For all their differences, Meghan and Wallis have one or two defining features in common. Wallis was and Meghan is an obvious, upfront woman on the make. Wallis did and Meghan does exult in luxury. Materialism and an awareness of quality have mattered to them more than they matter to most women. Wallis was honourable enough to pay the price for her position. She understood that her prince had given up a lot for her. If Meghan truly believes her comment that her ‘love for Harry has made possible’ his stepping back from the royal way of life, she has not only failed to appreciate the tremendous sacrifices he has made for her, but she hasn’t even listened to what he has said. Harry stated in front of hundreds of people at the Chelsea Ivy how ‘saddened’ he was to give up his links with the military and indeed his country, family and friends. Can she truly believe that she has liberated him from bonds which were not shackles but valuable moorings to a past life which, for all its imperfections, was a glorious one? Can she genuinely accept that there was no sacrifice in substituting a splendid position laden with possibilities for doing good, with one full of uncertainty?
Meghan’s flattened affect where the sacrifices of others are concerned is one of the many concerns the royals have for Harry’s future with her. They understand his predicament even though they do not like or approve of it. They appreciate that they are powerless to intervene, that this is one river which must flow into the ocean, and any attempts to divert it might result in an unfortunate outcome. For that reason, William has tried to mend fences insofar as it is possible for him to do so, though I am told that there is now so much water under the bridge that it is unlikely that the brothers will ever again be close the way they used to be. Charles, I understand, is utterly perplexed as to what he can do to help, having moved mountains for Meghan, only to have them come crashing down on him. It was he who managed to get for Meghan, a divorcee like him, what he could not achieve for himself; namely a church wedding conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury at St. George’s Chapel.
A royal told me that the Queen has been more relaxed than anyone else, ‘possibly because she realises that if things work out for Harry and Meghan, they will have broken new ground where other junior royals can follow, and if things don’t (work out), it won’t be the end of the world. The monarchy has survived far greater threats.’
Already, it is evident that the British public have accepted that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are detached. They have bidden them farewell, sometimes with regret, sometimes with relief, sometimes with impatience, but with no perceptible difference to anyone’s life. As such, they’re now in a different category from the rest of the family. ‘In my view,’ the royal said, ‘they’ve already been downgraded in the [British] public’s eyes from royals to celebrities.’
If this is the case, Harry and Meghan’s position is not as enviable as optimistic PRs might think it is. There has been talk that they will be able to earn $100m per annum, maybe even more, that they are a billion dollar brand, that they could become a second Barack and Michelle Obama or even, God forbid, a variation of Tony Blair. This is to ignore some basic facts while misinterpreting how status works at the highest levels of society. Harry has never been the President of the United States, nor has he been a Prime Minister like Blair, who might have deceived Parliament into entering a war which made him popular in the United States and the Middle East, but earned him the hatred of millions of Britons once they saw through his lies. If Tony Blair’s trajectory is anything to go by, Harry and Meghan had better strike while the iron is hot. Tony Blair’s heyday lasted for only a few years. His money-making glory days were wrapped up with his reputed prestige, and once that evaporated he became a busted flush, reviled in so many quarters of society and parts of the world that his utterances are treated with contempt, his presence an embarrassment to such an extent that I know of many people who have declined to meet him (yours truly included), and even more who refuse to be in the same room as him (yours truly again), much less the same photograph. Nor was Tony Blair’s politics the only thing that destroyed his reputation (although they did not help). It was the perception of him as a narcissistic, hypocritical, messianic, virtue-signalling money-grubber that buried his reputation. Hectoring people with one hand while coining it in with the other is not the ideal way
