Harry’s litigation

[smilesy]

Harry has been mostly denied permission to increase the scope of his case against NGN. The judge has, quite rightly, allowed him to include new allegations of phone tapping and other accusations against private investigators and journalists. What he has not allowed is Harry to extend the timeline to include allegations around Diana or Meghan when she was his girlfriend. The judge also made disparaging remarks about Harry’s lawyers adding more and more detail, and going for “trophy targets”

Is Harry losing sight of what legal action should be for and becoming vexatious?

Too true! Just like Andrew in that respect.
Also like Harry with the greed and mendacity.
What awful men.

Lascelles is fascinating on Edward VIII (and when PoW). He really didn't rate him! He recounted this story which demonstrates Edward's shallowness, utter self-absorption and inability to see anything from anyone else's point of view.

Edward was being shown around a Palace garden (not sure which one now).and one of the staff very proudly showed him a wonderful display of peach blossom in the glass-houses which promised a bumper crop of peaches that summer. The gardener had put in a huge amount of work and dedication to produce this result (I think you have to pollinate peach blossom with a feather or similar).

After the gardener had finished explaining all this, the PoW ordered all the blossom to be cut down and sent to Mrs Simpson's London flat.

Oh my goodness, so like Harry. Self centred and ignorant.

coffee

☹️

Wallis also called the Queen Mother “the Dumpy Duchess.” I saw some film footage of Wallis the other day, as opposed to photos, and at the time of her marriage she was very wrinkly and quite warty . She must have had something!

I was also reading an autobiography of a writer (nothing to do with royals) who saw Edward and Wallis in the 1960s, and said he was tiny like a jockey and she was the thinnest person she’d ever seen.

Oh, I think Wallis had certain.... abilities.

Oh my goodness. So like…

I think you have to be a bit careful with crediting stuff like this. It was the mid 1930s, and Wallis had been divorced at least once and travelled to China as a single woman when single women didn't really do things like that - there were a lot of expectations of female behaviour and she didn't meet them. Also you can't discount that some people didn't, for various reasons, think Edward was suitable to be king; what's a good way to discredit him? slurs about the woman he wants to marry.

Slurs and innuendo about women who for whatever reason aren't fulfilling what society thinks of as the female role are a standard, especially sexual slurs. W Simpson had them, Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette,Elizabeth I, to name a few. In WS's case it conveys the message 'Is THIS the sort of woman you want married to your king?'

Society in the 1930s was also rather innocent sexually (not all of it, of course). Implying that WS had certain sexual abilities would label her as little better than a prostitute - women simply weren't supposed to know that stuff that she was alleged to be able to do.

<Decent women simply weren't supposed to know that stuff that she was alleged to be able to do> that should read.

I was also reading an autobiography of a writer (nothing to do with royals) who saw Edward and Wallis in the 1960s, and said he was tiny like a jockey and she was the thinnest person she’d ever seen.

she was known as 'the Stick Insect' within the RF, wasn't she.

It would have been worse if he'd stayed king, with Wallis as his mistress. She was a massive security risk, and he was known to be careless with official papers. Plus the risk of him repeating things the PM and others told him in audiences.

I think certain letters and other evidence would support the claim that Wallis was a talented and popular society hostess.

She was, how can I put it, a close personal friend of Ribbentrop. The contents of dispatch boxes did seem to become known to his paymasters.

Oh my God. Just no words. That poor gardener.

He means obviously his brother who married the QM. He pursued her relentlessly though she kept turning him down. So obviously he was in love with her and it was a very happy marriage.

She was, how can I put it, a close personal friend of Ribbentrop.

Yes, and the authorities must have known it. I suppose in the end they'd have stopped telling the King stuff, which would have been bad for the monarchy. The sovereign can't carry out his/her constitutional role of advising ministers if s/he doesn't know what's going on.

Exactly this . William has automatic security so Harry thinks he should too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marburg_Files
Have a read. Edward was absolutely bloody awful.

Indeed, dreadful man.

I think Wallis was also having an affair with von Ribbentrop, the German Ambassador, either before (or maybe concurrently with!) her relationship with Edward, so definitely a security risk.

And as for calling the Duchess of York (later QM) cruel names, I think both Wallis and Edward called her 'Cookie' because they thought she looked 'like a fat cook'. Charming! No wonder the QM would never forgive her. I suspect that at one time Elizabeth Bowes Lyon had been a wee bit in love with Edward (as nearly all the society girls were) and this must have cut very deep indeed, on top of the effect the abdication had on George Vi.

The Queen Mother and Wallis , The Princess of Wales and Meghan - history repeating itself

I think he likely meant the Duke of Kent. He was bisexual and his dalliances with men were well known in some circles as he’d been arrested. He also had flings with some very glamorous women

There were a lot of suggestions that his marriage to Marina (who the media at the time seemed to regard as being quite plain) was an attempt to clean up his reputation and calm him down a bit.

Yes @ARichtGoodDram that’s what I was thinking and should have said but @LeilaLettuce made me question myself!

I go along with that thinking that he meant George, Duke of Kent. Was Bertie known in the family as anything other than Bertie, before he became king and opted for George?

No. He was always Albert or Bertie.
He only chose George as a regnal name on the advice of the government, to indicate continuity after the abdication.
His father being George V, therefore he was George VI.

And I don't think anyone really liked the idea of a King Albert. Edward VII was Albert Edward, also known as Bertie, and he chose Edward as his regnal name.

All the Berties are due to Queen Victoria's wish that all her descendants should have Albert or Victoria as one of their names, for evermore. The three sons of the future George V born in her lifetime all had Albert as one of their names. The two born after her death didn't.