Other royals, over the decades, have tried to convert their prestige into dollar bills. Ultimately, all failed. Whether it was King Michael of Romania, whose grandmother Queen Marie had been so popular that she was given a ticker tape parade down Wall Street, or King Peter of Yugoslavia, or the descendants of Russian, German and Austrian, Italian, Greek, Danish and Spanish monarchs, none of them found it possible in the long run to alchemise the glitter of royalty into serious money. They either married it, or they learnt to do without it, for, after the initial flurry, during which they were offered coinage appropriate to their rank, interest waned. Of course, Meghan has an advantage none of them had. She is an American, and moreover one who is experienced in working the entertainment industry to her advantage. On the other hand, she has so far been more Hope Cooke, former Queen of Sikkim, than Grace Kelly, late Princess of Monaco. The appeal of royalty, as the Canadians noted so clearly when it appeared that Harry and Meghan hoped to join them permanently, is that it is foreign, non-resident, and inaccessible.
Despite this, Harry and Meghan have a game plan and they have adhered to it. It is well thought out and maximises their chances of success, though this is far from assured, at least at the level and to the extent to which they aspire. The tariff for their services has been set so high that only billionaires and their ilk can afford them. The only billionaire couple to step forward incontrovertibly has been Bill and Melinda Gates. With their international profile as humanitarians involved in global health, and with similarly woke credentials, the Gateses had everything they could possibly want in terms of prestige except for a royal couple in their stable. Now they have the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and it will be interesting to see how this relationship evolves. To what extent will the four of them embark upon cooperative arrangements or joint ventures? They have enough in common to forge a strong, ongoing relationship, and behind the scenes they have been developing it.
There have even been rumours that Bill Gates might run for president in 2024 or even 2028. If that is so, it will only be a matter of time before some journalist sympathetic to the Sussexes suggests Meghan as a running mate.
Life at the top is not so cluttered that couples with a lot in common can fail to welcome each other. As mentioned earlier, the human element should never be discounted. Bill and Melinda Gates have so few other couples who share their level of prestige, allied to their political and humanitarian sympathies, that it should be no surprise that they have relished associating with a couple whose identities reflect theirs in significant ways. As that couple has brought to the relationship something they lack, they have reciprocated commensurately.
However, the couples are clearly unequal in important ways. Meghan and Harry are paupers relative to the Gateses. This has proven to be a win-win situation for all concerned, similar to the relatively poor King Juan Carlos of Spain and the tremendously rich King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. When the seriously rich regard themselves as being on a par with others who are significantly poorer than themselves, what is a large sum to one party might be a bagatelle to the other. It is whispered in certain circles that the Microsoft magnate has assisted the Sussexes, albeit in a minor way compared with how Abdullah rescued Juan Carlos.
Of course, there are important differences between the circumstances of Juan Carlos, who was a reigning king with all the constraints imposed by his position, and the flexibility that Harry and Meghan have created for themselves as they set about making their fortune. Nevertheless, it is instructive to learn that in 2008 the Saudi monarch ordered his Foreign Policy Advisor and sometime Minister of Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, to pay $100m into an account held by the Panamanian company Lucum, owned beneficially by the Spanish sovereign, at the Swiss Private Bank Mirabaud. This was an outright gift, as the form regarding the origin of funds confirmed, and shows how generous a rich man can be to what he called his poorer ‘brother’.
Of course, Harry and Meghan’s financial ambitions far exceed a capital sum as paltry as $100m. Their ‘people’ have been predicting that they can earn two, three, and five times that amount in a year. It remains to be seen if the couple will be billionaires in five years, as they and their advisors hope. In the meantime, it is not suggested that Bill and Melinda Gates have so far been tempted to endow Harry and Meghan with such a generous gift, but the word in certain circles is that they have eased the path of the couple by helping them while they have been settling into their new life in California.
Certainly, some benefactor has been assisting them. Even with Prince Charles’s private contributions, Harry and Meghan’s expenditure as they settled into California life far outweighed their means. Even their security was a problem. They no longer enjoyed the status of ‘internationally protected people’ and therefore did not qualify for state funding for their security. Indeed, their security bills had been one of the problems which had convinced the Canadians that they would prefer not to have them resident in their country. Harry and Meghan decamped from Canada to California a day or two before the Canadians withdrew their protection. The Americans also refused to assume that burden, which was hardly surprising considering Meghan’s withering comments about Trump being divisive, misogynistic and a host of even worse remarks delivered both publicly and privately, while Harry was recorded opining to Russian pranksters, who he thought were Greta Thunberg and her father, that the American president had ‘blood on his hands’ because his climate change policies do not accord with theirs.
I am reliably informed that there is no way Prince Charles would be coughing up £4m per annum for protection even if he had it to spare - which he does not.
Living the billionaire lifestyle requires serious income. If you’re Meghan and Harry, you’d be at least twenty times too poor to cover even the basics. While house hunting for the California mansion that would consume at least half your capital, there’d be the house to rent, costing thousands per diem in excess of your overall income. Then there’s be the staff to pay and everything else that would set you back a sum you don’t have in income.
