The Queen reportedly set to honour Meghan Markle and Prince Andrew with medals
The Queen plans to bestow a new honour on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in what could be a risky move for the Palace, writes Daniela Elser.
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In 2012, when the Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee (that’s 60 years on the throne), the biggest story was the rain.
The plan had been for celebrations to culminate with a 1000-boat flotilla down the Thames which would see the royal family regally lead the armada down the Thames in the specially decked out royal row barge Gloriana.
On the day in question, rather than a grand aquatic procession, the heavens opened, forcing Her Majesty and her family to huddle undercover as the rain fell and the wind whipped the water. The choir at the pageant’s end sang Rule Britannia soaked.
The Royal Navy fly-past was cancelled.
Watching Her Majesty and her family trying to look jovial as they huddled under Gloriana’s golden canopy was not an image anyone had imagined for this historic day.
Today, that such a simple thing as rain would qualify as a “disaster” now seems positively quaint. Next year the Queen will mark her Platinum Jubilee having notched up 70 years on the throne, a record no monarch in British history has ever reached and planning is already well underway for events, including a 5000-participant pageant and a national tree-planting scheme.
This week saw the first Jubilee-related crisis hit the headlines with news that Her Majesty is set to award Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Prince Andrew with medals, despite the fact that the trio have all made crisis-plagued exits from royal working life.
I know, I know. It makes about as much sense as sending Princess Margaret to open a rehab clinic.
When the pared back royal family took to the Buckingham Palace balcony back in 2012, the world looked markedly different for the house of Windsor. The monarchy was enjoying a resurgence in their fortunes off the back of the marriage of William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
(There really is nothing like a fairytale wedding to woo a nation back to the side of the monarchy.)
Suddenly, the palace had a lovely future Queen on the books whose Zara-loving ways looked set to drag the The Firm into the current century.
William, Kate and Prince Harry laughing and smiling as they stood side-by-side before the adoring crowds, was a potent image.
Here was the next generation of working representatives of the crown, injecting the monarchy with just the sort of youthful verve which could stave off any thoughts of republicanism.
The arrival of Meghan Markle to the royal fold promised an extension of this shift with the addition of a successful, professional bi-racial woman to the royal ranks.
The monarchy seemed poised on the precipice of an even more electrifying new chapter.
Bucks Fizz for everyone!
Then came the precipitous souring of this fairytale, ultimately leading to the Sussexes sensationally defecting to the US.
The current state of the royal family is a serious departure from 2012 with the palace not only still dealing with the aftershocks of Megxit but also facing down a sexual assault lawsuit, a police investigation over a money-for-honours scandal, and claims of institutional racism and cruelty.
Today, public sentiment in the UK is very firmly against both the Sussexes and the Duke of York.
Polling out in early September found that positive opinion of Harry had fallen from 43 per cent in April to 34 per cent. Likewise, Meghan’s public rating has slipped from 29 per cent of 26 per cent.
The figures for Andrew are nothing short cataclysmic.
Only 6 per cent of respondents reported viewing him positively with 83 per cent of the public having a negative opinion of him. And yet despite this very, very clear level of feeling in Britain about this trio of former working members of the royal family, the Queen will go ahead and award them with a palace honour.
See, next year, the Queen will award around 400,000 Jubilee medals to thank frontline members of the emergency and prison services, members of the Armed Forces who have all completed five years’ work, members of the Royal Household with one year’s service, along with going to all living recipients of the George and Victoria Cross.
This is completely in line with what happened during her silver and gold jubilees.
However, where things start to get iffy is when we get to the fact that, also on the recipient list, are all the members of the royal family.
The Express has reported that non-working members of the Windsor camp, including Andrew, Harry, Meghan, Peter Phillips, Zara and Mike Tindall, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and their husbands, are also set to receive the honours.
(The Queen personally buys the medals for her family in case you were wondering about who will foot the bill.)
The symbolism of this move, that despite everything that has happened over the last two years Andrew, Harry and Meghan will all get the same official nods of thanks as frontline healthcare workers, is nothing short of disastrous and yet despite that, that Her Majesty is still ploughing ahead nothing short dumbfounding.
For the Queen, the decision to not rock the boat and to hew to what she did in 2012, rather than listening to her people therefore pursuing a different approach, is a serious gamble.
Most obviously, this is a ticking PR time bomb. The honours can be worn on official occasions, such as when Princes Charles, Prince William, Harry, Andrew and Prince Edward and Princess Anne all wore their previously Jubilee medals to Prince Philip’s funeral in April.
Any images of Andrew wearing the medal would be nothing short of disastrous for the palace, while should Harry and Meghan decide to don theirs, it would make something of a mockery of an honour intended to reflect duty.
Beyond that, going down this medals-for-all-the-family path is deeply problematic because this is just another example of the Queen putting protocol and tradition ahead of showing any inclination to listen to the people she rules over.
That’s not to suggest she should kowtow to the whims of the masses like a politician eternally chasing re-election but that she has yet to really make any sort of concession to the very strong public feeling about Andrew especially is a myopically stupid.
Her decision, in August, to let the embattled Duke of York retain his position as the Colonel of the Grenadier Guards was indefensible, given that the 61-year-old is no longer being a working member of the royal family and that she had forced Harry to relinquish his honorary military posts when he too quit official palace duties.
The Queen should never chase popularity but she cannot keep up this deeply blinkered approach to her recalcitrant family members and keep blithely disregarding the very clear-cut feelings of the people.
She could, for example, give out the shiny new medals next year, sure, but only to those HRHs who are working members of the royal house.
Not only would it neatly sidestep this current mess but it would reinforce the slimmed-down image of the royal family that Charles is so keen to propagate.
Instead, we have a situation where Her Majesty seems to be blindly trying to pretend it’s regal business as usual, which just makes her seem even more out of touch and disconnected from reality and that is very dangerous ground to be on.
The palace has a lot riding on next year’s celebrations with the serious reputational damage to repair and keen to get back to the regal business after 18-months sequestered away. (As the sovereign herself has said, “I have to be seen to be believed.”)
This medal fiasco-in-the-making will not be the only tricky Jubilee situation the royal house will have to negotiate. Who will get the all-important nod to take part in any sort of Buckingham Palace balcony outing?
(In 2012, Charles famously banished everyone aside from his parents, wife, sons and Kate.)
Will Harry and Meghan make a UK return? And what the dickens are they going to do about Andrew?
The very least any one will have to worry about in 2022 is whether it rains or not.
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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