Harry and Meghan court dramas (not Suits)

[ARoseInHarlem]

Starting this thread while I digest the last few posts on the previous thread. I think the H&M saga could be as unsettling for the RF as the Charles & Diana bad publicity in the 1990s, if not worse.

The legal documents underline the lengths the duchess went to when she wrote to her father after the wedding urging him not to talk to the media. Extracts from the letter were published in The Mail on Sunday. Her lawyers described how the letter was sent via her business manager in the US, rather than from Kensington Palace, to avoid interception. A copy was also sent to her US lawyer, on condition that he did not read it.

Although the letter was “private and personal”, David Sherborne, her counsel, said she discussed it with her husband, mother, two friends, the palace communications team and solicitor.

From the Times article. Lol.

Goldierocks, have you found the latest ones? I can't see them on there.

they should never have sent him to Eton

I think that's very true. I'm not sure what the reasons were, probably proximity to KP.

I think it was mostly with the laudable aim of keeping the brothers together ,

@OVienna

The legal documents underline the lengths the duchess went to when she wrote to her father after the wedding urging him not to talk to the media. Extracts from the letter were published in The Mail on Sunday. Her lawyers described how the letter was sent via her business manager in the US, rather than from Kensington Palace, to avoid interception. A copy was also sent to her US lawyer, on condition that he did not read it.

Although the letter was “private and personal”, David Sherborne, her counsel, said she discussed it with her husband, mother, two friends, the palace communications team and solicitor.

From the Times article. Lol.

How can she base a Court case on the letter being private when by her own admission she has shown it to so many people??

I also bet she told her friends to go to the press but in a way that allows her plausible deniability.....

it’s fascinating to watch the whole saga

I think it was mostly with the laudable aim of keeping the brothers together

And proximity to Windsor castle. I'm sure there must have been many Sunday outings for tea with Granny and Grandpa.

But he undoubtedly would have been better suited to Gordonstoun with his cousins. Though Charles hates the place so that was never going to be an option.
But somewhere less academic, closer to home would have been a better fit for him.

I went onto the website linked to before - I got quickly through the Mail's lastest filings, started hers. There's a bandwith issue on the site now!

My prediction: The Mail's got it in the bag.

Cannot believe she started this bunfight. God knows what it costs. I really hope her supporters actually go and read what is written there. Look at the docs first hand. See for yourself and decide on that basis.

It is not just a question of whether she would return for Charles' coronation - there would be a funeral to attend first....(very sadly)

@Peaseblossom22

Harry should have married a nice girl with a stable family background who was happy to stand in the side of the polo ground cheering him on and indulging in country sports, and provided him with a couple of sporty children and most of all provided him with the stable home life that he has missed out on all his life and who probably would have been prepared to put up with a fair bit of poor behaviour.

It started years ago , they should never have sent him to Eton where he couldn’t keep up academically . He would have been far better with his sporty cousins at Gordonstoun or at somewhere like Milton Abbey.

This with knobs on! Marrying into the RF must take some doing. From previous 'templates', male and female, it seems you need to have broad shoulders and deep reserves of resilience for the inevitable criticism/extreme focus on you, an inner core of steel and an ability to stay silent when you might really want to say something or justify your stance. You'd have to be incredibly supportive and be ok with not being the main attraction, rather you 'come as a package.' All the jewels and privilege in the world wouldn't make me interested in that. As an aside, I can't believe they continue to publicly dabble with politically charged issues which make them look either hypocritical or embarrassing.

How can she base a Court case on the letter being private when by her own admission she has shown it to so many people??

That's what beats the hell out of me - but then I'm no lawyer so can't be expected to understand some of the nuances here

I also bet she told her friends to go to the press but in a way that allows her plausible deniability ...

Your money would probably be safe, since I don't think anyone with an IQ above that of an amoeba really believes she didn't know

As for "who'll pay the court costs" I'd have thought it obvious that this would be Charles. Nor would it cost him anything personally since it would almost certainly be buried in the legal costs of the (totally unaccountable) Duchy of Cornwall

Does anyone have a share token? I'd like to read the article

You can read it here:

archive.ph/eNdPE

I went onto the website linked to before - I got quickly through the Mail's lastest filings, started hers. There's a bandwith issue on the site now!

I wonder when the new bandwidth allowance starts. Thinking I might need to set an alarm...

The Eton decision was also driven I think by Diana having died recently so it seemed more important to have Harry at school with his brother and near other family members. He spent an extra year at his previous school to get ready.

An American teenager/young man, living an LA lifestyle 5,000 miles away, a Prince of the British RF. I’m sure he’ll be quite the eligible bachelor 20-30 years from now!

The downside for Archie is that he grows up in a celebrity environment without the money to match what his peers do.

I think ‘bemused’ sums up how everyone feels about the situation. And a little embarrassed for them.

I think MM has gone too far down the road and doesn’t know how to backtrack without looking totally foolish. And H has to back his wife.
It’s sad and laughable.

If they had just moved to America to live their low-key life like they said, then we could have accepted and got over it.
But they are still popping up on every news outlet for the court case, the book, statements of innocence etc.
They don’t want anonymity. They are both too used to being in the limelight.

@Peaseblossom22

I think it was mostly with the laudable aim of keeping the brothers together ,

Yes, quite likely and perhaps in keeping with Diana’s wish to treat them as equals it was felt they should have the same type of education.

@ARoseInHarlem

Won’t that be odd. An American teenager/young man, living an LA lifestyle 5,000 miles away, a Prince of the British RF. I’m sure he’ll be quite the eligible bachelor 20-30 years from now!

Wonder what he’ll make of the UK, growing up with a mother so anti-UK.

I think he'll be in and out of DGF palaces and reporting back to his parents on all the BRF's gossip, costs, scandals etc.

