Within the Establishment, people regretted that Harry, who had grown out of his schoolboy tendency to antagonise and had become a popular public figure, was not pointing out to Meghan how some of her modes of conduct jarred. In fact, rather than tucking her under his wing and steering her in the right direction, he either ignored her breaches or then backed her up, even when she was being injudicious or unreasonable. This was counterproductive, for Harry could not expect a whole institution much less an entire nation to alter its modes of conduct to facilitate a woman who, either through ignorance or because she honestly thought her way was the better way, wanted to do as she pleased, and, if she ruffled feathers, the failing was not hers but the owner of the feathers.
By taking the stance he did, Harry was losing respect left, right and centre. This was a pity, He had gone from being a trying teenager to a respected young man who had the common touch and was popular with everyone he came into contact with, from those with whom he worked closely to strangers. His conduct when he had been with Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas had been so markedly different from what it was with Meghan, that observers surmised Meghan must be responsible for the changes within him. With Chelsy and Cressida, there had been no awkwardness with anyone except the press, except when he was in his cups, feeling lonely, and subject to striking out angrily at the nearest onlooker. Otherwise, he had fitted in with both girls’ circles, and they had fitted in with his. They had all had vibrant social lives, with everyone rubbing along well. Harry has always said he wanted nothing more than to be just a person, just Harry and, with them, he had shared equal footing with their peer group. They had been just another couple, maybe more glamorous, maybe more high profile, but nevertheless equals.
By the early days of Meghan and Harry’s marriage, this had changed. Harry and Meghan were no longer just another couple amongst friends. There was an aura of specialness that now emanated from them jointly. They were more evolved, more mindful, more conscious, more woke. They were no longer ordinary human beings but extraordinary people whose awareness of their destiny to change and save the world separated them from mere mortals like Harry’s friends.
As they settled into marriage, Meghan’s ‘us against the world attitude’ began to predominate. They had been putting distance between Harry and some of his oldest and closest friends, whom she clearly thought were too frivolous or too traditional for an aware and enlightened couple like Harry and herself, and he had adopted her attitude as well. Not only was there payback time for those who had done as William and Tom Inskip did when they had advised Harry to take things more slowly and who now found themselves being marginalised, but those who remained in favour began to notice that Harry was no longer as open nor as much fun as he had been. Under Meghan’s influence, he was far more serious. Where before he was up for a good laugh, now he had to save the world with her. Woke rhetoric, hyper-political attitudinising, yoga and meditation had replaced the fun sessions the couple had enjoyed prior to meeting each other. The Meghan who used to knock back the booze with Lizzie Cundy, who was a girly girl with Serena Williams, might still maintain the structure of her A-List friendships, and behave in such a way that they could truthfully say that she hadn’t changed at all, but with Harry’s friends, she couldn’t even be bothered to be friendly, nor did she make any attempt to fit in the way she had done while she was on the up and up in Canada, New York and London prior to meeting Harry. Now that she was a Princess of the United Kingdom, she had a gravity to match, and, to the regret of his old friends, so did Harry, who had become as heavy going as Meghan.
Even when Harry remained in touch with the few old friends from the past who had somehow miraculously escaped the cull, Meghan made it clear to them that she had nothing in common with any of Harry’s friends, or their wives and girlfriends, with very few exceptions. Nowhere was this clearer than at the wedding of Harry’s Ludgrove schoolmate Charlie van Straubenzee to Daisy Jenks. Held in a field adjoining the family home, where dogs and other animals came and went and bales of hay were everywhere, the atmosphere was typically English upper class. Everyone was relaxed. Most people knew one another well, and had done so for many years. These were the crème de la crème of English society, people who were warm, friendly, without side. Those on the periphery who did not know Meghan were delighted to meet her. Contrary to what foreigners often think, the British are very friendly and forthcoming, at least in the upper classes. It was therefore entirely within expectation when a girl went up to Meghan, introduced herself, and said how beautiful she thought she was. She said she knew it was Meghan’s birthday and wished her a happy birthday. Meghan looked at her as if she had committed a great faux pas by speaking to her and, without saying a word, walked off. ‘It was so cold,’ someone who witnessed the exchange told me. ‘Really rude.’
