C5 Documentary: Harry and Meghan, Rise and Fall

[IsoldeWagner]

Anyone watching this? It's on My5. I thought the first episode was interesting. I was reminded of how popular they were and how much support they got.

I don’t think there’ll be much of a queue to marry either of them.

Diana for all her faults was a genuine, authentic, kind hearted woman. She was deservedly much loved in a way that Markle could never be - because she is fake as fuck and everyone but the most blinkered knows it.

Yes, she was - as it happens their son also divorced!

As I understand it, @Luddite26 it wasn't the case that Diana "wasn't allowed" another baby, rather that the marriage had run into trouble. They did have counselling and decided to try with the marriage and have another baby, but for whatever reasons, it never happened. This is from both Andrew Morton and Ken Wharfe.

@CoffeeCantata I think to some extent Meghan is living the dream. Invited to countries as a Duchess , even if they are faux Royal tours. But I would say to her choose. Because I do agree the likes of Martha Stewart made her money by downgrading ( if that isn't impolite to Walmart Customers ) , I mean by that selling a version of her brand at a cheaper price. I think Goop and is there another one run by two chaps who sell v v expensive produce on the West Coast - can't remember the name of the company - but I think they have pretty much cornered the market there.

That said I am sure I have read Netflix are going to get involved in marketing Meghan. They need to get their money back somehow I suppose. I think she wants the acclaim fame and the money - not clear to me at the moment to me how she can do that. So - obviously Taylor Swift can - not my cup of tea but Oh Heavens people like her and she is apparently a good business woman . But people do say she is talented. Not sure H&M are innately talented - they are trading on Harry's parentage methinks .

I get really annoyed when the RF get blamed for ‘using Diana’. It was an arranged marriage to all intents and purposes. It’s therefore for her family to have protected her not the royals. Their job was to protect Charles.

I’ve had an arranged marriage as have most of my in laws and my family. Each family represents their own going into it.

If at 19 Diana didn’t understand what she was getting into then that’s on her and her family.

No way with her upbringing she didn’t know. I’ve always ‘known’ what it meant from a young age as was part and parcel. One of my cousins didn’t meet her dh till 3 days before!

Lamb to the slaughter my arse. No way the Spencers didn’t know - their family, their responsibility.

And breathe!

BasiliskStare · Yesterday 21:11
I think to some extent Meghan is living the dream. Invited to countries as a Duchess , even if they are faux Royal tours.

Definitely! In old-fashioned parlance*, Meghan is 'brazen'. She doesn't mind being seen as pushy and even hypocritical by some as long as her act fools most of the people, most of the time.

And we see on here every day that it certainly fools some people! 😁

*For sensitive readers, that's not intended as a mysogynistic term - I'd use it about a man if appropriate, but I think Harry's crassness is slightly different - it's more like entitled stupidity. They are certainly a fascinating psychological study.

@WatchOutMissMarpleIsAbout I couldn't agree more. People infantilise Diana - she was 19, which back then meant you were an adult. Plenty of people left school at 16. Plenty of people married young. She knew she was being prepared for an aristocratic marriage. Her elder sister had been set up with Charles originally. She wasn't a "lamb to the slaughter". That's so melodramatic.

The point about Diana is - the RF knew Charles did not love her.
He knew he did not love her ('whatever that means').

Just because people left school at 16, doesn't mean they were any more mature than your average 16 year old today.

It's not infantalising to say that the age gap was remarkable (as in, it is to be remarked on). Charles was 32. 32! Diana thought she loved him, She was 19.

The point is, she was never given a choice by the RF or Charles. If they had said to her, look, this is all a bit of a con. Charles isn't allowed to marry Camilla, his one true love, but if you turn a blind eye, give it a go? Literally - there will be three of you in your marriage.

She only realised what was going on re: Camilla when it was too late ('you can't back out now, your face is on the tea towels' as her sister famously said).

Her step mum was dysfunctional, her dad was unwell and partly paralysed from a stroke (and fiercely loyal to the Queen). Her mother was a 'bolter' who lost custody of the children. She was hardly likely to advise Diana to do the same.
Her siblings were either too young (brother) or too silenced/institutionalised (sloane sisters) to help. They were the put up and shut up generation. There was no support network there (not like Kate has for eg with her solid family).

Today's 19 year-old might have snapchatted her friends for immediate support - (ngl, think he's cheating on me, omg)... taken to social media, hashtagged her way out of it, even gone on MN! (I think my fiancee is still in love with his ex....).

That was the difference in the 80s. There was no 'global village'. No support network. There was just the press - who had all bought into the narrative of fairytale wedding.

What is a 19 year old to do in the face of that and the RF (an institution, as Meghan has found, that have rules so archaic and impenetrible not even Harry - a love match - can - apparantly - navigate for her).

Ha, OK, rant over - obviously I'm basing my truth on The Crown, Andrew Morton, Diana's interviews and probably the gospel according to Paul Burrell.

But that is is the vibe I get from the whole Diana debacle. I put it to the jury that this account is as valid or as based in truth as the alternative optic of 'Diana knew what she was getting herself into'.

I rest my case.

No case rested. People were not infantilised as they are now because we were all expected to be more independent. People definitely grew up quicker!
Diana Spencer was an adult. If you were that age in 1980, that's how you were perceived.
I think some folks think that The Crown is a documentary, and Andrew Morton's book and Diana's own words are unimpeachable.
Not so.

