You keep thinking – ‘Meghan and Harry can’t get any worse’. And then they do. By saying to the BBC that he has ‘forgiven’ his family, Harry’s recent interview displayed a royal tin-earedness not seen since Prince Andrew appeared on Newsnight.
But it was a now-overshadowed infraction from earlier in the week that I think could spell more trouble for the Sussexes in the court of public opinion. Meghan, you see, was caught prefixing her title with ‘Her Royal Highness’.
It may seem minor, particularly when compared to the couple’s other whinging, malicious and family-betraying transgressions (tell-all memoirs, unfounded allegations of racism against the Palace, possibly founded allegations of bullying against her… need I go on?).
But all the same – it is significant, because it goes against the wishes of the late Queen, who insisted that the couple cannot use their HRH titles.
And woe betide anyone who pulls the rug from under the legacy of Elizabeth II. It appears that this is the straw that has finally broken the back of the British public’s forbearance with the wayward Sussexes.
That two thirds of poll respondents want Harry and Meghan to be stripped of their Duke and Duchess titles is hardly surprising. They have attacked the Monarchy from across the Atlantic yet continue to cash in on the brand. Their tawdry behaviour feels particularly ungrateful when committed by Meghan who was an actress in a tenth-rate soap, a C-list TV celeb, who would be seen as a nobody had she not married into the ‘Firm’, which has bestowed upon her global fame, status and riches.
That final straw emerged on a podcast last week, when she was being interviewed by her ‘friend’ Jamie Kern Lima, founder of IT Cosmetics. The camera focussed on a cute, little gift that the Duchess claimed she had knocked together that very morning: a basket containing two tubs of ice-cream and a jar of ‘strawberry jam’ – which she admitted didn’t have time to set (though, given the lack of ice in the ensemble, I suspect the ice-cream was just as runny).
‘I just made it quick because we had a lot of strawberries at the time,’ Meghan pleaded, adding with trademark insincerity: ‘I just knew that even if we never talked about it, that it would brighten your day.’
The Duchess of Sussex’s use of the ‘Her Royal Highness’ title emerged on a podcast last week, when she was being interviewed by Jamie Kern Lima, founder of IT Cosmetics
But more than her wares being watery, her biggest doozy was to include in the basket a card, on which was printed: ‘With the compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex’. Suddenly the world was witness of her vain little secret – that she calls herself ‘Her Royal Highness’.
You may well say – what does it matter? We live in a suffering world, with wars going on in every corner and starvation stalking millions of children. If some self-absorbed, silly woman in California calls herself ‘Her Royal Highness’, the skies are not going to fall.
Perfectly true. But that is not to say that it is of no significance. Titles and words mean something – if they didn’t, why would Meghan cling to hers with grim determination?
After a short time of being married to Harry, its clear she tired of the constraints and responsibilities of being a royal. The daily drudge of small talk and snipping ribbons dashed her hopes of it all being a ‘me, me, me’ publicity exercise, in which she could hug her fans, pontificate on the issues of the day and bask in the glow of adulation.
She did not adapt easily to life in England. She did not even know the words of the National Anthem. And she was jealous of the grace and beauty of her sister-in-law, without noticing that Kate earnt her huge popularity by her dedication to hard public work.
So Harry and Meghan told the late Queen they wanted out: they’d semi-retire and become semi-royals while living abroad – possibly in Canada – and would pick and choose the events they’d pop back for, no doubt preferring the ones with greater pomp and so greater potential for self-promotion. In effect, royals with ‘special guest’ status.
The Queen was adamant. No way. Either you work for the Firm and do what is expected – which includes obeying protocols and behaving discreetly – or you are out. A bargain was struck, that Harry would inherit his fortune and the pair could continue to use their Sussex titles, but on the issue of ‘HRH’ Buckingham Palace was adamant: ‘The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family.’
This is not out of the ordinary. Upon divorcing Charles, Princess Diana lost the use of her HRH, apparently at her ex-husband’s behest.
Then there is the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Older members of the Royal Family grew up with the horrible memory of 1936, when Edward VIII abdicated, in order to marry an American divorcee called Wallis Simpson. The King and his wife became a Duke and Duchess, yet he carried to the grave his resentment that his Duchess was never allowed to call herself Her Royal Highness. It seemed vindictive to him – he could not see that his selfishness, and her manipulative behaviour, had very nearly destroyed the institution of the Monarchy itself.
Meghan, whose behaviour bears an uncanny similarity to the Duchess of Windsor’s, has not persuaded a King to give up his job. But since her arrival, Harry, who was a largely popular, merry prince who served his country in Afghanistan with courage and good humour, has become estranged from the British public.
Now, he is a humourless whinger, adrift from his former friends and who speaks in the Californian psychobabble that Meghan has picked up among her ghastly Montecito neighbours.
Her TV appearances are worth watching, because they show how totally she is the author of her own misfortunes, how utterly fatuous and superficial she is. I saw one recently in which she was pretending to prepare ‘brunch’ for some close friends. As her gormless guests gathered in her sun-drenched garden to eat fruit salad and a few pastries, the Duchess – who claimed to have laid out this joyless repast with her own beautiful fingers – was obliged to ask their names, while showering them with meaningless compliments.
The programme, With Love Meghan, depicts the hell she has created for herself and Harry – a monied hell of designer clothes and brunch menus written in perfect calligraphy, but a hell nonetheless – a place where everything she does is pointless, where what relevance she once had has sold out quicker than the preserves on her As Ever website.
The Duke of Sussex told the BBC on Friday that he has ‘forgiven’ his family. Pictured with the now-King at the late Prince of Edinburgh’s funeral
Meghan launched her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, in March
No one asked her to stomp out of the Royal Family as soon as she had joined it. No one asked her to turn Harry against his family (while, incidentally, savagely dropping her clumsy old father). But the one thing that makes her wealth and status a selling-point to her paymasters at Netflix is if she is seen by gullible Californians as ‘Her Royal Highness’.
The Sussexes have already made the world cringe by calling their daughter ‘Lilibet’ – a pet name for the late Queen. There has only been one Lilibet and she made it abundantly clear – Meghan is not Her Royal Highness. Anything less is an insult to her memory.
But now that the cat is out of the bag, how long before we see ‘HRH’ on her cookie dough mix, gourmet popcorn or whatever other manufactured foods she has up her sleeve? How long before ‘HRH’ appears on the book jacket of Harry’s second memoir or Meghan’s first, which will no doubt drip poison on the institution that the epithet represents?
It cannot continue. The King should strip them of the right to dignify themselves by their royal titles. Not just the HRH, but their ‘Duke and Duchess of Sussex’ titles. Through their behaviour, Harry and Meghan have effectively forsworn that privilege, and so they should become simply ‘Mr and Mrs Windsor’, free to sink into their pathetic, unloved, sunlit exile, and the decades of pointless boredom that stretch ahead – a hell entirely of their own making.