One can only hope that Meghan was under the impression that people aren’t supposed to speak to royalty first, otherwise her reaction was inexcusable. Even if she believed that, no such rule applies within Harry’s social circle. If it did, royals would have very lonely lives indeed, for no one would be able to go up to them and initiate a conversation. But even if the rule had applied, none of the other royal women would have behaved as she did, with the exception of Princess Michael of Kent, who takes herself as seriously as Meghan does.
Worse followed during the wedding breakfast. Another girl told Meghan how much she admired her, and how wonderful she thought it was that she and Harry were married, and how well she thought she was doing. She told her she was rooting for them, and wished them well. Meghan’s response? She looked her up and down, turned away without saying a word, and froze her out for the rest of the wedding breakfast.
‘She was beautifully turned out,’ one of the guests told me. ‘I was surprised at how small she is. But she is undeniably good looking. She was really well dressed, but more for a town wedding than one in the country. She had on high, high heels while everyone else was in espadrilles. I mean, the wedding was in a field. You don’t wear high heels to a wedding that you know is going to be in a field. You could see she wasn’t comfortable around us. It was your typical English wedding. Everyone knew everyone else and everyone was bright and bouncy. Maybe she felt like a fish out of water. Harry was the best man, but when he wasn’t performing his best man duties, he and Meghan kept themselves to themselves.’ Someone else told me Meghan actually walked off and went to sit on her own on more than one occasion, and that Harry joined her every time he noticed that she was missing. This has the ring of truth. I was told by many different sources that Meghan has a habit of walking off from big groups. If she doesn’t feel comfortable, she doesn’t make any effort to fit in. She removes herself from the scene. However, she only does this when she is with a man or when there is a man around on whom she has her eye. He then has a choice. He either leaves her to stew on her own, or he goes and joins her. ‘That way, she detaches him from the group and has him to herself,’ a Canadian who has observed her over the years explained. ‘She is very good at getting men to dance to her tune.’ This technique is one that Meghan has been using since childhood. She used to withdraw from Nikki Priddy whenever things weren’t going the way she wanted them to. As Nikki observed, she is stubborn, she would not relent, and if you didn’t go to her, she’d never come to you.
By this time, Meghan’s various techniques had worked so well with Harry that he was happily, willingly, and entirely in her thrall. While his friends were pleased to see him happy, they were perplexed as to how anyone could have undergone such a complete change of identity that he was now virtually a new individual. Putting aside the leaden quality that had crept into the newly serious, world-changing Harry’s behaviour, there was a new and disturbing dimension that worried his friends. He and Meghan had begun to behave as if they functioned in a bubble, with no thought or care for how their actions impacted upon their associates. Although they could be perfectly charming when they wanted to be, they often crossed a line where the traditional modes of
behaviour with which most of his friends conducted themselves. This was nowhere more apparent than when they attended dinner parties. Their public displays of affection were so ostentatious that onlookers found their conduct embarrassing.
Firstly, they would huddle together, putting up an invisible barrier between themselves and everyone else, as if they were the only couple who had ever been in love, and that everyone present was of such insignificance that they had no time for them. Rather than partake of the occasion by fitting in with the group, they would be completely absorbed in each other, whispering into each other’s ears as if they were the only two people who existed. Whispering is bad manners; it excludes others, but Harry and Meghan seemed to have no awareness of the offence they were causing as they froze everyone out from their hallowed communion. While this was going on, they would be pawing each other and, if that wasn’t enough of a display of how much they desired each other, they would periodically kiss like teenagers on a fifth date.
