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To fully appreciate the danger the Sussexes now find themselves in, one needs to understand that at all levels of society there are gradations. This is as true of a local hospital in Missouri as it is of a bank in San Antonio, the social world that David Patrick Columbia covers in the New York Social Diary, or a palace in Europe. Status is like wine. It doesn’t always travel well, though sometimes what is second or third rate in one place becomes first rate in another.
Meghan discovered that fact to her advantage when she moved to Canada and found herself embraced by a category of person who would have shunned her in her native habitat. The lesson was reiterated in Britain, once it became apparent that she and Harry were headed for the altar. The press presented her as a bigger star than she had ever been, and Andrew Morton, who had boosted Harry’s mother’s reputation in a panegyric, did the same thing for Meghan in his pre-marital best-seller Meghan: An American Princess. Whether all this exaggeration clouded her judgement, and she forgot the lessons of her roots, or she simply wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand the dynamics of the situation she found herself in, or she was indifferent to any externals save her own ultimate desires, Meghan misunderstood the power of the monarchy and the relative fragility of the royals within the system. As Anne Glenconner put it, Meghan thought that marrying into the Royal Family assured her of ‘instant popularity’ and an exciting and easy life spent travelling in ‘a golden coach’, when in fact the royal way of life is hard and often boring to boot.
Had Meghan been born into an established family, she would have appreciated that the whole is infinitely greater than its parts. Great families and great institutions value the individual, but they also know that each individual is dispensable. No matter how important, powerful, rich, talented, beautiful, intelligent or anything else you are, you are on this earth for only a limited period. Durability becomes a matter of each individual making his contribution in the knowledge that he will be replaced and hopefully his family or institution will continue to flourish, with him having added something to it rather than subtracting from it. The greatest mark of success is that you leave things better off than you found them. It is this balance between your own importance and your relative unimportance, your replaceability and your unique irreplaceability, which gives the holders of great positions the sense of proportion necessary to fulfill their destinies. The King is dead; long live the (new) King.
These were nuances which Meghan might well have understood, but since she gave no indication of having done so, the only conclusion onlookers could come to was that the whole thing was way above her head. One of the greatest insults you can level against an individual in the British Establishment is that he is out for himself, rather than out for the greater good. One of the greatest insults you can hurl at someone is to say that he is exploitative. There is an awareness of the necessity for each person or cause to leave room for others. Greed is not good, nor is being mercenary. Striking too hard a bargain is not seen as a virtue, the way it can be in certain segments of American society, but as a vice. You add to your cause, and if you benefit personally, so much the better, but you never put yourself before your cause, nor do you squeeze such a good deal for yourself that you are sucking into your province what by right would have gone to others had you left enough space for them to benefit as well. Balance, justice, fair play and decorum also play invaluable parts in this way of life. ‘There is a time and place for everything,’ is one of the cornerstones upon which the edifice of all well brought-up traditionalists was constructed. For instance, when you are attending a premiere of a movie and the proceeds of the event are going to a charity with which you are involved, you do not hustle the CEO and the director for a job for your wife as soon as you meet them. You at least have the good grace to wait until the after-party, though Harry and Meghan were able to get away with this flagrant breach of etiquette because the people at Disney believed that they, being royal, were begging for charity and not themselves, and that they, being royals, were above the cut and thrust of commerce. This illusion has now been well and truly dispelled by their admission that they wish to achieve financial independence. The danger is that now that they are commodities who will have a price for their services, their presence will be less prestigious than it would have been when they stood to make no personal gain from any of their transactions.
In the world whence Meghan originated, and to which she has returned with Harry, many people consider it admirable to be as aggressive as Harry and Meghan were with the Disney CEO. Hustling has its purpose, and to hustlers that is more important than the place in which it is exercised. However, not everyone regards such directness as desirable. I spoke to several well-placed people in Hollywood (producer, director, heir to the heritage of one of the Hollywood Greats etc.) who thought Harry’s conduct let the side down. Such conflicting attitudes again highlight the clash of one world’s values against another’s. But it was noteworthy that the condemnation was exceeded by the admiration, which demonstrates why Meghan and Harry will always have followers, especially in her homeland.
While Harry remained a senior member of the Royal Family, he undoubtedly had a great position. This was enhanced by the perception
