How does the Queen even begin to negotiate with Harry and Meghan?
It is truly horrifying to watch the royals being turned over by someone they met four seconds ago.
Even if you don’t like the royal family, there is something truly horrifying about watching them being turned over by someone they met only four seconds ago.
I watched agog last Wednesday, as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex launched their stunning smackdown, telling the Queen they’d be rejecting her kindness and understanding in favour of “stepping back” as senior royals.
They told their readers they had come to this decision “with your encouragement, over the last few years”. Whereupon I thought, “over the last few years?” But Meghan’s only been here three seconds. She met him only one minute ago — the gushing, joyful wedding was yesterday!
Why? What happened? We clearly still have really no idea who this woman is, however many thousands of words she no doubt personally writes on the lardy sussexroyal blog, a resurrection of her original blog, The Tig, just with more Julian Fellowes ("the history of the British monarchy is steeped in tradition and pride . . .").
Maybe even Harry doesn’t know who she is, although I’d imagine he’s getting more of a sense of things now. But the main thing I felt, as the palace fired back that the Queen was “disappointed”, was a sense of sad foreboding: we aren’t watching the end of the royal family, or the end of Britain, or the end of deference and respect or politeness whatever people say the royal family stands for — they’re long gone — but yet another series of awful stresses and strains that could now spell the beginning of the end of their marriage.
What else does the future really look like for this couple, if they go abroad, stripped of their titles, relieved of as much money as the politicians can get off them, after the excitement, the deals and the television exclusives are over? Even if you aren’t a damaged and delicate person like Harry, few people would be able to cope with the sudden estrangement of their entire family and transfer to the alien landscape of what Meghan describes as “Canada” and I call “Los Angeles”.
He will also have to cope with growing isolation as he finds himself unprotected at the hands of LA’s ruthless paparazzi, whose habit of hiring gun-toting gang members to get the job done make the quaint and courtly royal rota, which he hates, look like a vicar’s tea party. And who’s he going to hang out with while he’s being chased around the car park of the local In-N-Out Burger? Jason Statham and Victoria Beckham? Have they any idea how this will all pan out?
Meanwhile, it must be dawning on even him that it’s something of a task keeping Madam entertained, given that an entire country of 66 million people bored her to death within 18 months. In fact, I doubt he has much of a role in any of the decision-making any more — he seems merely a passenger, watching from the sidelines as Meghan and her oily PR consigliere gab about the money and deals with Disney.
I can think of no other reason for Meghan to have come all the way back for just three days, unless she had been told by her “people” it was necessary to insert herself back into the spotlight before the big announcement. The engagements didn’t even make sense — why would anyone come to London to thank the Canadians when they could stay in Canada and thank them there? If I were her, I’d be thinking of every excuse not to leave my son with the nanny 3,500 miles away — and avoid the showdown.
I should say that I don’t disagree with Meghan’s view that a new approach is needed within the royal family. You can’t pretend that you are an inclusive, warm, friendly, happy family if you still divide your members into first and second class. It must have come as a horrible thunderclap moment to Meghan when she saw the bizarre pictures of Prince George stirring a cake, amid talk of a “slimmed-down” royal family. She was treated as a second-class citizen by the original Markle clan — I bet she was damned if her son Archie was going to end up as one as well.
But oh, the manner of their self-ejection — so ill-considered and unpolished. Imagine setting up a website complete with flowcharts to explain in greater detail how troughingly wealthy and privileged you are. Imagine saying you’re going to cherry-pick photographers and journalists and think this “revised media approach” can be passed off as “open”. Imagine calling yourself “progressive”, then joining one of the least progressive institutions in the world and then complaining it isn’t “progressive” enough. How does the Queen even begin to negotiate with such self-obsessed individuals?
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