Meghan and Harry: The Real Story

whom made their sentiments known to such an extent that word leaked out to the press. The reality was, Harry and Meghan had created a cordon sanitaire around their property, themselves, and their pets such as had never been done before. Had they been trying to make enemies and create mysteries, they could not have gone about things more efficiently. But if they were trying to protect themselves and their privacy, they had gone about their objectives so cack-handedly that they had triggered suspicion, resentment, and hostility where a lighter touch, fewer demands and some respect for the rights of others and the traditions of this country would have given them, if not the privacy of private individuals, at least the respect and admiration which they presumably still wanted from the British public.

Several journalists told me they had misgivings about what was happening, but the press nevertheless fell in with the party line. This was that the Sussexes were obsessed with privacy and were insisting upon being treated as private individuals instead of the royals they were, so, rather than the newspapers printing the suspicions that the ground was being laid for a deception on a massive scale, they ran with the story that Harry and Meghan were behaving like spoilt, demanding, hypocritical brats who contradictorily wanted to be treated as private citizens when it suited them, despite requiring at all other times that they must be accorded all the privileges and constitutional dignities that went along with being royalty.

These demands were uncomfortably reminiscent of those made by autocratic royals going back a century or two, and since Harry and Meghan claimed to be progressive game-changers who wanted to be forces for good and to leaven the inequities of society, there seemed to be an innate contradiction which got the press’s back up as well as the neighbours’. Worst of all, however, was the suspicion, so far unaired in the mainstream press, that their restrictive imprecations smacked of paranoia, ‘unless they have a secret they need to keep,’ as a journalist from the Mail observed.

Quite how Harry and Meghan had worked themselves into the position whereby the choice for journalists was between spoilt, hypocritical, mentally unbalanced brats displaying signs of psychosis or an astute pair harkening back to the bad old days when royals could do as they pleased and everyone had to fall into line, was not so easily unravelled. But the fact was, their erection of an unseen fence around their new home fuelled the fires of suspicion that they could possibly be preparing to practise a massive sleight of hand on an unsuspecting public, while their excessive secretiveness further fanned the flames. From the outside looking in, it might have appeared as if the British press were carping and petty, but to those of us in the know, their restraint was surprising and commendable.

Unsurprisingly, Meghan and Harry’s behaviour had the undesirable effect of increasing internet speculation regarding the impending birth. This ran to theories that the royal couple needed to create a buffer zone between themselves and the world, behind which they could have a baby delivered that would then be passed off as one to which she had given birth. Many a questioner wanted to know why couldn’t the doctors’ names be made public? What was the big secret? If Meghan and Harry had nothing to hide, why were they hiding away like that? What was so confidential about the names of the attending physicians? Were they afraid that a doctor might confirm that the baby had been born to a surrogate and not to Meghan? Weren’t doctors’ patients protected by client confidentiality as a matter of course? Since their privacy was protected by legal and professional protocols, why the secrecy unless they were covering something up? The whole thing smacked of too many cloaks and daggers, and the common thread that emerged on the internet was that only those who are intent on practising sleights of hand demand the extraordinary degree of protection Harry and Meghan were demanding. As far as far too many people now believed, the extraordinary lengths to which the couple had gone led them to believe that Harry and Meghan were not protecting their privacy but themselves against the possibility of exposure.

This was hardly a viewpoint any supporter of the monarchy wanted. It mystified many within the Establishment that Harry and Meghan would prefer to continue tripping down the path that had given rise to these suspicions rather than taking steps to overcome the suspicions. However, they dug their heels in and stubbornly refused to alter their plans. Indeed, they began to behave as if they were being victimised. They simply could not see that their own behaviour was almost entirely responsible for what was happening.

The palace would have had to be particularly inept not to understand that Harry and Meghan’s behaviour was feeding rather than defeating the latter-day version of the Warming Pan rumours. ‘You can imagine how people were tearing their hair out at the palace,’ a royal cousin said. This was just the sort of conjecture no reputable organisation wants. But Harry and Meghan had done everything possible to increase rather than decrease the speculation with which the internet was alive. No one was pleased by what was happening, but it was impossible to get through to the couple. He faithfully backed up her demand that she was entitled to give birth however she pleased, and supported her requirements to such an extent that even people who had originally thought that the Warming Pan rumours were preposterous began to question whether there might not be some substance to them. Quite how such rumours could be in anyone’s interest, much less a royal couple’s, seems to have eluded them. But Meghan and Harry are a united couple, and one which adheres to its chosen path despite opposition, for the lesson Meghan had learnt over the years was to stick to her guns and do what she thought best. The