Distasteful as such displays were to people who had been reared from childhood with the injunction No PDAs (No Public Displays of Affection), what catapulted their conduct into insupportability was the havoc they created when it came time to be seated for dinner. The custom has always been that married couples are never seated beside each other. Engaged couples yes, but married couples, no. There are sound reasons for this. Aside from the fact that people who live together will ordinarily have less to say to each other than to those they see less frequently, the main purpose of a dinner party is for people to mix, have good conversations and a good time. This is not possible unless couples are dispersed around a dinner table. Hostesses take seating arrangements seriously because place à table is not only important in terms of creating good interchange, but also for other reasons. The most honoured man is placed at the right hand of the hostess, the next at her left, while the rule is reversed for the host and women.
Harry and Meghan ruined several dinner parties by refusing to be separated. Someone who witnessed them in action told me, ‘Rather than take part in the occasion, they behaved as if they were new lovers on heat, exhibitionistically asserting their absorption in and sexual desire for each other.’ In the process, they created embarrassment for everyone present, and while there is little doubt that they did not intend to convey disrespect or create an obstruction around which conversation had to flow, the effect of their conduct was nevertheless disrespectful and obstructionistic. A royal cousin told me, ‘Unsurprisingly, people stopped asking them to dinner.’
Another complaint about the newlyweds was that they had become heavy going. Conversation was no longer the pleasure it had been before they had discovered each other and set out on the journey to reshape the world. Gone were Harry’s light banter, Meghan’s giggly wit and girly charm. On the few occasions they actually gave anyone space to enter their magic circle, their conversation was intense and leaden. While Meghan could still be personable with her own friends, with Harry’s she created a chasm of disinterestedness deepened by her flamboyant wokeness, and he mirrored her.
To people who knew Harry’s parents, Meghan was doing with their son and his friends a variation of what Diana had done with Charles and his. Diana had been a metropolitan babe who had found country life boring. Charles and his friends had been country-lovers. Although she was more of a naturalist than Diana - for instance, she used to fish with her father - Meghan was so pointedly anti-everything that the royal world represented, that people feared that she intended to detach Harry from his roots. And he seemed to be so completely under her spell that there was no point in trying to intervene, especially as how everyone who had previously tried to intercede had been frozen out.
‘Everyone who cares about him simply hopes that Harry won’t be too hurt if things go wrong, which, by the look of it, has become an increasingly likely scenario,’ one of his friends said.
The old Harry had ceased to exist and a new Harry had taken his place, but, despite the reservations his circle now had about the effect his marriage was having upon him, in the wider world, he and Meghan had become global superstars. She was revered as a style icon while he was admired for being the down-to-earth charmer that he had once been. Word had not yet got out that his personality had undergone a change. Her untraditionally British and, in British terms unsophisticated, demeanour was not apparent to her admirers, even while style arbiters such as Nicky Haslam started to condemn her as ‘common’. This was ironic, because Meghan considered herself ’classy’, little realising that in Britain anyone who is too self-consciously ‘classy’ is automatically dismissed as being anything but.
It is possible that Meghan did not appreciate that she was behaving in a way that would trigger opposition. Display of willingness to be harmonious as opposed to the overt assertiveness which some interpreted as aggressiveness, would have won her supporters instead of gaining her detractors. Softly softly might have bought her and everyone around her time to make the adjustments necessary to a positive accommodation, but, by declaring that she intended to ‘hit the ground running’ when she became royal, then doing it with the expectation that everyone should appreciate her different ways, without her appreciating that others too had a point of view and there might be room for mutual respect rather than everyone having to defer to her superiority, made waves where a more gentle approach would have created something more constructive.
