Sarah Vine
There is no question that, in the manner of their departure from full- time royal life, harry and Meghan have behaved in the most appallingly childish fashion.
They really couldn’t have made more of a hash of it if they had tried.
But for all that, there is one area in which, despite everything, they have been unfairly vilified. and that is the way the finger of blame for the couple’s decision has been pointed almost exclusively at Meghan.
The reasons for this have nothing to do with racism — that’s a red herring pursued by individuals with a wider agenda. If anything, it’s just straightforward sexism. The notion of any woman with half an opinion being wicked and manipulative is a cliche as old as humanity itself.
But the truth is that however pushy, precious or princessy Meghan may or may not be, however infuriating her realisation that, having cost us all a fortune in a big white wedding and the refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage, she’d rather spend her days hob-nobbing with elton John and Beyonce than holed up in the home Counties, ultimately it’s Prince harry who must take responsibility for this move, not her. after all, it’s he who’s the Prince; she’s just the showgirl.
She may have lit the touchpaper for the firecracker that’s just exploded in all our faces, but she’s not the root cause. That, I’m afraid, can be traced all the way back to 1997, to that sad day in september when a small boy was made to walk behind his mother’s coffin in full view of the entire world.
I love the Queen and I am a huge supporter of the royal Family, but that was a big mistake; a cruel and selfish act of self-preservation on their behalf, done purely to dampen the public’s anger at the way the Palace had reacted to Diana’s death.
It was also emblematic of the way the royal Family has, over the years, put protocol before people.
The truth is, harry has been very damaged by his upbringing.
even before Meghan came on the scene, it was clear there was a part of him that was very angry about what happened to his mother.
When he and William released an hBO documentary about Diana back in 2017, on the 20th anniversary of her death, he in particular expressed very mixed emotions, not only towards his father but towards the institution of monarchy itself. Indeed, in an interview later that year, he admitted that during his 20s he had seriously considered turning his back on the privilege he was born into, to live an ‘ordinary life’. ‘I felt I wanted out, but then decided to stay in and work out a role for myself,’ he said.
Tellingly, he recalled that during his happy years in the army: ‘I wasn’t a Prince, I was just harry.’
The timing of all this is important, because it was in July the year before that harry had first met Meghan.
It would have been around the same time he was re-living some very painful memories, and I cannot help but think that all this had a huge bearing on his choice of bride.
To a man like harry, the unhappy Prince trapped in a royal straitjacket, this beautiful, sassy, independent woman must have seemed like the personification of the freedom he so desired.
Unlike most of the upper- class beauties he had dated, Meghan was very much her own woman.
here was someone who was never going to take to life as a royal show-pony, unveiling plaques and opening shopping centres.
she may have been attracted to him for his title, but I cannot help feeling that a large part of the appeal for him was the fact that she was so alien to his world, from such a wholly different background, that marrying her would open up a new range of possibilities. In other words, the perfect way out.
No wonder he seems so determined to go through with this, regardless of the cost to him or his family: it’s not just what Meghan wants, it’s what he wants, too. It’s what he’s wanted for a very long time.
But for Meghan, harry might never have had the courage or the motivation to walk away. With her by his side, he finally has the strength to realise his dream of being, as he once put it himself, ‘just harry’.
Whether that dream turns into the kind of reality he hopes for, of course, remains to be seen. The grass is rarely as green on the other side as we imagine it to be. Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn out to be scorched earth.