After the bombshell announcement of Meghan’s lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday, the press and the palace became aware of the extent to which she and Harry intended to use their online postings to connect directly with their followers by cutting out the press. One journalist told me that she and most if not all of her colleagues had come to the conclusion that the royal couple was shamelessly hawking their own brand of propaganda. Once the press came to that conclusion, they pored over each and every posting of the Sussexes to try to figure out what their agenda and endgame were. No one was naive enough to take anything they said or did at face value, for the media had come to realise just how canny and wily Meghan and Harry were.
Because Harry is not particularly intellectual and Meghan’s modus operandi only hinted at her underlying game plan, their postings now became a rich source of inquisition. Their Christmas card was a case in point. While the intended message was that Meghan and Harry had a gloriously happy marriage of like-minded equals, the photograph itself showed that Meghan was first amongst equals. Who the leader is in any relationship is always relevant where any couple is concerned, but when you are dealing with a member of the British Royal Family and his American actress wife who might be inducing him to reject his heritage to keep her happy, who leads and who follows becomes fundamental. Since the British press were vested in the dynamics of the relationship in a way that the foreign press could never be, who was dominant and who submissive became a matter of genuine national interest. The giveaway in the Christmas card was the focal points. All photographs or paintings have only one true focal point. If something has two, it is either a bad painting or a doctored image. In the photo the Sussexes had posted, the natural focal point was Archie. By rights, Harry and Meghan’s images should therefore have been equally blurred, for they were equidistant from their son. But in their post Harry’s face is expectedly out of focus, while Meghan’s is unexpectedly and astonishingly in focus. This was one picture that was worth a thousand words. The message could not have been clearer. Archie and Meghan being the focal points while Harry was not, there were logical conclusions to draw. Both the British press and the internet commentators drew them.
Once that message was picked up, the posting of the Christmas card rebounded, garnering criticism in Britain even though Meghan and Harry had obviously invited only approbation. She was therefore wise to cut herself out of the picture in the next posting, their New Year’s message on Sussex Royal, which showed only Harry holding Archie beside the water on Vancouver Island, where they were staying in a $14m house lent to them by a benefactor.
Rather less wise was the accompanying text: Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and thanking you for your continued support!’ While this sort of language might have been acceptable in America, in Britain it was not. Royalty does not thank the public for its continued support. Only politicians and traders do. Yet again, the cultural discordance was blighting but also shedding light on the Sussexes’ message.
To a discomfitingly large segment of the British populace, many of whom would have liked Harry and Meghan to be enjoying the popularity they had possessed at the beginning of their marriage, it now seemed that he, who used to be able to do no wrong publicly, could no longer do anything right. This was borne out within a matter of days when the couple returned to Britain from their Vancouver Island bolthole, leaving Archie behind with his nanny. In breach of diplomatic protocol, they posted on Instagram that they had visited ‘Canada House in London to thank the High Commissioner Janice Charette and staff for the warm hospitality during their recent stay in Canada. The Duke and Duchess have a strong connection to Canada.’
This created a new precedent, and one moreover which would make life impossible for everyone if, every time royalty visits a country, it and the host embassy or high commission has to grind to a halt for a thank you courtesy call. Of course, the true purpose of Harry and Meghan’s visit was to ingratiate themselves with the Canadians and, in so doing, whip up public support in that country for their supposed move to Canada, even though their stay there was never intended to be anything more than a stop-gap measure to get Meghan back to her origins in California. However, the press and general public did not yet knew of this or any other planned move; and, since neither the royals nor the diplomats posted to the Court of St James’s wanted to be railroaded into having unnecessary courtesy calls, this became yet another instance of Harry and Meghan being out of kilter with what was expected of them as a royal couple. Despite this, their visit did gain them publicity, so to that extent it