Short of a few good deals bringing in a minimum of $30 or 40m per annum, it becomes impossible to maintain this lifestyle without outside assistance. Only with a benefactor who has been as generous to King Juan Carlos as King Abdullah was, can Harry and Meghan maintain their lifestyle and avoid the ignominy of hawking their wares in so inappropriate a manner that their prestige plummets along with their earning capacity.
Meghan and Harry have cast a wide net. Not only have their applications for Archewell suggested that they will be aggressively marketing product, but that their range will be so comprehensive that they might well end up the billionaires they wish to be, just off selling chachkas which might have no real relevance but will be desirable to buyers who want a bit of their ‘classy’ and humanitarian dream. Not that Meghan is limiting herself to such activities. Although she is rapidly approaching forty, and therefore has a very short shelf-life left as a leading lady, she has nevertheless expressed interest in reviving her career as an actress in the hope that she can achieve her twin ambitions of winning an Oscar while making a vast fortune at the same time. A story was planted by her ‘people’ that she had received many offers, none of which she would be considering as they were too ‘cheesy’ for someone of her stature. Nevertheless, she remained open to offers from serious A-List directors who could showcase her acting talents in the exemplary light someone as prestigious as the Duchess of Sussex would require. It was mischievously observed that no A-List directors stepped forward, so time will tell whether her ambition to be taken seriously as an actress while earning big bucks in a major production will materialise.
A far more certain route to great fame and fortune rests in the safety of mutually advantageous relationships with billionaire sponsors and major companies whose budgets allow for the luxury of vanity projects passing themselves off as humanitarian activities. Such sophisticated methods will assist Harry and Meghan to successfully make the transition from royal no
n-earners to majestic earners.
By Easter 2020, the word in royal circles was that this was the route Meghan and Harry intended to go down as they operated at the highest level in order to retain as much of their royal prestige as they could, while maximising their financial potential. Confirmation came when Catherine St-Laurent wrote to her colleagues stating, ‘After nearly nine years alongside Melinda and the Gates Foundation and the Pivotal Ventures teams, I am moving on to begin a new chapter and wanted to make sure to share my contact info so we can stay in touch. Beginning next week I will be acting as Chief of Staff and Executive Director of the new non-profit enterprise for Meghan M and Harry. They are embarking on a new chapter themselves and I am thrilled to be able to play a supporting role in realizing their vision and enabling them to achieve impact on issues that matter most to them.’
People who thought that the royal couple would have no story to tell beyond his pain at his mother’s death were clearly underestimating Meghan’s resourcefulness. Harry doesn’t have to offer great depth or intellect. As the son of one future king and the brother of another, he will always have kudos. Meghan has also demonstrated over the years what superb judgement she has in attaching herself to institutions and people who take her from one level to another. Even if the good ship Meghan sails through some squalls, it is unlikely that she will ever lose this aptitude. If she and Harry end up developing the philanthropic entity they envisage to the full extent of their ambitions, she will have made the right career move in disentangling herself from the royal fold, for she will have set them up as the supranational king and queen of humanitarianism and, as such, will have the respect of much of the world. They will therefore have no need of the approval of people in Britain. Whether that degree of success will ever fill the void created within Harry by abandoning his country and all he held dear within it, is something else.
Even if Meghan and Harry should divorce in the future, as long as they manage to successfully pull off their hat trick of becoming billionaires or even just multi-millionaires while being acknowledged as the world’s premiere humanitarian couple, she will by then be covered in so much philanthropic glory that her eminence will be pretty much inviolate. In that eventuality, it would be very surprising if she did not continue to associate herself with a charitable entity of her creation, thereby perpetuating her distinguished position and securing her position on the world stage for the remainder of her life. Quite possibly, like Jackie, on the deck of some billionaire’s superyacht.
If anyone should fall by the wayside, it will be Harry.
Had Meghan not encouraged Harry to make the move they made, they would not now be on the cusp of possible magnificence such as he would never have been able to envisage before she opened up his eyes to the possibilities before them. From here on in, barring some great slip-up, the doors that will open to them contain not only great wealth but also renown and recognition beyond anything he could ever have imagined when he was merely the second son of the Prince of Wales. Thanks to Meghan’s vision, determination, and resourcefulness, their options now have the potential to grow exponentially. It is very unlikely that Meghan is going anywhere but to the bank via the portals of glory, irrespective of whether Harry is by her side or not.
It is ironic that a couple who are so demonstrably in love can have generated so much speculation as to how long their union will last. Yet from the very beginning of their marriage, bets have been laid as to whether it will last two years, or three, or five. Cynics say that Harry is in for the long haul but that Meghan will have factored into the equation the possibility of being a divorced Duchess of Sussex. That she will have been canny enough to see that it would far more difficult for the ex-wife of a royal duke to set up a prestigious charity, and extract from it the benefits, that will now accrue to them as a result of having opened it up while they were married. ‘He, poor darling, is the faithful puppy following its master,’ one of his cousins told me. ‘He doesn’t see that the more they feather their nest abroad, the more incentive she has to leave him one day, walking off with the lion’s share of the proceeds. We all despair for him.’
