HARRY & MEGS' ROLE (OR NOT) IN A POST-ELIZABETHAN ERA
The Harry & Meghan Columns (The Fourth of Four)
This column was published in the Santa Barbara News-Press in September 2022.
This is the question all Montecitans are asking: “Now that Her Majesty the Queen has transcended from highness to higher-up and her eldest son and heir has become King Charles III, what will become of Montecito residents Harry and Megs?”
Well, I apologize because I’m sworn to always write the truth, and the paragraph above is not true. That’s because, as far as I can tell—and I hang out at Montecito’s gossipy watering holes more than I should—nobody ever talks about Harry and Megs.
Occasionally, I receive a text or email from someone asking about the couple. But it is invariably from someone far away, say in Washington D.C. or Philadelphia or even Tasmania. And always the same pair of questions:
“What do people in Montecito say about Harry and Meghan?”
Answer: Nothing. No one ever mentions them.
And: “Do you ever see Harry and Meghan around town?”
Answer: No. I’ve heard they occasionally visit a certain overpriced, mediocre bar-and-grill in the lower village, and it has also been reported by media that they occasionally dine at the Stonehouse Restaurant in San Ysidro Ranch. Beyond that, I wouldn’t even know they are here.
But now, with the Queen’s transition to a higher plane, I have a question of my own: With QEII no longer around, what is in store for Harry and Megs?
For a preliminary answer, let us turn to the new king and analyze the carefully chosen words (scribed, no doubt, by Buck House bureaucrats) in the first address he delivered to his subjects in Great Britain and the Commonwealth of Nations and to everyone else around the globe.
After announcing that he was handing out new titles to his heir, William (the new Prince of Wales and new owner of the very valuable Duchy of Lancaster) and Edward (the new Duke of Edinburgh), the new king mentioned Harry and Meghan, in passing, without even using their existing titles. He did not say “Prince” Harry and “Princess” Meghan or even the “Duke of Duchess of Sussex.” It was just plain “Harry” and “Meghan”—and all they got from him was an expression “of my love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas” (far from the rigors of the royal duties they found so imprisoning).
DISTRUST
Meghan, it appears, caused quite a stir on the morning of September 8th when the Queen’s physicians announced that they were “concerned for Her Majesty’s health,” which, of course, was polite palace code for pronouncing that she was on her deathbed.
Soon thereafter, Harry and Meghan announced they were on their way to the Queen’s bedside at Balmoral Castle in Scotland as other immediate family members scrambled to board a jet at RAF Northolt for their solemn flight to Aberdeen.
When the Buck House bureaucrats saw Meghan’s message, shockwaves reverberated throughout the royal palace. Incredulous, they quickly nixed any notion of Meghan joining in for a private family farewell. (The new king himself delivered that message to Harry.) Consequently, Harry traveled alone, trailing in a jet far behind his brother William and Uncles Andrew and Edward and Aunt Sophie (a close confidante of the Queen). We can only deduce that Harry had not been invited to join the larger party on their plane but was left behind to find his own way north. (Some say, as heirs to the throne, William and Harry cannot travel on the same aircraft, lest it crash. But William’s three children and Harry’s departure from royal life renders such a policy moot.)
And alone, indeed, is probably what Harry felt upon his arrival at Balmoral, where his presence likely chilled an already intense gathering.
Back to Meghan and why she was thwarted in her plan to impose on very personal, very private family moments: Due to her indiscretions about the Royal Family in interviews and on podcasts, she simply could not be trusted to witness and keep confidential the details of family members grieving the death of their beloved matriarch, the Queen.
“NO PLACE FOR HER”
Until the Royal Family has an opportunity to read Harry’s upcoming memoir, they cannot know how much of their family dynamic and inner workings of royalty will willfully be exposed by Harry to an eager and voyeuristic audience throughout the world.
The contents of that book will quite likely determine whether Harry’s presence will ever again be tolerated amongst family members.
Her Majesty was a genius at keeping the family together, even during times of great turbulence. Add to that, she was said to have had a certain fondness for her grandson Harry, who apparently made her laugh.
But now she is gone, and you can be certain that the Buck House bureaucrats have already strategized how best to move forward into a post-Elizabethan era that, to their thinking, would dis-include Harry and Meghan from participating in family affairs due to the pair of them showing bad form by airing their woke-like grievances in public for what could easily be interpreted as financial gain.
Some speculate that the defiant couple will divorce at some point and Harry will seek forgiveness and reconciliation with his original family.
