This was not a good scenario where Meghan and Harry were concerned. However, rather than respond to the sensitivities of those whose feathers they were ruffling, they dismissed them out of hand by refusing to alter conduct which a too large percentage of the population found objectionable. Their attitude was: Meghan can do what she wants. If you don’t like it, lump it. However, some of those sensitivities were not stylistic, but went to deeper fundaments within all societies, civilised or otherwise. Pregnancy touches upon many invisible strands and, as Harry and Meghan’s roles within British national life were as representatives of the very people whom she was offending, they were in effect abnegating their responsibilities and coming across, whether thinkingly or otherwise, as arrogant and uncaring.
What also lost Meghan and Harry admirers was that, as the bump got bigger and bigger, her dresses got tighter and tighter. Possibly this too was an issue they did not understand the significance of, living as they were doing in a mutually admiring bubble where Meghan could do no wrong and Harry backed her up uncritically at every turn. However, skintight clothes on pregnant women are a breach of the code of ladylike conduct by which vast swathes of the British public, irrespective of class or colour, live. Just as how modesty forbade the extreme public displays of affection to which Meghan and Harry were prone until they ceased being invited to dinner parties, so too did the wearing of extremely tight clothes when pregnant except in the confines of one’s own bedroom and bathroom. The question to be answered was: Why was a royal duchess wearing thin, stretchy fabric pulled tight over her bump, her belly button displayed for all to see, in defiance of all accepted custom in her adopted country? To show how wide a spectrum of objection there was, a black West Indian said, ’It’s not seemly;’ a duchess said, ‘This is exhibitionism run riot;’ while a young Nigerian woman put it slightly differently, ‘I would be stoned back home if I went out in public dressed like that.’
In the light of such disapproval, it was symptomatic of the deference and latitude with which Meghan was being treated, that no one in the Royal Family or at the palace read her the riot act. This had not been the case when Diana and Sarah York used to step out of line. They would be called to order by the Queen’s Private Secretary, who was the brother-in-law of the former and the first cousin once removed of the latter. Diana Wales once complained to me about how Bobby Bellows, as she called Sir Robert (now Lord) Fellowes had carpeted her for not wearing tights. Although times had changed, society’s concept of decorum had not to such an extent that Meghan’s sheer attire was broadly acceptable to the average Briton. Because I was rooting for her to succeed, I felt that it would be in her best interest if someone pointed out to her that this was causing disquiet where one would have hoped to find approval. I therefore suggested to a royal cousin that someone sympathetic have a quiet word with her and point out how important it was that she clean up that aspect of her act, if none other. I was told that that would never happen. She was so opinionated, so calculated and deliberate in all her actions, so sensitive to criticism, so resentful of anything but the most fulsome praise and displays of approval, that she would ‘eat off the head’ of anyone who ‘dared’ to say anything to her. Then she’d ‘dump’ them.
This was sadly reminiscent of the past. ‘It’s Diana all over again,’ I said. To which the royal cousin bitterly replied, ‘You said it, not me.’
Knowing that the Queen had once invited the Fleet Street editors to Buckingham Palace when Diana was pregnant with William to ask them to lay off her, and that the press had also kept its distance from William and himself when they were growing up in a compact agreed between the editors and the palace, Harry approached both his father and grandmother. He wanted them to intervene on Meghan’s behalf, to put an end to the critical commentaries. She was very upset about the backlash her behaviour was causing. She was especially put out about the comments about her belly clutching. She felt everyone was being ‘mean’ and ‘cruel’ to her and wanted a stop put to it. It hadn’t occurred to either herself or Harry that the way to achieve closure was to stop behaving in the way that was triggering the objections. They genuinely felt that Meghan should be able to clutch her belly as much as she wanted, and that the entire British press should be muzzled rather than she desist from the practice that so many found noteworthy.
As far as Harry was concerned, it was his duty to ‘protect’ his wife, who was very ‘sensitive’ and ‘took things very much to heart’. He had become as obsessed with the concept of ‘protection’ as she was, and they used the word all the time. It was one of the catch-alls, along with ‘change’, ‘the greater good’, ‘humanitarianism’, ‘negativity’ and ‘progressive’ that littered their language. As far as they were concerned, if she wanted to clutch her belly till the cows came home, he would defend her right to do so to the death. No one had the right to upset her with their negative responses. Hyper-sensitive to criticism and hyper-emotional in their reactions, they claimed that their
