Royal family’s ‘fresh snub’ against Meghan revealed in website edit as bizarre Sussex detail baffles

The royal family’s official website has undergone a refresh – and the Duchess of Sussex has been singled out for some unusual treatment.

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If aliens landed on earth tomorrow, after they had downloaded TikTok, tried a Twix and absorbed the entire 10 seasons of Love Island in under three seconds, then I would imagine their next priority would be to come to grips with “Meghan”.

Who and what? (And why would anyone want a diamond pinky ring of all useless accoutrements?)

When the extraterrestrial invasion comes, to answer the “Meghan” question, I really hope no one suggests they consult the royal family’s updated official website, with her entry having been very curiously pruned and strangely altered.

This week, the royal family essentially delivered a fresh snub to the Duchess of Sussex via the edit button.

Buckingham Palace’s circa 1999-titled webmaster (I’m guessing) finally got around to properly refreshing The Firm’s online presence after several years that have seen the outfit hit by resignations (Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex), a forced redundancy (Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and the man who cleaned out the office stationery cupboard on his way out) and sad losses (Queen Elizabeth and her number one bloke, Prince Philip).

Harry and Meghan left the royal family more than three years ago. Picture: Timothy A. Clary/AFP

Much attention has been given over to the fact that the revamped site has seen the Sussexes’ stylings as His/Her Royal Highness go the way of Are You Being Served? and the Windsors’ vast ivory collection – quietly tidied away, far, far out of public view. (Even though this comes three and a half years after Her late Majesty made the call that the couple had to mothball their HRHs).

However, the much more interesting story can be found over on the section that goes into detail about each working and ex-working member of the royal family.

It’s exactly as dullsvilles as you would imagine – each person’s entry enthusiastically enumerating said Windsor’s particular areas of charitable interests and just how gosh darn hard they plug away on behalf of Crown Inc. (It’s kind of like a LinkedIn for the coronet set).

That is, until you get to Meghan’s page. At first click, the entire entry appears to be six sentences long and is so lacking in warmth that one is liable to get frostbite just reading it.

(Just don’t ask Harry for a “cure” for that …)

Accessing the pages of all the other members of His Majesty’s family means being from the get-go swamped in details about their charity work, while Meghan’s entry necessitates someone having the patience to do a bit of clicking to find out what she achieved during her brief official tenure.

Meghan's entry gets just four lines.

But the Princess of Wales' entry looks very different.

Unlike all the other entries (ranging from King Charles down to the 86-year-old Princess Alexandra, who I bet most people couldn’t pick out of a line-up of titled dowagers in golf ball-sized pearls), the duchess’ page requires a user to manually click through to the “charitable work” section to actually read in any detail about her do-goodery.

Interestingly, the duchess’ page on the royal website, courtesy of the magic of the internet archive, shows that this was not the case as recently as June, when her inclusion followed the same format and structure as all the other HRHs.

Maybe we could be generous and view this change to Meghan’s inclusion as nothing more than a stuff up, given the site contains more than 5000 pages and the King seems about as interested in this internet thing as he is in dubstep and the romantic travails of Taylor Swift.

Or maybe not. (Brevity the soul of a snit?)

It’s also worth pointing out that on the Royal Family page on the website, Harry and Meghan now feature under the late Queen’s cousins, the Duke of Gloucester, 31st in line to the throne, and Princess Alexandra, 57th in line to the throne, both of whom still undertake occasional official royal duties. (The very bottom place on the page is given over to the UK’s worst trade export since the East India Company got off the ground, Prince Andrew).

It’s coming up on a year since the Duchess of Sussex last stepped foot in the United Kingdom, a 12 months in which she and Harry put out a six-part TV series that accused Prince William of leaving Harry “terrified” after he “screamed and shouted” at his younger brother, of the royal family suffering from “a huge level of unconscious bias”, and that Buckingham Palace conducted “a real kind of war against Meghan”.

Which brings us to another truly head-scratching, bewildering detail on the reworked royal website.

Meghan's entry reveals a hidden snub – and a truly baffling detail.

Both of the Sussexes’ pages include a line that is ripped from the Instagram post they put out on January 8, 2020 announcing the great tear in the royal space time continuum that was Megxit. Specifically, that even now in 2023, “They are balancing their time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honour their duty to the Monarch, the Commonwealth, and their patronages”.

Que? Huh? Insert a dramatically loud record scratch.

Anyone who can count to a first class level can work out that they are not “balancing” their time between California and the grey skies of Blighty, with them having only spent approximately a month in total back in Britain in the last 35 months or thereabouts.

But the biggest puzzler of all is the idea that the duke and duchess might in any way be “continuing to honour their duty to the Monarch”.

The couple only spent approximately a month in total back in Britain in the last 35 months. Picture: Andy Stenning – WPA Pool/Getty Images

In what screwy universe does going on the telly to cast royal life as a living hell of sorts, the Palace as something of a snakepit of egos and the King as a bit of a useless father who failed to help his son and daughter-in-law translate to “honouring their duty to the Monarch”?

Harry and Meghan’s wholesale, public repudiation of the royal paradigm over the last couple of years is unprecedented stuff. Intentionally or not, they have done more damage to the standing of the monarchy than the ghost of Oliver Cromwell and all that secret ivory combined. (Not including human dough ball and waste of a good suit, Andrew).

The dumb thing in all of this is that instances like this Meghan website reworking just adds weight to the Sussexes’ overarching arguments about The Firm.

Whether this situation was deliberate or just a stuff-up, the end result is that it still looks like the Palace is dismissing or downplaying her royal work.

And that? That is just bloody stupid.

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.