From the outset I will acknowledge that most Cats couldn’t care less about the truculent and petulant behaviour of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle. Conversely, many Cats will acknowledge with gratitude, and perhaps awe, the unswerving devotion to duty and service displayed by the late Queen Elizabeth II. King Charles has some mighty big shoes to fill.
I was one of millions who watched the Coronation on the weekend partly because of the pomp and ceremony but also because it was world history unfolding before our eyes. Nobody younger than around 80 years old will have living memory of the previous Coronation. And, in all likelihood, it is unlikely I will live to see William ascend to the Throne so, a bit like making out the faint blurry glow of Halley’s Comet in 1986, this was my one opportunity to witness a rare event.
It is a matter of public record that Prince Harry attended the Coronation alone whilst Meghan remained ensconced in California with their children – one of whom was celebrating their 4th birthday on the same day. Apparently, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had demanded the newly crowned King give some sort of ‘shout out’ to the child to acknowledge the birthday but Charles, possibly acting on the advice of his protocol advisers, declined. Alternatively, Charles was still smarting over the assorted slights Harry had made about the Royal family in general and Queen Camilla his wife, in particular, in the book ‘Spare’.
In any event, Harry’s new book has damaged the cohesion of the royal family and to the glee of monarchists, also inflicted some damage on the royal institution. In fairness, that their family is just as dysfunctional as many others has been publicly apparent for the past forty years or so.
Anyway, I get it. Bad blood exists and Meghan will not contemplate any retreat. She and her husband Harry stepped away from that life and are now ‘independent’ and living in the USA. Normally, I also don’t give the Markles one single thought but the sight of Harry walking solo into Westminster Abbey depicted him as lonely and dare I say, emasculated.
In the Sussex’s (or just Meghan’s) battle with the Crown, I think they have made a significant strategic error. They have further isolated themselves from the very institution that is their raison d’etre and the quasi ghost of Edward the Eighth hangs across Harry – all for ‘that woman’. Yet most of all I wondered about the eventual pull of his blood relatives over time. Can Harry resist the call of his home country and heritage – after all, his father is the King and his own brother will be the King – or will Harry resist and stand by Meghan in the relatively uncultured wilds of California. Will their children know their cousins and the deep history of the British Monarchy?
Then it dawned on me…… don’t know, don’t care. These fleeting thoughts of Harry and that Markle woman have occupied far too much of my viewing pleasure.
God save the King.