The Prince and Meghan: All because of this crazy little thing called Love
Meghan’s 12 million buck engagement gown raises Brits’ brows both for its high cost and for its daring
throne, but as soon as William and Kate’s new baby is born in 2018 Harry will be bumped to sixth place and it’s a little farfetched to think that he will ever be King. True. But when you consider the vicissitudes of Britain’s Royal Family, can the possibility be ruled out?
Queen Elizabeth II is only Queen today because Wallis Simpson grabbed the heart and bedded Edward VII. When Elizabeth was born she was the third in line to the throne. Her father, the stammering Bertie, never expected he would ever be king of England. And he was quite glad to remain in the wings. But Wallis changed all that. And thrust the present royal family into the limelight.
But why Edward VII became King is also due to a remarkable quirk of fate. His great grandmother Victoria was never born to be Queen but rather a humble seventh in line to the royal throne. No one expected her to rise beyond her seventh status. But the fates had plans for her. And made her queen at the age of eighteen.
As the SUNDAY PUNCH wrote two years ago when the present queen broke Queen Victoria’s 63 year record as Britain’s longest reigning monarch, if a twist of fate brought Elizabeth to the throne of England, then it had been a concerted campaign waged by kismet that brought her great grandmother Victoria to the throne and placed her there to occupy it for a record 63 years which Elizabeth surpassed last week. Here the Fates played an even more remarkable role in securing the crown for her killing off any possible contender to the crown, even before her birth. Consider the remarkable rise from relative insignificance to the pinnacle of the British monarchy of Victoria.
VICTIMS 1 AND 2 Victoria’s father was the fourth son of King George III. In 1817 a succession crisis broke out when the only legitimate grandchild Princess Charlotte of Wales, the daughter of the Prince Regent George, suddenly died. Had she outlived both her grandfather King George III and her father, she would have become Queen of the United Kingdom, but she died following childbirth at the age of 21. The baby boy who would have become the heir to the throne was still born. This immediately brought pressure on Victoria’s father and his unmarried brother Clarence to rush into marriage and produce an heir to keep the dynasty alive.
Thus when she was born two years later in 1819, she was fifth in line to the throne after her father, who was fourth, and his three elder brothers. Her position thus was precarious. If her father’s eldest brother, the Prince Regent who would be king produced an heir, Victoria would be shunted further down the line. The birth of two daughters to Clarence, another elder brother of her father, did exactly that. She was now in 7th place. In betting parlance the filly was not ranked as an outsider but as a no hoper.
VICTIMS 3 AND 4: But the wives of her father’s eldest brother the Prince Regent and the one next, the Duke of York, were past the age of child bearing. Only the third brother, the Duke of Clarence, who had married in the same year as her father, and would succeed to the throne before him, produced two daughters. The eldest was born in the same year as Victoria and the other was born in the following year. But, alas, both died in their infancy. Victoria was restored to No 5 again.
VICTIM 5: Victoria’s father died in 1829 a week after King George had died. The Prince Regent became king as George the IV. With her father’s demise, now she was No 4.
VICTIM 6: The childless Duke of York died in 1827. With every death Victoria was climbing up the ladder. Now she was No 3.
VICTIM 7: King George kicked the bucket in 1830 and was succeeded by his only surviving brother William. Now Vitoria was No 2 in line to the throne. She became Heiress Presumptive. A special Regency Act was passed in 1830 to make Victoria’s mother the Regent in case William should die whilst Victoria was still a minor. King William, however, did not trust Victoria’s mother’s capacity to act as Regent and told her that he intended to live until Victoria’s 18th birthday so that the regency could be avoided.
VICTIM 8: On May 24th 1837, Victoria turned eighteen years and the regency became redundant. King William’s wish was granted. Within a month, on the 20th of June 1837, he died, Victoria became the Queen of England, a position she would hold for 63 years until her death in January 1901. From May 1876, she had the additional title of Empress of India – something the present British queen never had.
Thus from being way down the line to claim the British throne, Victoria was inexorably pushed up the ladder to reach the top most rung. Unlike the present Queen Elizabeth II, Victoria was no mere constitutional monarch reduced to being nothing more than a showy fixture on the British landscape. She came to the throne when Britain had become the greatest empire the world had ever seen, an Empire upon which the sun never set.
So perhaps Harry may have his day too; and Meghan, the half black American divorcee of topless fame three years elder to him may well end up as Queen Meghan, the Royal Consort of King Harry. And the Royal Family itself may end up as common as the rest of the British people. And all because of this crazy little thing called Love.