get a chance to attend Wimbledon, and, as such, one has to feel for her.

Nevertheless, Meghan’s breach of the Wimbledon dress code earned her criticism, though what really incensed her critics was their perception that her conduct conveyed both contemptuousness and arrogance. She had ensured that she could wear a hat by clearing out the forty or so seats behind her. The only people allowed within spitting distance of her were her suite. Behind and beside her, there was row after row of empty seats. Outside, there were queues of people being prevented from witnessing the match, from occupying seats which they had paid for, while Meghan and her Northwestern university mates were flanked by her suite and a buffer zone of empty seats to keep her comfortable.

To the British people and to the British press, this was a gross abuse of power. No other royal had ever caused forty surrounding seats to be vacated, all of which would normally be occupied by people who had paid for them. The Queen, Prince Philip, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, the Cambridges, Princess Alexandra, even the late Diana, Princess of Wales, had never had cordons sanitaires created for them at Wimbledon. All the seats around them had always been filled. Yet here was Meghan surrounded by a sea of empty blue seats, attired in jeans and a hat in defiance of the established dress code.

If Meghan and her team had tried their hardest to come up with something that was unpopular, they could not have bettered what happened next. Her security people had the temerity to go up to two members of the public who were taking selfies and inform them that they could not use their cameras in the presence of Her Royal Highness, as she was attending Wimbledon in a private capacity and required privacy. Privacy in a public place, in front of television cameras which were beaming images into hundreds of millions of homes around the world, while Meghan was a guest of a national institution which she would not have had access to had she been a private individual, caused national outrage. Just who did she think she was? The respected British television presenter Eamonn Holmes gave voice to the sentiments of many people when he said that Meghan had got ‘above herself’.

If Meghan’s objective was to garner herself column inches, her conduct made sound sense. However, if it was to rewrite the rules regarding the conduct of the press and public when members of the Royal Family were guests in public in an unofficial capacity, she had only shown how naive she was. No one who appears in public has a right to privacy. To courtesy yes, but privacy, no. By its very definition, being in public means that you are a part of the public and therefore no longer private. If you wish to be private, you remain in the privacy of your home, or the privacy of other private places. You do not, however, go out in public, in front of television cameras which are beaming into hundreds of millions of homes, and demand that others respect your right to something you do not possess, while you are actually stripping them of their rights. The public have a right to look at anyone around them. They have a right to treat a public figure with the appropriate degree of recognition, attention, and respect that the said public figure’s presence realistically generates. All civilised and well-mannered public figures understand that fact and treat the public with the courtesy they deserve. Speaking as a public figure who was born into a prominent family, married into another, who has spent her whole life surrounded by public figures, I can say with absolute authority that it is inappropriate for a public figure to think that he or she has the right to regulate the conduct of the public to the extent that people can’t look at you, smile at you, or even if the moment seems right, approach you respectfully. I know that there is a category of Hollywood personality who does not agree, but in civilised circles, they are dismissed as the pretentious pifflers which they are. As for the message that any public figure is so special that there has to be a buffer zone, whether of empty seats or something else is beside the point, between him or her and the public: Since when did the odious expression ‘the great unwashed’ gain such acceptability that any public figure, much less a member of the Royal Family, can now claim the right to have barriers erected whereby ordinary people are kept so well away from them that the message has to be: your presence defiles me?

In fairness to Meghan, there are significant cultural differences between the British and the American ways of life. She might well have not realised how offensive a message she was relaying when she embarked upon what she regarded as ‘progressive’ behaviour at Wimbledon. This is where she would have been well advised to have taken the time to learn the nuances of British life, rather than ‘hitting the ground running’ to ‘update and modernise the monarchy’, as she put it. You cannot modernise an institution when you do not even understand the basics of the culture whence it emanates. Such attempts are doomed to failure. Your conduct will antagonize large swathes of people who start out being charitably disposed towards you. Whether you intend to or not, if you don’t understand their culture, don’t bother to learn about it, think that your way is better than theirs, you are not only telling them that you regard your way and yourself as better than their way and themselves, but you are ultimately conveying lack of respect for them and their ways. That is not how one garners respect.

Despite the Queen and Prince Charles refusing to go along with Harry and Meghan’s request that the Royal Family alter the protocols by which it

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