Meghan and Harry: The Real Story

get all lah-di-dah and forget their roots. The worst possible message Meghan could have delivered to the British working class was that she was ashamed of those roots, yet this has been the precise message her cold-shouldering of her family conveyed. The fact that Meghan was foreign should also have helped Britons to warm to her, for most Britons take the view that Americans are so different that normal British rules cannot be applied to them. This gives the average American who moves to the United Kingdom a great advantage. Irrespective of the modesty of their antecedents, they are usually welcomed with open arms in a way no Briton with a similar social background would be. All they need to do is show that they respect British ways; they do not even need to ape them, though if they do, that is appreciated. A recent case in point is the television presenter Julie Montagu. A girl from a modest background in Sugar Grove, Illinois, she married the Earl of Sandwich’s heir Viscount Hinchingbrooke, and has gone from strength to strength with her natural, unaffected charm and down-to-earth manner. She has never tried to come across as ‘classy’, which is where Meghan went wrong right from the outset. Unbeknownst to Meghan, what had been her great selling point in the United States and Canada, would become a millstone around her neck in Britain. Had she been less self-consciously ‘classy’ as she set about asserting how discerning, indeed expert, she was in the finer things of life, she would have escaped the pejorative label of ‘common’ which Nicky Haslam so pointedly dismissed her with. Had she been like Julie Hinchingbrooke, or frankly North American middle class in her manner like Autumn Phillips, who married the Queen’s grandson Peter Phillips and made a very successful transition from being ordinary Canadian girl to distaff connection of the Royal Family, her lack of background would not have been a stumbling block. Autumn is valued as a fully paid-up member of the royal world, and will remain so even though she and Peter have parted. What worked for Autumn and Julie but prevented good adjustment on Meghan’s part was her reluctance to unbend and relax into the royal and aristocratic world by ceasing to be ‘classy’, by being just sweet and charming the way she had been in New York with Serena Williams or in Canada with the Mulroneys and the Trudeaus, instead of believing that once she became a royal highness, it elevated her beyond its natural level.

Meghan’s Uncle Mike Markle, who is fond of her and has tried to find an explanation as to why she not only withdrew from both branches of her family but is also so consciously ‘classy’, believes she has a chip on her shoulder, plainly born of the ‘greyness’ her identity caused her in her youth. Whether that is so or not, Meghan is certainly a complex individual with much sensitivity who, by her own account, had to swallow many a slight as she worked her way up the ladder. This might have resulted in her creating an outer skin which protects her feelings as it projects to the world the view of herself she would like people to see. Nevertheless, by projecting such a ‘classy’ exterior and allying it to a consciously woke, left-wing, politically-correct activistic stance which made clear that she disapproved of much of what Harry’s friends and their world stood for, she alienated people who wanted to like her but sensed that she did not regard them as worthy of engagement with her. This made many people feel uncomfortable in her presence, causing them to withdraw, though she did hit it off with Charlie van Straubenzee’s wife Daisy Jenks, bonding over their shared love of shoes.

Of course, there is another interpretation which is worth considering as to why Meghan failed so utterly to make friends in Britain. She might well have decided from the word go, or from early on, that she wanted no part of Harry’s world. Although she was too canny to say so, the indications are that from well before the marriage, it was obvious to everyone - and would therefore have also been clear to someone as bright as Meghan - that she was unsuited to the role of royal duchess and that she was not fitting in comfortably to Harry’s personal world. Maybe it would never have been a good fit, if only because she and it were so alien to each other, but she certainly made enough of an effort between meeting him and marrying him to move from girlfriend to fiancée then to wife, strengthening the relationship with each passing day until they were an indestructible unit.

Because of the concerns as to how she would fit into his world, none of his friends or relations wanted him to marry her. Several of them, such as his brother William, his good friend Tom Inskip, his grandfather Prince Philip and his grandmother the Queen, tried to counsel caution. In each case, Harry resented the concern, which he took to be unwarranted intrusion and reacted against emotionally.

It is a testament to the strength of their attraction that within weeks of meeting Meghan, Harry was completely in her thrall, and has remained so. Patently, she wanted him too. She is extremely loving towards him, supremely tactile, and even people who dislike her and doubt her sincerity will acknowledge that she covers him with love. Those who admire the couple are convinced that they are ideally suited, while those who do not hope that she wants him for himself and not just for the springboard to greatness. Which is what many people in Britain of all colours, creeds and classes fear is her real motive.

CHAPTER 11

What makes Meghan and Harry’s story so interesting is how split perceptions are regarding them. Harry is more easily explained. The couple’s admirers think that he has found himself his ideal mate, that they