How Meg kissed Prince Harry and turned him into a frog
Royalty has lost its sparkle for Ms Markle
Britain’s Prince Harry cut off the umbilical cord with the Royal Family this Monday and left the Royal throne of Kings in the sceptred isle of Shakespeare’s England to strike out an independent life of his own in search of the fabled El Dorado with his wife Meghan in the balmy island of Vancouver in Canada.
Strike out an independent life to find new riches in some foreign field as if the ones at home he was born to were not enough, eh? Pretty rich, ain’t it, for a bloke who is sixth in line to the British throne?
Prince Harry’s decision to turn his back on England and give short shrift to his royal pedigree and start a new life abroad as a poor little rich boy on the make did not leave his grandmother, the Queen amused.
After all, it’s not every day a senior member of the Royal Family and his American wife of two years give the impression that they are far too good to be seen with the likes of them and be caught on camera posing on the Buck House balcony and decamp to a logging and fishing island in British Columbia, Canada.
But this was no sudden decision. In fact the question must be asked, why did it take so long to come? When Meghan was first touted by royal watchers as a potential royal bride for Prince Charles’ second son, anyone could see Meg a mile away and predict that she would be a total misfit in the royal family.
For starters, her independent, uninhibited, carefree lifestyle made it near impossible to keep step with the royal family slow but steady march without her wings being clipped by royal protocol. She was too much of a free bird to have her lifestyle cramped in a gilded cage. Consider her background.
She grew up in Hollywood and she began playing small roles in television series and films. Her break came in 2011 when she was chosen to play Rachel Zane on the American legal drama Suits. She played this role till 2017. She is an outspoken feminist and has addressed issues of gender inequality. In 2011, she married actor Trevor Engelson. The marriage lasted for only two years and they were divorced in 2013. She had another relationship with celebrity chef Corey Vitiello. She lived with him for two years until May 2016. The following month she met Harry. It was on a blind date that she met the then fifth in line to the British throne. He took her to a completely different world, a world different to hers as chalk is to cheese.
Fitting her into the royal family was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Even as her marriage to actor Trevor had lasted only two years, even as her relationship with chef Cory lasted only two years, she was probably feeling the two year itch for change and to savour a new experience that made her demand of Harry to take the radical decision to leave home and country and his royal privileges and abandon his royal duties to make the missus happy.
In a farewell speech to the nation he is leaving behind, he says, ‘I want you to hear the truth from me, as much as I can share. Not as a prince or a duke but as Harry, the same person that many of you have watched grow up over the last 35 years.’ Poor Harry. It hasn’t still sunk to him that his countrymen followed his progress breathless only because he was a prince born to the royal family and that without that accident of birth, he would not have been worth a second glance to the Great British Public.
In a flush of patriotism to mother country, he says, ‘UK is my home and a place that I love. That will never change.’ That may well be so. But after enjoying without murmur all the privileges an indulging British Public have heaped on him, his father and mother, not to mention his grandmother, the Queen, who held the fort singlehanded and kept true to the royal motto Dieu et mon droit or King by the Grace of God, it is clear that gratitude is not his strong point.
Repaying the nation by performing the role expected of him and discharging the duties that are attendant to it for which he is paid handsomely, mean not a farthing; and neither does he give a toss for the royal motto baloney that he is a prince by the grace of God. At least he doesn’t believe in the divine right to rule tripe, for which his forefather Charles the II got his head chopped off by Cromwell’s forces.
His immediate concern seems to be how not to lose his at Meghan’s hands.
And then he talks of her: ‘I’ve grown up feeling supported from so many of you and I watched as you welcomed Meghan with open arms as you saw me find the love and the happiness that I hoped for all my life. Finally the second son of Diana got hitched. Hooray. I also know that you’ve come to know me well enough over all these years to trust that I would chose as my wife upholds the same values as I do, and she does. And she is the same woman I fell in love with.’
He might well know the values she upholds as do the rest of the world but does he know of her radical views? Apart from being a staunch feminist – no harm in that – and burning the bra and appearing in some serious risqué sex scenes in her TV show ‘Suit’, she is an ardent left-winger by her recommendation of Noam Chomsky’s book Who Rules the World. It’s a point of view Royals are banned from expressing, in public. The public do not dish out huge sums of money to keep the royals in frankincense and myrrh to hear their political opinions. They can get that free at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park where anyone can get on a soap box and say anything they please without anyone giving a toss about it.
Harry goes on to say, ‘ We both do everything we can to fly the flag and carry out our roles for this country with pride.’
But whose flag will they be flying for profit? Theirs or Britain’s? It is reported that during the ‘’Megxit’ talk, Harry and Meg had wanted to enjoy both worlds. Half a year in Canada with them promoting their merchandise using the royal image as the selling puff and half a year in England attending functions to qualify for their allowance from the Civil List from which the Royals are paid. But the
Queen would have none of that. You can’t be a royal freelancer, a royal moonlighter, they were tersely told.
Wrapping up his last farewell, the man who was turned to a frog with Meg’s kiss, Harry said: ‘Once Meghan and I were married we were excited, we were hopeful and we were here to serve. For those reasons it brings me great sadness that it has come to this.’ The decision that I have made for my wife and I to step back is not one I made lightly. It was so many months of talks, after so many years of challenges and I know I haven’t always gotten it right but as far as it goes there really was no other option. What I want to make clear is we’re not walking away and we certainly aren’t walking away from you. Our hope was to continue serving the Queen, the Commonwealth and my military associations but without public funding. But unfortunately that wasn’t possible.’
Poor Harry. Poor, poor Harry. Greater love hath no man whose willingness to leave the kingdom he loves so much and of which he is a prince, sixth in line to the throne, when Meg whistles him to do so. Not even the Queen’s corgis have shown so much ready obedience.
The only consolation they have is that it was self-inflicted and that no one asked them to get lost in Canada. What it actually boils down to is the incredulous story of a massively wealthy couple trying to attempt the amazing achievement to see whether they can be financially independent while having millions of pounds in their bank accounts and a luxurious cottage in the gardens of Balmoral Castle, the recent renovation cost of which came to 2.4 million pounds. That will be their home in Britain when they care to visit it. The couple have said that they will repay this money back to the taxpayer but no time frame has been given. Is that also their ‘by the grace of God’ payment.
An argument put forward by pro-Harry supporters is that he didn’t ask to be born to the Royal family. Neither did hundreds of people chose to be born in Syria’s hellholes to be shell shocked day in and night out. Instead of moaning that he was denied the right to choose his own family at birth, he should thank his lucky stars and count his blessings that he was born to be pampered for life.
And as for American Meg, it may be her failure to realise the position the Royal family occupies in Britain. It is deeply ingrained in the collective heart of the British people and is rooted in the legal and social foundations of the land. It is not a mere family. It is a living institution.
So what does the future hold for them? No need to read the tea leaves in the morning cup. Suffice to know the fate of his great grand uncle, King Edward VII, who had to abdicate the throne and find exile in France with his wife, the American divorcee Wallis.