Poor darling or not, the undoubtedly faithful Harry has been backing his wife up to the hilt. Both of them know that they will sink or swim together, and they have been vigilant in protecting their ‘brand’. This was nowhere more apparent than in the lengthy statement they posted to ‘update’ their followers when they realised that their royal status had been dangerously called into question in the early days of their ‘stepping back’. Trying to shore up their prestige as a result of losing the right to use the style of royal highness, they stated that they ‘will retain their “HRH” prefix, thereby formally remaining known as His Royal Highness The Duke of Sussex and Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will no longer actively use their HRH titles as they will no longer be working members of the family as of Spring 2020.’ They asserted that ‘(w)hile there is not any jurisdiction by The Monarchy or Cabinet Office over the use of the word ‘Royal’ overseas, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not intend to use ‘Sussex Royal’ or any iteration of the word ‘Royal’ in any territory (either within the UK or otherwise) when the transition occurs Spring 2020.’ They reminded their admirers that they ‘do not plan to start a “foundation”, but rather intend to develop a new way to effect change and complement the efforts made by so many excellent foundations globally.’ They complained that ‘the trademark applications that had been filed as protective measures and that reflected the same standard trademarking requests as done for The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, have been removed,’ and that ‘(w)hile there is precedent for other titled members of the Royal Family to seek employment outside of the institution, for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, a 12-month review has been put in place.’
To those in the know, Meghan and Harry had swung into action to protect their ‘brand’. There was no doubt who had drafted the statement. ‘Iteration’ is a word that is seldom used, except by Meghan, who has an affinity with it going back to the days of her two blogs. Friends of hers were also quoted in People magazine disparaging those who disagreed with her plans as ‘naysayers’ and ‘spiteful’ because the palace were insisting on a twelve month trial period. This, her ‘friends’ alleged, was because they were punishing her and Harry for wanting their freedom.
To people in the know, the Sussexes’ statement was not only disrespectful but riddled with inaccuracies. It was misleading on virtually every point it made, and there was a strong suspicion that it had been created to boost Meghan and Harry in America without a care to the unfairness of the claims or the potential damage it could do to the monarchy in Britain. Firstly, Harry and Meghan’s assertion regarding their royal highness titles was unequivocally wrong. While technically remaining royal highnesses, they had been banned from using that title. It was not an elective on their part. They no longer had the right to use what they referred to as their ‘HRH prefix’ either formally or informally. Patently, the distinction between the meaning of the words technical and formal had been lost on whoever composed the statement, but the reality was that while they formally retained the titles they had technically ceased to have the right to use them.
As for their assertion that the Monarchy and Cabinet Office did not have international jurisdiction over the use of the word royal insofar as it applies to the British Crown and all businesses registered in or linked to the United Kingdom, this was not only factually inaccurate but was perceived in Britain as being an impertinent and unwarranted challenge to the right of the Crown to maintain its purity. The idea that members of the British Royal Family could be challenging the legal means whereby the British Royal Family ensures that no one abuses their royal status by restricting everyone’s right to the use of the word royal, was viewed as beyond belief. There is a raft of legitimate and legally binding legislation such as the Companies Act of 2006 which specifically gives the Secretary of State for Business jur
isdiction over royal names for ‘any type of business’. This backs up the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883, which protects all royal trademarks. The USA and Canada were but two of the many nations which signed the convention, in 1887 and 1923 respectively, so any attempt by the Sussexes to claim that they had the right to use the word royal without the permission of the Crown would fall foul of trademark laws internationally.
Canada, being a country whose Head of State is the Queen, is also subject separately to rules governing the use of the word royal, and all requests to use the designation royal have to be addressed to the Governor-General’s Office at 1 Sussex Drive, Ottawa. This made further nonsense of Harry and Meghan’s claims that they had the right to use their Sussex Royal brand internationally. Their further assertion that they would nevertheless indulge the British Crown in its petty refusal to allow them to market themselves under their Sussex Royal brand might have seemed like magnanimity in the United States, but in Britain it was seen as the pretentious and irresponsible score settling of a spoilt and over-indulged couple who didn’t care how much damage they caused to the institution which had given them their prestige as long as they were able to present themselves in a flattering light to their target audience.
By this time, the British press had come to the conclusion that Harry and Meghan were arch hypocrites who thought that the rules applied to everyone but themselves. They had been getting flack throughout much of the previous year for not living by the rules they preached, but which they nevertheless advocated everyone else abide by. They did not help themselves by advocating their right to breach national and international trademark laws while demanding that the press respect other laws which they and their agents, rather than the press, had broken, in particular Meghan’s friends leaking the contents of the letter she had written to her father to People magazine, then suing the Mail on Sunday when it was her friends who had breached her privacy, causing her father to defend himself against her ‘friend’s’ allegations. While this was not an anomaly which perturbed the American press, it did the British, whose sense of justice rankled.
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