A former senior British intelligence officer bluntly told me: “There is no way back for Harry until he divorces her. Charles is super-sensitive that the Crown is on the cusp. After all the sentimentality about the Queen has faded, he knows people will question the cost, the entitlement, snobbery, the hangers-on—and in particular all the ghastly people at the edges. Meghan is one of those. No place for her.”
An American who has lived most of his life in London and is connected to movers and shakers on both sides of the Atlantic, to me: “In his excellent speech, King Charles III made it pointedly clear that those two have made their bed over there and they’re not getting back in. As for the book, how can you stick a knife into a mourning family now admired by all? Then there was the masterstroke of William including Harry and Meghan in a walkabout. A friend who was there told me they got booed. As you’ve always written, the Palace hands are masters at this stuff.”
It is reasonable to believe that Harry, in his tome, will not besmirch the name of his much-adored grandmother, the late Queen. But if he insults his father, the new king, the curtain—already significantly lowered—will likely close completely. And if Harry takes jabs at Queen Consort Camilla, the stepmother he reportedly loathes, his father will most certainly feel insulted enough to take umbrage and pull the curtain strings himself—thereby killing any hope of reconciliation beyond the Queen’s funeral.
A ROYAL BREACH OF TRUST
Royal beat reporter Richard Kay wrote in the (UK) Daily Mail: “Publication of Harry’s book is crucial. The issue of trust is truly at the heart of the breakdown. A book that discusses any intimate family secrets will be a deal-breaker in reconciling.”
This is echoed by (UK) Sunday Mirror Political Editor Nigel Nelson, who told me, “There is still anger about Harry’s tell-all memoirs due out before Christmas and Meghan slagging off at the Royal Family. Both the King and William think it important to put up a united front during the period of mourning. The expectation is that hostilities will resume once the Queen is laid to rest.”
The Queen was Harry’s closest ally and perhaps his main protector within the family. And now she is gone. Same for Uncle Andrew (of Jeffrey Epstein infamy), who was said to be the apple of his mother’s eye. Well, that apple has fallen and rotting, the tree is felled—and Andrew is not far behind Harry in the sense of having no one to protect him from Buck House wrath after seriously tarnishing the royal brand. The return to public life he is said to imagine for himself may well be rooted in self-delusion.
Already it is apparent that Harry’s aunt, Princess Anne, who takes duty and discretion most seriously and is known, like her late father, to be bloody minded and frosty, has iced out Harry. It is understandably difficult for her, after many decades of service as the hardest working royal, to put up with her nephew’s whines and gripes—and that goes double for Meghan.
Add Uncle Edward and Aunt Sophie to that camp, along with brother William, who was so infuriated by Harry’s indiscretions that the heir and the spare (no longer) have barely spoken to one another over the past two years. Only Uncle Andrew, a fellow outcast due to his alleged sexual deviancy, can muster any empathy for Harry and thus is believed, along with his daughters, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, to be the only royals still on speaking terms with their nephew and cousin.
So, it was no surprise that Harry arrived at his grandmother’s beloved Balmoral Castle late (after she’d passed) and departed early, even before his relatives sat down to breakfast. Apparently, he never even saw his father or brother while there; by the time he arrived they’d already departed to Birkhall, the new king’s own residence on the estate, for their own evening meal, leaving him with aunts and uncles who, quite likely, did not know what to say in front of him—the very definition of an awkward situation.
Those within the family still willing to speak with Harry will not say anything of substance to him for the simple reason that they cannot trust he would not repeat (with or without proper context) their words to Meghan, who seems not to know the meaning of boundaries nor have any qualms about publicly broadcasting whatever she might learn as she strives to promote herself along with her political and cultural agenda.
I turned to a former senior (UK) Foreign Office official for summation, and he graciously delivered, telling me:
“The death of the Queen has served to put the whole Harry/Meghan issue into proper perspective. Yes, Meghan's narcissistic and somewhat spiteful ramblings caused much hurt and annoyance (presumably as intended), and it was disappointing to see Harry influenced into maligning his own family (with whom he previously seemed to enjoy excellent relations), but there was a sense of Deja vu and 'who cares anyway' over [Meghan’s comments in] the latest 'Cut' interview.
“Their trip to the UK looked like a lame attempt at a (pseudo) royal tour and no one was particularly interested. Now, with the courtesies generously extended to them by a grieving Royal Family, the ball is very much in their court. Do they graciously respond and stop moaning, or continue the grudge/victim act? My own feeling is that it will be too hard for them to step away from the destructive narrative they've created, especially since they are surrounded by PR/media sharks.”
Bottom line: Even Oprah Winfrey, who sleazily exploited the couple’s ill will yet now pompously proclaims the Queen’s death “an opportunity for peacemaking”—even if Oprah had all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, she would not be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again.