WHAT A RIGHT ROYAL MESS
What the world has dubbed “Megxit” has been a long time coming, royal insiders say, according to Stephen Drill
Prince Harry received a rare display of warmth from his grandmother when he graduated from Sandhurst military academy.
The proud-as-punch Queen broke protocol to smile as she inspected the soldiers and he smiled back, again a slight slip of the rules.
Her Majesty takes the inspection of soldiers very seriously at the Trooping of the Colour in London each year.
So that encounter in 2006, which gave an insight into how much love they shared for each other, is worth reflecting on this week.
Times have changed.
Prince Harry disobeyed direct instructions from the Queen this week when he announced via Instagram he was quitting royal duties and moving to Canada, with time expected to be spent in the US as well.
At the Sandhurst ceremony when Harry was passing out, the Queen said: “If you look at the careers of successful officers, you will find that, no matter how clever they have been, what really matters is how they related to people under their command.
“It was not by chance that the motto chosen for the Royal Military Academy is Serve to Lead.”
Prince Harry, 35, either wasn’t listening or he has early onset dementia.
The notion of service and duty, which has been a key pillar of the Queen’s rule for 67 years, has been thrown out by millennial Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, 38.
However, yesterday, his shock and awe tactics appeared to have worked, with royal sources saying that the Queen was trying to find a solution to let him off the leash within days, not weeks.
Dickie Arbiter, a former spokesman for the Queen and now royal commentator who closely watched Prince Harry grow up, said the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had been “selfish”.
“They didn’t think about everybody else or anybody else,” he told News Corp Australia. “It was selfish, it was I just want to do it and I will.” Mr Arbiter said he was stunned that Harry did not tell the Queen or Prince Charles before putting out his announcement, along with a sleek new website that would have been weeks in the planning.
“He hasn’t worked out the logistics, he’s just gone off halfcocked. Who is going to pay for where they live? What happens to their charities? They are president and vice president of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust. What happens to all the extra costs?” The broad view is the Queen deserved much better.
At 93, she should be having a shandy and monitoring the form guide for the Warwick Jumps Races today.
The Queen may, in fact, be tempted to break her rule against betting and put a fiver on race five, horse number six – Impulsive Star. Prince Harry would be backing number four in the same race – The Conditional.
The steam on this dispute has been rising since his royal wedding to Meghan, a former actress on the TV legal drama Suits who is, rightly or wrongly, being sheeted with the blame for his changed demeanour.
They appear to have a siege mentality and they have isolated themselves from the rest of the royal family to a small cottage in the grounds of Windsor Castle, which the taxpayer stumped up almost $5 million to renovate.
However, Prince Harry says he is still terribly hurt at the way his mother, the late Princess Diana, was treated by the press and wants to protect his wife from a similar fate.
Taking a look at the catalogue of reports since the royal wedding makes uncomfortable reading, particularly for Meghan.
There was the time Meghan was said to have made Kate Middleton, her sister-in-law, cry over Princess Charlotte’s wedding dress.
Or the time it was claimed she berated Kensington Palace staff when she was living there with Prince William and Kate, 38, prompting the long-groomed royal wife to reportedly say: “That’s unacceptable, they’re my staff and I speak to them.” Or egg-gate. The Queen reportedly took Meghan to task over the way she spoke to staff during a menu tasting ahead of the royal wedding.
Meghan was angry, according to royal author Katie Nicholl, because she said she could taste egg in a dish, which was meant to be egg free.
“And she just quietly took Meghan to the side and said: ‘Meghan, in this family we don’t speak to people like that,’ ” Ms Nicholl said.
Those stories could be discounted as jealous lies from anonymous sources, but they kept coming.
The British press, for all its faults, may put some mayo on the sandwich but it doesn’t bake the bread.
The wheels started falling off though when the diva behaviour began to happen in public.
The private birth of baby Archie last May was followed by attempts to keep his christening private, and the names of the godparents still remain unknown.
The couple attended the polo in June, which was the first day out that Archie had with his cousins, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
That was seen as a way to make up for the fuss over keeping Archie’s birth private.
When Meghan turned up in jeans at Wimbledon to watch her friend Serena Williams play she was “a nightmare”, according to a club source who spoke to London’s establishment newspaper The Times.
Meghan’s heavy-handed security guards told off two punters for taking photographs of her.
The trouble was they were taking selfies of the court, with photographs from one of their cameras showing they were angling it away from Meghan.
“It was a nightmare, she was a nightmare,” the source told The Times.
“They couldn’t invite her into the Royal Box because she was wearing jeans but that didn’t really matter because all she wanted to do was come and watch Serena.”
The reports about Meghan missed the true story – the fight was between Princes Harry and William, 37.
The younger brother felt that Prince William had not welcomed Meghan into the family, and was bruised when he was asked if he was “sure” before he married her.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have had a heavy staff turnover.
There were reports they hired three nannies in two months before they found one suitable.
To mangle Oscar Wilde, to lose one nanny may be regarded as misfortune, but to lose two looks a little like carelessness.
Meghan’s personal assistant Melissa
Toubati quit six months after the royal wedding, while assistant Amy Pickerill left last year.
The Queen’s former assistant private secretary Samantha Cohen – a well- respected Australian who is now working in the charity sector – has also departed but on good terms.
Ms Cohen shepherded the royals through their tour of southern Africa, along with Sara Latham, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s failed election campaign.
Tom Bradby, a broadcaster and friend of Prince Harry’s who has done several documentaries with him, said he hoped one day that fences could be mended with Prince William.
He was behind the documentary of the African tour, which sent shockwaves through the royal family when it aired in October that were still being felt yesterday.
In the documentary Prince Harry said he was unable to protect his late mother Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997 while she was being pursued by the paparazzi, when he was 12.
The driver of the car was drunk, however, and travelling at almost 200km/h when he crashed in a Paris tunnel. Prince Harry said there had been a “ruthless campaign” against his wife.
“I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces,” he said on the program.
Prince Harry also confirmed the split with Prince William, saying they were on “different paths”.
A tearful Meghan said she had struggled to cope with the attention of being in the royal family, despite being warned about the British press.
“I’ve said for a long time to H – that’s what I call him – it is not enough to just survive something, right?
“That’s not the point of life. You’ve got to thrive.
“You’ve got to feel happy and I think I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip. I tried, I really tried.”
And in what was interpreted as a swipe at the Queen, she said that attitude was “really damaging”.
It was claimed yesterday that Prince William, who was genuinely concerned for his brother, had tried to visit Prince Harry at Frogmore Cottage but the meeting had never eventuated.
Then there’s Meghan’s family. Her dad Thomas sold pictures to the paparazzi before the wedding then could not walk her down the aisle because of a heart problem, which conveniently occurred just after the controversy broke.
Meghan has now wiped him from her life and is suing the Mail On
Sunday for publishing her heartfelt letter to him, which only became public after her friends leaked some details to People magazine.
Her half-sister Samantha has also been a thorn. She dubbed her “Princess pushy” and went on rants on Twitter, calling Prince Harry a “wuss” and telling him to stop wearing “Meg’s skivvies and bra and take your pants off of her”.
Life was simpler when Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst and grinned at his granny.
Now he’s a father and he is running his own race. In some ways he’s the royal version of Bernard Tomic.
It looks like the Queen will not stand in Prince Harry and Meghan’s way and he may get exactly what he wants despite it coming at the cost of the rift with his family.
It was selfish, it was I just want to do it and I will. ROYAL COMMENTATOR DICKIE ARBITER