I actually think posters on these threads, in their disdain for H&M, tend to overegg the public warmth of feeling for the RF. Apart from the Queen, I don't think the public give two hoots about most of them, or feel quite negative.

Can't speak for everyone else, but I certainly have plenty of warmth of feeling for the rest of them (OK, excluding Andrew and with a lot of reservations about Fergie, but very much including Charles and Camilla - and yes, I'm certainly old enough to remember the Diana years, she was within months of the same age as me). My problem with HandM is precisely that they appear to treat the RF and the UK public with disdain. I mind that much more than the financial stuff.

@Gonegrey31

It is not just a question of whether she would return for Charles' coronation - there would be a funeral to attend first....(very sadly)

I think that people who crave the limelight would find it very difficult to turn down a centralised position at both what is likely to be one the most significant funerals of recent times and a coronation*.

*my phone’s predictive text is most insistent in changing coronation to confrontation, so maybe it knows something we don’t about the event!

they appear to treat the RF and the UK public with disdain. I mind that much more than the financial stuff.

Yes, that’s it in a nutshell. I agree with all you’ve said.

On the occasional mention of Harry’s relationship with his family looking from the outside as though it was great and then changing when he got together with Meghan, it’s just my personal opinion, but from what I’ve observed in life, “issues between in-laws” (here: Meghan & Harry’s family) usually have a foundation in already existing issues between the family member and their family (here: Harry & his family). These issues may be hidden beforehand and therefore, with genuine belief, blamed solely on the “interloper” & their influence but usually niggles have already existed (which the partners’ influence can minimise, not change or exasperate). The same would apply the other way with Meghan’s relationship with her Dad seeming to break down after she met Harry but likely niggles already there.

I would never like to end up in a situation where I was financially dependent on my sibling - so I can appreciate that the set up as it was could be challenging for Harry & Meghan. At some point in the future, it would no longer be his Grandmother & Father who held the purse strings and they would therefore end up “answerable” to William and Kate - this could (I feel understandably) lead them to wanting to find a way to become financially independent whilst remaining “notable members of The Royal Family” (deliberate use of capital letters ) but their approach and sense of entitlement has right from the beginning left me thinking that they do believe the “British Public” (& the rest of the world) do have an IQ on a par with an amoeba (love that expression - will be looking for opportunities to use it!)

they appear to treat the RF and the UK public with disdain. I mind that much more than the financial stuff.

Yes, me too!

Couple of unconnected thoughts:

• despite all the personal to-ings and fro-ings between Diana and Charles, Andrew and Fergie, the bad press that Beatrice and Eugenie and Zara have received over the years, Margaret's reputation, Andrew's reputation (what reputation? ), poor treatment by HMQ/ Philip/ men in suits, they were/are nothing but publicly respectful of the RF and of HMQ, and pro the British public. Never a suggestion that they didn't respect the Queen as a person and as monarch, never anything but public affection for the country and the people (no doubt behind closed doors things were different). I don't think I've heard anything from MM about affection or regard for the RF, the monarch or the British people. This may be why she is so ready to burn bridges. Her relationship with Charles is as a father-in-law and her son's grandfather, those are the heartstrings she will be tugging on. Question is, why is Harry - who's royal Englishness is his entire identity - doing the same? Englishmen going to America in search of opportunity is as old as the country itself. Maybe he bought into that?

• Given the haste with which MM fled the UK and the RF, and fled back to her home country via her second home, and given that her British life would have been an internationally appealing one (London, Cotswolds, Soho House style everything etc - we're not talking Hull or Blackpool), I'm going to hazard a guess that she suffered plain old homesickness. Plain old insecurity, out of her comfort zone. She'd been a little fish in a big pond but at least it was her pond. I have a lot of sympathy for that, most people would I think.

• To go from being a supporting actress on a Canadian TV drama, to equating yourself with the Queen of England ("collaborate with"), is a leap that I think anyone would struggle to make alone. I think there's some truth in the message we're being told she was given internally: she was welcomed into the family openly (Charles walked her down the aisle, a very intimate gesture of affection), explicitly told her marriage to Harry was great for him and great for helping modernise the monarchy, and that they would be supported in their efforts/ means put at their disposal to help them in their stated aims. But then their visions of their future differed from BP's visions, possibly with Harry not having translated for her at the time. Harry, 100% on her side (having already been spurned twice or more by women unwilling to marry into the machine, and no doubt in thrall to and genuinely in love with his wife), became and remains an equal partner in the schism.

Zogtastic I agree totally with what you say about the situation with the in-laws. Cracks very likely there already, in some form.Takes two tango, so to speak, and Prince Tango, I am convinced, is very central to how this all developed.

I would never like to end up in a situation where I was financially dependent on my sibling - so I can appreciate that the set up as it was could be challenging for Harry & Meghan.

Also this, in spades. It's all how they went about it here, for me. The gobsmacking lack of appreciation of what it would be involved for those around them, let alone the tax payer, to bring their plans about. The Instagram launch, the legalese around the use of the word 'royal'. There is no way they weren't planning on trading/building their fortune on that - as has been said a thousand times, no one is going to pay Harry Mountbatten getting on for half a million dollars to speak on social justice etc. There just isn't a career trajectory there. The job he knows is as a working royal, with a large infrastructure of support around him. That's it. He's not Barack Obama and she's not Michele - I could 'model' a charitable entity on Bill Gates' foundation, set up an insta page and puff and puff - difference is, it would have ten grand in it, not ten billion, and I'd look ridiculous. They haven't been at it long enough. In ten years? Maybe.

To go from being a supporting actress on a Canadian TV drama, to equating yourself with the Queen of England ("collaborate with"), is a leap that I think anyone would struggle to make alone. For sure, all of what you said.