Very good post @commonground

I am totally #teamdiana on this and will not be moved from my position!

There was nothing so interesting about the RF until she came along (I'm talking about in my lifetime) and has been nothing so interesting until Megxit and the RF fallout.

It is Harry's curse that he is desperate for history not to repeat itself and yet is conspiring to re-live it with his current actions. He is picking that scab and it is painful to watch.

@commonground
@deeahgwitch

Perhaps you don’t know much how arranged marriage works.

It’s for the Spencers to have protected Diana not the RF. she was 19. Most of my family the girls were married off by 18. The boys slightly (but not much) older. If they understood it you can bet 19 year old Diana did.

She wanted an out. Told her sisters. They didn’t help. Their fault no one else’s.

How do I know this? One of my female cousins said she didn’t want to go through with it. Families got involved. Wedding stopped. The buck stops with the Spencers. No one else.

@commonground I suspect Harry's problems are more than the alleged treatment of his late mother.
He's a 40 year old man with money, means and opportunity to sort himself out. That he doesn't is not the fault of Charles, Camilla or anyone else.

Great point there. You are so right. Kate's pretty, but boring she certainly doesn't sell papers like Diana or Meghan. The media has always been behind everything and the plebs always lap it up.

I think you’re all a bit right when it comes to Charles and Diana. Plenty of blame to go round and William seemingly took much of this on board when it came to his relationship with Catherine. And if you read Amanda Foreman’s The Duchess, Diana wasn’t the first, nor probably the only, Spencer woman to rail against her circumstances.

The issue is that Harry (and seemingly their advisors) were unable or unwilling to make clear to Meghan what was involved in joining his family. H&M were an exact replica of what happened with Andrew and Sarah. Much more exciting, interesting second in line gets wife who is better than the boring heir and wife. Much exaultation, the women are BFFs, then they’re at war, then the second and his wife aren’t royal enough etc etc. They were on a well worn path and it should have been blindingly apparent to them that the media were following their usual playbook. Nothing that happened to them in terms of the mainstream media in the uk was that different to anything that had gone before. Social media clearly is a different beast, but there’s no reason to think it would have been anything less vicious had it existed in the 1980s.

i genuinely thought when they said Archie wasn’t getting a title that they had looked at Harry’s cousins, seen that the Princess Anne model of living your life and raising your children seemed to be going better than Uncle Andy’s and the mistakes of the early years of the Wessex/Edinburgh marriage so were actually reflecting and learning. Appears not and it is a shame as they could have done so much good.

The media are not behind everything. That sounds like a conspiracy theory.
They reflect everything. Harry wants to talk about his todger? Meghan wants to say Archie won't get a title because of his colour? That's down to them. Their choice.
The media are happy because of the clicks!

@mummypigoink it was wrong to say that Archie wouldn't get a title because of his colour.
This is where checking out the Letters Patent, or (heaven forfend) asking someone.
Don't be ignorant, or lazy and don't lie.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. When it was initially announced he would just be Master Archie, I thought they were taking proactive steps to prepare their child for a life that wouldn’t be ‘royal’ and I thought that was a good thing. What was said in the Oprah interview demonstrated that complete lack of understanding of what being royal was that seems to have permeated their entire relationship. And that is on Harry.

I see what you mean, @mummypigoink . Scobie made much of the "Master Archie" issue.
I suspect that at the time, they considered "Lord" too unsatisfactory as a title, and wished him to be Prince from the outset? My guess.
It doesn't excuse the lies and accusations of racism though.

It's interesting how many takes there are on the Charles/Diana marriage.

I'm the age she would have been, close enough. Noone-I mean noone-thought it was an "arranged marriage" in the sense we all understand, either culturally or because Royalty. George VI and the Queen Mother weren't an arranged marriage and neither were QEII and Phillip. Charles had a pretty endless succession of girlfriends and while Camilla may have been on aristo radar, she didn't figure much elsewhere.

I'm sure the Spencers thought it a great match and may have encouraged it (although her formidable and not always sympathetic grandmother Lady Fermoy expressed big doubts) The RF may well have thought a virginal aristocrat with plenty of childbearing years was ideal and also encouraged it. Diana had had a pretty sheltered life by the standards of 19 year olds today and (possibly) bought into the whole "Prince Charming/fairytale" storm that was whipped up. I certainly did plenty of dumb shit when I was that age, thankfully with less lasting consequences. I do think she may have realised that all was not well, but by that time, as has been said, "her face was on the tea towels".

I don't dislike Charles, I actually think he's a decent man who was too weak to resist the pressure on him to wed, especially as the woman he really wanted (Camilla) had decided to marry the man she really wanted at the time (Andrew P-B) Maybe he thought he could make it work, I certainly don't think that he realised that Diana was quite fragile but a modern enough woman not to want to produce heirs while turning a blind eye to mistresses.

More likely IMO that Meghan objected because the applicable title was Lord Dumbarton

"Dumb" is a pretty common insult in the US, and somehow I can't see the name appealing

Like that movie Dumb and Dumber?

How silly. Again, no research - Dumbarton is a place in Scotland.
Anyway, they could just have called him Lord Archie. Plus not lied about the Prince title.

I know, @IsoldeWagner, but I'd say the likelihood of many Americans having heard of Dumbarton is remote, and that just leaves the possible impression the name might have given instead of what it actrually meant