent on having their cashed-up Californian cake and eating it too.
“The chutzpah of those two is unreal,” a former Buckingham Palace staffer has told the Daily Beast.
“Their proposal for being hybrid working royals was comprehensively rejected (at the Sandringham Summit), but it looks like they are just going ahead and doing it anyway.”
It’s hard to imagine this will go over particularly well with a certain Earl Grey-loving monarch who put her diminutive foot down in 2020.
Harry and Meghan deciding to undertake a trip that could end up looking suspiciously royal would not be without its risks.
As Duncan Larcombe, the former royal editor of The Sun, told the Beast: “It’s a calculated provocation on their part. They are seriously pushing their luck and risking the wrath of the queen.”
All of this is coming at a time when both Montecito and the Palace look like they are turning up the heat.
This weekend the Telegraph revealed that Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William will only get to read Harry’s forthcoming memoir when it is released and that none of them have “seen any part of the manuscript, or even been told when the book will be published”.
Nor have their lawyers and “advisers have also been kept in the dark”.
While it is nigh on impossible that the Windsors would sue over anything in the book or undertake any sort of legal action, might they, if they were apprised of whatever revelations Harry has in the works, for example, start briefing British journalists or stage some sort of PR intervention?
For whatever reason, Harry and/or his publisher is unwilling to give the Palace any sort of heads-up, a decision that may well ruffle feathers.
Then we get to William who is getting set to stage his own PR land grab. Late on Friday it was confirmed that the future king will be hitting New York in late September for The Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit to be held in conjunction with billionaire and Democrat grandee Michael Bloomberg and during the 77th Session of the UN General Assembly.
(Bloomberg also happens to be the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions.)
Making keynote speeches about the environment? Buddying up to American philanthropic powerhouses? Swanning about the UN? This is exactly the turf that Harry and Meghan have been trying, not particularly successfully, to carve out as their own.
It was only in last month that the duke was at the General Assembly, delivering a speech to mark Nelson Mandela Day that touched on, among other issues, the climate crisis to an embarrassing number of empty seats.
That William is now undertaking a New York climate event of his very own, and with all the opportunities to flaunt his statesman credentials, may well only inflame family tensions further.
Whether entirely coincidental or not, this all feels like William not so much treading on his younger brother’s toes but enthusiastically clog dancing over Harry’s bare feet.
Between the Sussexes descending on London, William launching himself on the US market and the mystery of Harry’s book all nearly simultaneously bubbling away, are things about to reach boiling point?
It all feels highly combustible and this is even before Harry and Meghan’s “at home” docuseries lands on Netflix, potentially before the end of the year and William and Kate travel to Boston for the second Earthshot Awards (and possibly take part in a wider tour) in November.
So, what Queen might we see emerge in the coming months as temperatures are dialled up, up, ever more up, by the younger generation? An irked Queen ready to strike? A frustrated Queen who would like to ring a neck or two? A despondent Queen watching drama overtake the royal family in a bad case of deja vu?
As Australians, we know a thing or two about once-in-a-generation conflagrations and so might the House of Windsor.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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