More News on Harry and Meghan

[Viviennemary]

Two little bits of news I read today. First the bells won't ring out at Westminster Abbey for Meghans birthday next month and she'll be devastated. No I don't think she'll even expect them to ring. And I had to smile at Bogart the dog was left behind in Canada because it didn't take to Harry. What else could she do. Hardly leave Harry behind. And it would have been a worry with a baby in the house too. She did the right thing here.

Charles never let Camilla go though. All through his marriage. People would have been outraged if he had married her straight after Diana’s death! Could you imagine him doing that? Camilla had a lot of vitriol directed at her and Charles even more. Diana was elevated to sainthood - which I do think has not helped Harry move on. It feeds his insecurities.

@alliwantisagoodnightssleep I remember that BG blind. John Lewis IIRC?
But that was before they married (possibly even the engagement) so I don't blame the DoC for sticking to protocol.

It's a huge shame the Sussexes are burning their bridges. They could have played a long game and got stuck into their own worthwhile causes. Lived in the UK and holidayed in the US / Canada / Africa.

Totally agree, there was no way Charles could marry Camilla for a long time after Diana died. She was hated. The public needed to move on. And they did eventually.

Camilla and Meghan were both older women when they married into the RF. They weren't shy 19 year olds with no experience. They surely knew what they were getting into. Both seem to have handled it differently.

As I said I don't think Meghan wants a life like Camillas and that isn't a bad thing. They are very different and their future roles will be very different.

I just don't see how this book is helping H&M's PR if one assumes it has been produced with their ummm understanding.

And choosing Omid as your pet reporter is questionable. There are lots of stories about his shadiness around.

I suspect he loves the privilege and deference as much as the rest of them and just likes to indulge himself in a bit of 'poor little me' from time to time.

I agree in that all of them would cling on until the last possible moment because what's presented to them on a plate is better than the alternative - work (which, whichever way you look at it, is hard). However, I honestly can't see why people would marry into that when they can find someone who has made their own wealth and/or created their own life, and who, through having done so, must surely be a more interesting person than a 'trust fund baby' have I been doing it all wrong?

This is the next extract, about TM and the wedding. I don't have access though, annoying as I've been following the court case and this extract really interests me!

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/meghan-sent-one-last-text-to-her-father-thomas-markle-on-the-night-before-she-married-harry-cc8ctfd6t

Well.... Meghan did her best with her father the article says. He lied about staged photos, he didn't return her calls, he brushed her away when she was trying to protect him and get him to the wedding and he decided to turn to the Press and sell stories instead.
If that article is as it was, anyone would feel betrayed, and to be betrayed by your father must've been horrible for her just days before the wedding.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8c80b7cc-cc10-11ea-a032-5373319f29c3?shareToken=e0bc21e60629444d26ea1d0d659b64b0

The monthly subscription for the Times is £26. Some subscribers might consider cancelling the subscription if articles about the book are on the top page constantly.

Ooh, thanks @Katherine!

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0abca95a-ce7a-11ea-bbb4-8fadf03ff542?shareToken=cd914a0265a80f615b5d7b24ac286f62

@TheNavigator

Gosh it is all a bit unseemly - the Cambridge's getting their friends to bitch and whine about the Sussex's friends. Very schoolyard - what a toxic family. Remind me why we fund them all?

About as unseemly as Meghan getting her friends to bitch and wine , about the Royal family and Kate in particular? This was published a couple of days after the Commonwealth Day service, which as we all know from the extracts from Finding Freedom they were particularly annoyed about as they were not given a public show of support from William and Kate.

"There's no warmth between the family members and she wants to raise Archie in a household that is filled with laughter and joy and lots of hugs" and friends of Meghan tell DailyMail.com that the trip to the UK was 'confirmation' that she and Harry 'made the right choice in parting ways' with the royals. 'It's still weird to her that no one hugs and that everyone is so uptight, especially Kate,' the source said."

I remember reading an article in People years ago, before Diana had died when I was in the US more often, that claimed they were going to divorce and Charlies intended to marry Camilla. At the time I thought no way this can't be. I believe the article said that Charles has told her father he was going to make her an honest woman or some such. It was quite incredible. Now I wonder if it was true and in fact Diana's death delayed it. I think this was1995.

Thanks for the next 'chapter'! Kind of you to share.

@EthelMayFergus

I'm trying to understand why Meghan thought that she shared a unique position with Kate. In one generation, depending on how many children the Cambridge children each have, Meghan will potentially be the wife of the 12th and mother of 13th in line and Kate will be queen consort, wife of the king and mother of the future king. Surely Meghan realised the situation before marriage, yet the book implies that she didn't. Her position would be comparable to Sarah and Sophie, so why wasn't she trying to bond with them over their 'shared unique position'?

