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The royal family
Original poster

I can’t understand that she knew ‘nothing’ about royal protcal

154 replies

Slimmer2018 · 06/01/2023 18:37

It’s normal practice to brief your partner on your family’s habits when initially introduced. What to talk to about with dad (football, golf, cars etc) what granny likes (bingo, knitting etc) I’m being stereotypical here but my point is - surely Harry must’ve briefed his future wife on what happens in the ‘family’ I can’t understand why Megan says it was a surprise to her that she had to curtsey to grandma and that she felt it was formal behind closed doors - Harry had lived that life so why was it such a shock to Megan?? What did she expect?? My thoughts are that she wanted to make changes that really couldn’t be made. To me I feel she just didn’t want to conform to the royal family from the outset. You can’t break hundreds of years of tradition as she tried to do… and I don’t believe she hadn’t researched…

OP posts:
tattychicken · 07/01/2023 08:41

Zampa · 07/01/2023 08:34

So what is the big deal about respecting cultural behaviour that has been going on in the UK for years?

Because it's nonsensical class based nonsense.

Whilst I personally may have curtsied for the Queen in respect of her experience and knowledge, I would not do so for any other member of the Royal Family, including the now King. They do not deserve deference through an accident of birth or marriage, especially not in a private setting.

I'm sure Meghan knew about what to do in public but to expect formality in their home is bonkers.

She wouldn't have had to curtsy to anyone in her own home unless Her Maj turned up at the front door.

Micawbs · 07/01/2023 08:41

Wasn’t there quite a bit of criticism when Harry called the First Amendment “bonkers”?

Twizbe · 07/01/2023 08:42

The British culture is quite subtle. I've known a few Americans really struggle when they've moved here. They all said they thought they knew what it was like and that there wouldn't be a culture shock. They were very shocked!

A lot of Brits, myself included, would be really freaked out if someone I've never met before hugged me.

The curtesy is a mark of respect. Like other posters are saying, on first meeting someone you should try to be respectful until invited to be less formal. My children refer to our neighbours as Mr and Mrs Surname because it's respectful. They will do that until invited to use their first names.

NancyJoan · 07/01/2023 08:46

PineapplePear · 06/01/2023 19:32

Haven’t we all been told how much willy loved being at Kate’s parents house because it was less formal, and that’s what they wanted too?

They will still curtesy to him though.

But Kate probably makes her own cup on tea instead of ringing for one, which is how William grew up.

Twizbe · 07/01/2023 08:53

Quordle · 06/01/2023 18:47

I think there's a lot of nuance in the Royal Family that you pick up living in Britain but wouldn't know as an American. Can't remember what it was but Oprah asked a question that showed she just didn't understand the institution, in a way I'm sure almost all British people would. If you live in Britain you've probably picked up an awful lot of information about them over time, even if it's almost subliminally.

Agree with this as well. I think it's anywhere that has a monarchy, you just pick up that there's a way of behaving around them.

MagpiePi · 07/01/2023 08:56

I don't think a quick curtsey the first time you greet a royal in a family setting, in the UK is any more weird than American children calling their parents Sir and Ma'am.

pizzaHeart · 07/01/2023 09:19

I think it’s a clash of different personalities, cultures and even partners. Of course Harry wasn’t so good in preparing Meghan as Zara was to MT. Harry clearly is not smart at all and has many issues. And of course Meghan is from a different culture even if she speaks the same language and a lots of things are similar. However Meghan clearly had a certain attitude which was the main factor imo. She didn’t know all rules but once she saw the reality she could be more thoughtful.
I agree with @Twizbe that
on first meeting someone you should try to be respectful until invited to be less formal.
Not all people like hugging, Meghan should be aware of that. She wasn’t naive 18y.o. She was grown up, divorced, with a job.
And I think meeting your guests barefoot is just bad manners, my DH is the same and we are from ordinary working families, not even from UK originally. And you don’t ask for lipgloss, unless you are a teen, you have your own.

I suspect all these hugging and barefoot nonsense made W and K even more suspicious and reserved. I would react like this if someone was too familiar towards me.

smileladiesplease · 07/01/2023 09:27

Apparently she had never heard of Prince Harry and had to Google him. Yes dear of course you did.

4thtimeunlucky · 07/01/2023 09:33

Cileymyrus · 06/01/2023 21:23

I often wonder if Meghan thought they’d be a bit in awe of her, US celeb style, and not realise the monarchy is way, way above a minor actress in celeb stakes.

as for the curtseying, it’s fairly normal in UK society to address people according to status.
if your new boyfriend’s dad’s a senior consultant or professor you would address him as “dr smith” or “prof smith”, you wouldn’t go straight to “Dave”. That would take a while.

