Harry and Meghan show, with kids, returns to the UK
The Sussexes are flying in for the Queen’s jubilee, with the duchess’s make-up artist and baby Lilibet.
And so, as we enter the final furlong before the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, the Queen is said to be pacing herself at Balmoral. In London the Duke of Cambridge has successfully rehearsed Trooping the Colour. The Duchess of Cambridge is no doubt wondering if a four-year-old Louis can sit still for long enough to go to the service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s on Friday.
And over in California Harry is dusting off his medals, Meghan is dusting off a hat, and Archie, three, and Lilibet, one, are getting ready for their close-up. The Harry and Meghan show is packing up and coming to town, all together and on parade in the UK for the first time in two years.
The order from the very top is said to be “no dramas”. This week must be all about the Queen and nothing, not even the rebel royals, must overshadow her. Whether Netflix got the memo remains to be seen.
Exactly where the Sussexes will pop up and when is as yet unclear, and said to be a source of frustration to jubilee organisers. The fact that they’re coming at all is something of a miracle, given that it’s little more than a year since Meghan told Oprah her life in England made her suicidal and only a matter of months since Harry was suing the British government over his security arrangements.
During that case, Robert Palmer QC, for the Home Office, said that the Royal and VIP Executive Committee had previously accorded the duke “a form of exceptional status”, which meant that he would be considered for personal protection by the police “with the precise arrangements being dependent on the reason for his presence in Great Britain and by reference to the functions he carries out when present”. So it seems likely that while they are attending royal events they are always going to get the high-level publicly funded security provided by the Metropolitan Police that they enjoyed before Megxit. If they spend the weekend privately with friends at Soho Farmhouse they don’t. They can bring their US security guards, but unlike officers from the Met these are not allowed to carry weapons in the UK and would not be privy to intelligence from the security services.
A burly member of Team Sussex who once worked for Michael Jackson was photographed last week standing behind Meghan when she visited the site of the school massacre in Texas. She was there, her spokesman told People magazine, “in a personal capacity”, prompting some to wonder: “As opposed to what?”
Sussex HQ when they fly in this week will be Frogmore Cottage, which is a convenient ten-minute stroll from the Queen’s apartments at Windsor Castle and raises the possibility that they will join the Queen’s convoy when it heads into London.
Princess Eugenie, who recently visited Harry in California, has been living at Frogmore with her husband and baby son. One of the few members of his family with whom Harry is thought to be in regular, friendly contact, she is now reported to have moved out of Frogmore and the Sussexes have just renewed their lease for another 12 months.
It was renovated at a cost to the taxpayer of pounds 2.4 million, since repaid, amid a blizzard of headlines, claims and denials about vegan paint, sprung floors for Meghan’s yoga sessions and whether the marital bathroom featured a handmade giant copper bath costing pounds 5,000.
They lived there for six months. The royal author Tina Brown has speculated that within a few years they will return to the fold as working royals. In the meantime, the Palace recently confirmed once again that Frogmore remains the Sussexes’ base when in the UK. Princess Eugenie is thought to be in Portugal, and the sordid saga that engulfed her father, the Duke of York, is said to be largely ignored by Harry in his forthcoming autobiography, out of affection for Eugenie.
This week it’s likely the Sussexes will be ushered to the VIP section to watch Trooping the Colour. As non-working royals they are excluded from any formal proceedings and banned, along with Prince Andrew, from appearing on the balcony of Buckingham Palace afterwards.
This may not be as much of a blow to the couple personally as some commentators have speculated, although their Neflix paymasters may beg to differ. The last time Meghan was photographed on the palace balcony, before Megxit, she was somewhere at the back, behind the Cambridges, as protocol demands. She did not look happy. As Brown pointed out in her new book, The Palace Papers, she never rose higher than sixth on the call sheet for Suits and married a man who was sixth in line to the throne. Protocol rankled.
On Friday protocol will permeate every aspect of the service of thanksgiving for the Queen’s reign at St Paul’s. It’s thought to be unsuitable for young children, although the optics for the Sussexes of taking theirs may prove irresistible.
Netflix, for whom the couple are filming a docu-series, will not be given any privileged access to royal events, but there is nothing to stop their cameras lining up with other broadcasters, or Harry and Meghan being wired for sound. The visual appeal of them walking hand-in-hand up the steps of St Paul’s, with or without Lilibet and Archie, will not be lost on anyone – least of all a streaming giant paying the Sussexes a rumoured dollars 100 million for access. Just this week Daniel Martin, who did Meghan’s wedding make-up, arrived in London, joining her UK hairdresser, George Northwood.
On Saturday the Queen will not attend the Epsom Derby, due to the “episodic mobility” issues that last week had her driven around the Chelsea Flower Show in a specially adapted golf buggy swiftly dubbed “the Maj-mobile”. Instead, she will watch the race on TV and is expected to make time in her schedule to meet baby Lilibet for the first time, at her first birthday party.
Younger members of the royal family, possibly including the Sussexes as well as the Cambridges, will attend Saturday night’s Platinum Party at the Palace, while the Queen watches on television at home in Windsor. On Sunday, the last day of the celebrations, 16,000 street parties will take place across the country and hundreds more around the Commonwealth.
The Duchess of Sussex had all the flowers of the Commonwealth countries embroidered onto her wedding veil in a nod to her proposed work with the association. Whether she makes an appearance at a jubilee lunch or the afternoon’s pageant around the streets of London or turns up to listen to Ed Sheeran singing the national anthem at the culmination of proceedings has yet to be confirmed.
An unnamed source has said that the couple will attend “at least” one other public engagement as well as the service at St Paul’s, while also warning that the public “should not expect them at every event’‘. What seems clear is that wherever and whenever the Sussexes do turn up, their presence will cause drama and fascination in equal measure.
Nobody could blame the royals for giving them the cold shoulder, after the mud that has been flung at them from Montecito. Equally, none of them wants to do anything that might cause a scene or overshadow the Queen. Whether the Sussexes agree, only time will tell.
The Times
More Coverage
Simon’s ‘dream’ world and the stalking sound of silence
In an epic new documentary by Alex Gibney, the musician reveals the roots of the pop duo’s bitter rivalry and opens up about his deafness.
The Queen, Philip and me
Samantha Cohen, who was first entranced by the royals when they visited Brisbane in 1977, became one of the most trusted royal aides.