Surely Meghan realised the situation before marriage, yet the book implies that she didn't.

I'd wager she understood completely that as time went by she would be increasingly irrelevant as the focus shifted to the Cambridge family. She knew she had to 'hit the ground running' and establish herself before (to put it starkly) HMTQ died and William became heir whilst Harry remained 6th.

That need to cement her position as star of the family ASAP would put her at odds with the somewhat glacial pace the centuries old institution likes to move at. The monarchy and the courtiers know from experience (Diana) that a star detracts from the institution's purpose and likely wanted her to be a Sophie while Meghan wanted to be a Diana. To do that she had to start by establishing herself as at least equal to Kate. And that is where the problems with the Palace started as they knew she was never going to be equal to Kate...

"There's no warmth between the family members

WTF? Meghan said that???? And how much "warmth, joy, laughter and hugs" is there in her own family - you know, the father she is hauling into court, the brother and sister she's disowned, and the entire mother's side of the family she neglected to invite to the wedding of hundreds of people she'd never met.

The photos Catherine Cambridge has published of her children rolling on the ground with William in fits of giggles looks to me like exactly the sort of family warmth that Meghan and Harry have deprived Archie of. He's stuck thousands of miles away in a mansion that is on loan, estranged from his entire extended family.

Yeah, good luck with that one H&M.

Meghan thought that she shared a unique position with Kate.

And therein lay the problem. She was never in the same position as Kate, who is the wife of a future king, whereas Meghan isn't.

• WTF? Meghan said that???? And how much "warmth, joy, laughter and hugs" is there in her own family - you know, the father she is hauling into court, the brother and sister she's disowned, and the entire mother's side of the family she neglected to invite to the wedding of hundreds of people she'd never met.

The photos Catherine Cambridge has published of her children rolling on the ground with William in fits of giggles looks to me like exactly the sort of family warmth that Meghan and Harry have deprived Archie of. He's stuck thousands of miles away in a mansion that is on loan, estranged from his entire extended family.

Yeah, good luck with that one H&M.*

Absolutely right. Plus the very warm and loving relationship Kate has with her own family. Quite different from the dysfunctional mess in Meghan’s.

The whole 'there's no warmth in the family' line is rather undercut by Harry's earlier 'the family she never had'. They must both heartily wish he'd never said that. It inconveniently disrupts the later narrative about how horrible the Royals have been to Meghan.

No warmth among the family members?? The irony. When Meghan had one person from her family among 600 guests. And said of Samantha to Thomas 'your other daughter who I hardly know.' I think it was in that letter. I mean really. She really cannot be thinking straight.

If I were William and Catherine, I would be instilling in their younger children the need to be able to earn their own livings. Follow the Princess Anne model of parenting.

The difficulty with this is that neither Kate or William have much real work experience to draw on and passion to their kids. Kate pre marriage hung around doing not much (as did Pippa who traded on her new found status as SIL to royalty). Even William's air ambulance work was rumored to be when he felt like it and was never full time. Do they have a real world work ethic to pass on?

Anne's children were further away from the direct line with no titles but even with the work ethic Anne gave them they have traded heavily on connections to get where they are today. Peter appearing in Chinese tv ads and catering the jubilee lunch springs to mind. Zara has indeed a talent with horses and worked hard to achieve a lot but what is she actually doing now? I know she does paid for horseracing related appearances in Australia in January - covid permitting - but otherwise?

What the monarch's spare children and grandchildren do is still a real problem IMO. Maybe the Wessex kids will break the mould and get a job at a law firm or bank?

I'm probably unrealistic but I'd love to see a member of the RF do a professional full time job like nurse, doctor, teacher etc.

The Cambridge's are "unseemly" - LOL.

The definition of that word is "unbecoming" and "indiscreet". It's not one, set against the particular chain of events we have been analysing here, that would apply to them by any measure at all.

I'm surprised that the Cambridges have bothered to respond-all that Ive make H&M come across as ridiculous.

@carpetshagger

I'm probably unrealistic but I'd love to see a member of the RF do a professional full time job like nurse, doctor, teacher etc.

The Duchess of Kent quietly taught music in a Yorkshire primary school for twenty years. Not sure whether that was FT or PT. One of the Gloucester princes was quite happily settling into an architecture career until he lost his elder brother (William) and had to step up.

It can be done, and the more senior royals could do it too, if we adopted a more low-key European model of monarchy. King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands was (is?) secretly a PT airline pilot for more than two decades, I believe, both as heir and as monarch.

Here’s hoping Charles and William both introduce dramatic reforms.