I wondered whether it might be a "first time introduction" type thing, and that once you were an established part of the family maybe you didn't have to curtsey every time? Obvs I don't know.

A bit like the first time you meet your IL you might shake hands but once you know them well, give them a hug. I'm pretty sure I didn't hug my PIL or SIL and BIL the first time I met them, but now I've known them 20 years it would be weird not to greet each other with a hug.

A lot of the things seem contradictory though.
They want a hug first time they meet insinuating good friendship.. but also see them as "competition"
Harry (more than Meghan) wants to allegedly reconcile with his dad and brother, then does several interviews that are not complimentary to them and writes a book detailing everything he feels they've ever done wrong. I'm not sure that's the way to win them over tbh.

SheilaFentiman · 07/01/2023 09:34

MagpiePi · 07/01/2023 08:56

I don't think a quick curtsey the first time you greet a royal in a family setting, in the UK is any more weird than American children calling their parents Sir and Ma'am.

Do many American kids call their parents that, though? My cousins certainly don’t!

Whenharrymetsmelly · 07/01/2023 09:35

Snugglepiggy · 07/01/2023 08:15

But then again I can't believe she didn't at least once introduce Harry to her dad .Or that they didn't make the effort to see him.They had no finance problems. And after only 2 dates M dropped everything to fly out to Botswana on holiday with H. Whatever Thomas did prior to the wedding it wasn't that long before she had praised him as her beloved dad.They are both as bad at preparing each other for their respective families and how each could impact their relationship. They made things incredibly harder from the start and yet now everyone else is to blame.

This is an interesting point. It all seemed to unravel, I wonder if they just were so wrapped up in each other they forgot about everything and everyone else. Maybe they thought that because they were in love that things would just sort themselves out

C8H10N4O2 · 07/01/2023 09:41

Antst · 07/01/2023 07:44

Seriously, you can't understand that someone from a different country and culture might need to adjust??

Even Diana was apparently taken aback by some royal protocol and she grew up in the UK and in an aristocratic family.

I have dual citizenship and have been utterly ashamed and embarrassed by the "welcome" Meghan got. People targeted her from day one. I remember seeing the online comments about Kate go from horrible to nice on the very day of Harry and Meghan's engagement and not understanding the reason for the sudden switch until I read the comments on articles about Meghan and Harry. Bullying, nasty, small-minded Brits decided they'd rather have a commoner like Kate after all than a brown, outspoken American.

Something I see often is that when British people go to the US, people nearly always accept their differences and are tolerant and welcoming. Harry is a good example. He has been welcomed in the US. No one has written articles criticizing his efforts to fit in or awkward things he has said. Kate and William have been welcomed. The bottom line is that British people never seem to notice when people are going out of their way to be accepting and tolerant because there often isn't even a concept that things can be done differently.

Who knows how much of in the papers is true or whether people involved remember exact wording accurately (which can make a difference). I'm not interested in reading the details of every drama in the situation. But I certainly do notice that people had zero problem with reading relentlessly negative articles about Meghan and Harry for years. Now we find out that Harry's family could have been involved. Yet now that Harry and Meghan are telling their side, people are dumping on them for doing it. They deserve to defend themselves. None of us, me included, would be sitting back in silence if other people were trashing us.

👏👏

Six years of negative briefing is enough for anyone - the difference between Harry and the other cast out/scapegoated royals is that he hit back.

Its also pretty plain from this thread that despite the claims that its "obvious" most brits have no idea just how formal the household is even behind closed doors.

MrsFinkelstein · 07/01/2023 09:54

I am slightly confused at the suggestion that Americans wouldn't understand the need for recognition of the Office of The Crown. Or any other World Leader.

They salute their flag & pledge allegiance to it, when meeting their President they show respect (& also former POTUS's), even if they didn't vote for them.

They are completely aware of the need for a bit of formality and for respect for an institution & representative of that institution.

So you'd ask - what are the expectations here when I meet HMQ/a Prince/Princess, the same way you'd ask before you meet a PM/President/Pope etc

converseandjeans · 07/01/2023 09:57

@Slimmer2018

Why do you care? Honestly this is getting ridiculous how many people are bothered by MM.

I can see why they want to put their side of things out there.

WomanhoodIsABirthright · 07/01/2023 10:07

Of course she knew. She just expected to do what she wanted and is so arrogant that she expected deferrence from the royal family 😆

There is also absolutely no way she didn't know who he was when they met. She set all that up. Even down to wearing Diana's perfume to their first meeting, iirc.

