The Royal Foundation had been set up in September 2009 before William and Harry’s marriages as the vehicle for their charity work. Both brides had joined their husbands upon marriage, in what became known as the Fab Four.
Then, as the world awaited the birth of Harry and Meghan’s baby, word leaked out that the fractured relationships hadn’t been limited to staff, and that the brothers’ once close relationship had also hit the rocks. There was confirmation of a sort when Harry and Meghan announced that they would be moving offices from their shared space with William and Catherine to their own office at Buckingham Palace, and moreover they would be leaving the Royal Foundation which the two brothers had set up, to set up their own charity, Sussex Royal. They would have their own public relations chief and Instagram account. They would also be leaving Kensington Palace to live at Frogmore Cottage, ironically Grand Duchess Xenia’s refuge following the overthrow of her brother Tsar Nicholas II. Meghan might not have got to wear her kokoshnik, but she would be living in her house.
That Christmas, the newlyweds joined the rest of the Royal Family at Sandringham for their first Christmas as a married couple. By then, the rumours of estrangement between the brothers and their wives had gained enough traction for the press to be speculating upon its cause. The story was not going the way royalists wanted it to, and even the tabloids were at pains to put as positive a spin on things as they could. But it was proving difficult to pretend that nothing was wrong. Although there were no verified reports, ‘it’s no secret that the problem arose because William warned Harry against leaping into marriage, and Meghan has never forgiven him. That girl demands nothing less than total adoration, and if she doesn’t get it, you’re iced,’ a royal cousin told me. The press, not quite sure why there was froideur, were full of reports of the Queen ordering the Fab Four to put on a united front, which they did as they walked on Christmas Day from the big house to St. Mary Magdalene Church on the Sandringham estate.
Although Meghan and Harry’s profile in America was high, and they could often be found on the cover or in the pages of magazines like People, the reality was, in Britain, they were not just celebrities the way they were on the other side of the Atlantic. They were intrinsic and fundamental members of the British Royal Family, two parts of the Fab Four whom the press wanted to succeed so they could write about them ad nauseam. The sisters-in-law were perfect foils for each other as well as obvious evocations of their respective stances, and as the two couples gave the press the photo op they yearned for, for a few short hours, the media were able to run with the idea that the Fab Four would continue long into the future. Catherine Cambridge was the picture of traditional royal elegance in a beautifully tailored, buttoned-up, highly visible berry-red double-breasted woollen coat with velvet pockets and collar and matching hat, while Meghan wore a black coat open to reveal her bump, with a form fitting matching dress and a Philip Treacy hat.
By this time, the palace were painfully aware that they had a whole host of problems on their hands. Not only were there the tensions within the Royal Family itself, plus the wastage of Harry’s friends, but the issues between Meghan and her relations had grown into an ongoing concern. Not only were the public in Britain turning against her as a result of her attitude, but people closer to home wanted to know how any daughter could have dumped her father the way she had, especially when she herself had always said that he had been an excellent father?
This is a question I found the answer to by speaking to people who know the various parties well, including relations of his and hers. I came to the conclusion that Meghan had little choice but to behave as she did. She had established common ground with Harry in the most effective way possible: she had hooked him by appealing to his emotions, by presenting herself as a person whose strength had been forged in the crucible of deprivation and pain, just like his, and that she held the keys to happiness. Because theirs was a love match, and there was nothing to hold it together but the bonds that they forged together, the relationship’s very existence would be threatened if third parties began to feed him information that was contradictory to her representations.
Meghan Markle is her own creation, as she confirmed in her two blogs. As she put it, you can be anything you want to be. All you need to do is become it. Fish can become fowl, pink green, and boundless ambition caring humanitarianism. Like all fabrications, the back of the picture is never as polished as the front, but that in itself signifies nothing.
As with all self-inventions, there was a gap between the reality of what Meghan had once been and the facade she was now presenting to the world, Harry included. That was why she had not been able to maintain many of her truly intimate friendships from her past, for Meghan in the present was not the same person as Meghan in the past had been. Indeed, as one Canadian said, the only thing the two Meghans had in common was her body. Virtually everything else was different. As Nikki Priddy said, the Meghan she knew before fame was not the same