Meghan is indubitably strong-minded and upfront about her beliefs. She expects others to admire them and brooks no opposition. She is also a very sensitive person who basks in the appreciation of others and withdraws when she fails to get it. Then she nurses her wounded feelings as she takes deep and personal offence at not receiving what she regards as her just deserts. Someone who knows her well told me, ‘If you don’t appreciate her, she doesn’t waste time trying to win you over. She excises you. She has no time to waste on what she calls naysayers. She’s on a mission to change the world, as she sees it for the better, and to achieve what she wants, and if you don’t sympathise or agree with her, she can’t be bothered to waste her time or energy on you.’ While her supporters regard this as proof of her strength and integrity, such decisiveness does not always make for a smooth ride. By ‘hitting the ground running’ at the time of her marriage, she was not only asserting her postures, positions and beliefs, but also managed to get the backs of many people up by riding roughshod over them. Forces of nature who advocate change and militantly declare their intention to alter scenarios others might want to remain intact inevitably face a backlash. It would not be long in coming as Hurricane Meghan, as she was sometimes called at the palace, blew through the corridors of power with Harry’s full backing.
Within months of their marriage, it was apparent to both Harry and Meghan that their desire to initiate profound change was not being received with the enthusiasm they had imagined it would be. Meghan’s naiveté as to how real power actually works amongst institutions which possess it, and Harry’s expectations were not so easily explained away. He had spent his whole life as a royal. He should have understood that reform cannot be sudden or dramatic, and certainly not as frequent or ‘impactful’ as they now both desired it to be. Impactful was one of Meghan’s favourite concepts, and he had adopted it along with her zeal for constant change. Neither of them could see that constant and relentless alteration had the potential to precipitate instability. They regarded themselves as humanitarians who should, on a daily basis, seek out areas that needed improvement, shine a light upon them, and set about implementing the modifications they deemed desirable. They had come to the conclusion that their role in life should be to call out each and every area throughout the world that required change, and refused to see how damaging ‘shining a light’, to use another of their favourite expressions, could ultimately become.
Rather than accept the dangers inherent in their postures, Harry and Meghan decided that those who preached caution to them should be dismissed as traditionalists who simply didn’t ‘get it’. T
hey decided that ‘tradition’ was the problem. The word tradition, as used by them, became a catch-all for any aspect of the status quo with which they did not agree. Soon they were complaining that they were being hemmed in by tradition. Tradition became a dirty word which they used to pour scorn on anyone who stood between them and what they wanted to do as they extrapolated their concept of this bright new world where they would lead everyone into the light. Both Meghan and Harry had always had excellent social skills. They shared the gift of being able to articulate their points of view with such conviction that even those who disagreed with them could not deny how heartfelt they were about the positions they adopted. They also used buzz words to annihilate their adversaries. Whether it was a hostess trying to seat them where she wanted to at her dinner table, or a courtier wanting Meghan to respect the dress code of royalty, or Harry dismissing the concerns of courtiers who were trying to rein him and Meghan in as they bombarded their staff with twenty and fifty new ideas every few days, they dismissed all concerns about potentially undesirable consequences as if nothing untoward could ever come of their good intentions, and blamed ‘tradition’ for standing in the way of ‘change’, which was another of their favourite words.
It was now apparent to everyone surrounding them that Harry and Meghan were feeling aggrieved about what they saw as unnecessary restrictions being put in their way. They were both so impassioned, so Messianic, about their need to change the world for the better, that they were soon complaining that their ‘efforts to modernise the monarchy were not being acknowledged or rewarded’, that ‘no one appreciated their talents’ or knew how to ‘exploit’ their ‘special qualities’. They openly disparaged other members of the Royal Family for their style of doing things, disdaining it as being ‘stiff’, ‘out of touch’, ‘traditional’, ‘uptight’ and ‘old fashioned’. They criticised the courtiers for being ‘hopelessly out of date and inefficient’, declaring that they weren’t ‘savvy’ like Meghan and her Hollywood colleagues, who really knew how to ‘get the message out there.’ When this criticism did not gain them the latitude to function with the freedom they desired, they looked around for who was behind the restraints being placed upon them. They concluded that ‘everyone’ in the Royal Family, with the exception of the Queen, was ‘jealous’ of them, of their popularity, their star quality, their unique gifts which, if properly exploited, could change the monarchy and the world for the better. This was taken to mean William and Catherine, and sure enough, it was only a matter of time before they started making it clear that they believed that William and Catherine were indeed jealous of them and their greater star quality.
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