SheilaFentiman · 07/01/2023 10:31

Did she actually say she didn’t know who he was? Or just that she didn’t know much about him?

anyway, I don’t know the names of the children and grandchildren of the queen of Denmark, in fact, I don’t know if there is still a queen or if it is a king now. It’s not impossible that someone from another country didn’t know about the queen’s grandchildren.

SheilaFentiman · 07/01/2023 10:34

Ah, Google tells me it’s still a queen. Margrethe, apparently, and her first son is Frederik. I have a vague childhood memory of “the bicycling queen of Denmark” and that’s it.

pocketvenuss · 07/01/2023 10:49

WomanhoodIsABirthright · 07/01/2023 10:07

Of course she knew. She just expected to do what she wanted and is so arrogant that she expected deferrence from the royal family 😆

There is also absolutely no way she didn't know who he was when they met. She set all that up. Even down to wearing Diana's perfume to their first meeting, iirc.

Tell us you believe everything written in gutter tabloids without telling us you believe everything you read in gutter tabloids.

Angrymum22 · 07/01/2023 10:53

I definitely had to google MM when they became an item. I had no idea who she was.

FeinCuroxiVooz · 07/01/2023 10:58

remember she's an actress.
in a Hollywood movie about an american marrying into the British royal family, all the stuffy traditions and formality are joyfully broken by the arrival of the new person and after some hilarious scrapes and misunderstandings everyone agrees that they will be less uptight from now on. at the closing credits the queen is doing a silly dance with a grandchild who never before felt so loved and valued, and everyone is happy. she didn't need to learn the specifics because they would all be irrelevant soon anyway.

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 07/01/2023 10:59

‘The "welcome" Meghan got in the UK was absolutely shameful and disgusting. It said far more about Brits than her.’

shameful and disgusting…wow. The newspapers were full of commentators saying how wonderful it was that Meghan has a black grandmother, and how it was so suitable for a new multi cultural Britain . Politicians too. W& C shared the platform of their charity with her when she was only Harry’s girlfriend, not even formally engaged. The Queen took her on an overnight trip to Wales on the Royal Train, which she had done for no other Royal fiancée . She was invited into the Royal Box at Wimbledon; she was given an enormous clothes budget, and she didn't seem to have to observe the usual preference for British designers.

The wedding you dismiss cost millions of pounds. The guest list was bizarre, including many people which the marital couple had met once or twice ( by their own admission) but with whom they wished to ingratiate themselves . The ceremony was designed to proclaim the bride’s ‘heritage’ with aGospel choir and a preacher whom the COE had managed to find in America ( no connection to the bride). And the usual rules on marriage of divorced people in church were relaxed - which they were not for the Prince of Wales.

she was even ‘given away’ by the Prince of Wales when she seemed unable or unwilling to produce a single male relative or friend to do the job ( a stupid custom IMHO , especially for a self proclaimed feminist and recent divorcee, but that’s how she wanted it). That is unprecedented.

Shameful and disgusting…#sign me up for that sort of shameful and disgusting treatment please.

okay, piers Morgan was miffed when she dumped him for a much better prospect, but most people just thought he was making a fool of himself.

MichaelAndEagle · 07/01/2023 11:04

Quordle · 06/01/2023 18:47

I think there's a lot of nuance in the Royal Family that you pick up living in Britain but wouldn't know as an American. Can't remember what it was but Oprah asked a question that showed she just didn't understand the institution, in a way I'm sure almost all British people would. If you live in Britain you've probably picked up an awful lot of information about them over time, even if it's almost subliminally.

There was something from Oprah along the lines of 'but they're the royal family, surely they can do what they want?'
Which made me think maybe Americans don't really realise how it works nowadays.
Essentially joining the Royal family means having a load of your freedom taken away.
I must admit I've also wondered why Harry or anyone else hadn't briefed her properly.

themessygarden · 07/01/2023 11:07

Harry got huge criticism in the US when he publicly called the First Amendment (i.e. the right to free speech) 'bonkers'.

themessygarden · 07/01/2023 11:12

themessygarden · 07/01/2023 11:07

Harry got huge criticism in the US when he publicly called the First Amendment (i.e. the right to free speech) 'bonkers'.

I am referring to this comment

"Harry is a good example. He has been welcomed in the US. No one has written articles criticizing his efforts to fit in or awkward things he has said."

marcopront · 07/01/2023 11:20

"Harry is a good example. He has been welcomed in the US. No one has written articles criticizing his efforts to fit in or awkward things he has said."

If Harry met the president and didn't follow protocol, how do you think the press would react?

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