Woes of the not so merry wives of Windsor
Have Kate and Meghan really fallen out? If so, it must be a world record for sisters-in-law; from hello to zero in less time than it takes to say: ‘I saw that tiara first.’ Speculation of a rift between the royal wives has been percolating for months. News that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are to move out of Kensington Palace — and away from William and Kate — only seems to confirm the bitter ribbons of rumour that continue to flutter around.
Or does it? The royal residence in London may be grand, but it is still a kind of gilded campus; stuffed with royals of all stripes, seething with major and minor dukes, duchesses, attendant courtiers plus those saucer-eyed honeymooners Princess eugenie and Jack Brooksbanks, ugh!
Wouldn’t you want to flee from this suffocating west wing of royal bling, where the Cambridges are the senior principals who must come first and to whom everyone must defer at all times?
I’m a celebrity, says Meghan Markle, get me out of here.
So perhaps it shouldn’t be too surprising that she and Harry are fleeing 20 miles down the M4 to Frogmore Cottage in Windsor. There, they will set up home under the Heathrow flight path, just as soon as their gourmet kitchen and Soho House velvet sofas have been installed.
AND if their wives continue to simmer at each other like two furious eggs in a poaching pot, what will happen to the relationship between the two brothers? William and Harry have always been close.
They were the two little boys bonded by maternal bereavement; the teenagers united in the odd loneliness and peculiarities of their royal lives; the young men who railed against the strictures of long-established protocol and custom.
Now they are both married — and we all know that wives change everything, especially wives who do not get along.
Within family dynamics, especially royal ones, married couples become a unit; a vessel of ambition and mutual desires steered by the strategic thinker in the partnership — the woman.
Men are mere buoys in the household slipstream; merrily bobbing along unsure of the undertow, prevailing currents or direction. Traditionally, it is the womenfolk who plot like mad, nurse supposed grievances, open up storm-fronts where there was only calm before and protect their vested interests.
I don’t say this as a criticism — after all, someone has to take charge. No doubt William and Harry will start to see each other in a different, less flattering light — perhaps they already have.
They will certainly see each other less and will never again enjoy that easy, knockabout friendship of their youth. There is too much at stake now. For a brief shining moment, the two couples teamed up for informal public events and were known as the Fab Four, but I think we can kiss that cosy scenario goodbye, too.
From now on, the courts of the Sussexes and the Cambridges have officially and emotionally parted company.
By settling in Windsor, Harry and Meghan hope to distinguish themselves outside the stultifying orbit of William and Kate. They want to make their own mark and create their own power base.
Behind them they leave the reek of sisterly misunderstandings, including Kate’s apparent tears during a Princess Charlotte bridesmaid fitting for Harry and Meghan’s wedding, plus heightened tensions between the Sussexes and the royal household staff.
‘What Meghan wants, Meghan gets,’ Prince Harry is reported to have said. It makes me suspect that it is him — and not her — who is hyper-aware of insider status and royal slights.
Meanwhile, Kate was asked if she was excited about the arrival of a little cousin for George, Charlotte and Louis. ‘absolutely,’ she replied. ‘It’s such a special time to have little kiddies.’
What on earth did she mean? In a post-Brexit world? Before Christmas? In the history of the Royal Family?
Who knows, but it seems we are entering an era with a vista of difficult family occasions, hurt and exclusions on the distant horizon.
as outsiders, Kate and Meghan could have been powerful allies for each other, but it is clear that life as a wife of Windsor is anything but merry.