POWER STRUGGLE

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Latest Betrayal Is ‘Unforgivable’

This is an enormous deal for the palace, and the signs so far are that it is being handled badly.

opinion

In the rarefied pages of Hello! magazine this week, a “friend” of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was quoted, with impeccable timing, confirming that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not consider themselves bound by the Sandringham agreement, the settlement the late Queen hammered out in January 2020 to let them leave the royal family (and the United Kingdom), because they never agreed to it in the first place.

“It doesn’t trouble them. They never agreed they wouldn’t be half in half out,” this friend told the magazine. “That was what was decided and foisted upon them. They’re just living their lives and they can, because they’re financially independent.”

But the “half in, half out” model was the thing Queen Elizabeth II ruled out at Sandringham. It was the central tenet of “Megxit,” in fact: you are either a working royal or you are not. It was the basis on which Harry and Meghan left this country. And now the Sussexes’ position, six years on, is that none of it counts.

The statement—which, let’s be honest, has surely been spoon-fed by their office—has gone down spectacularly badly.

One friend of the late Queen, who is also close to the wider family, told The Royalist: “It’s unforgivable.”

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“The idea that you would ask the Queen to sign a contract with a member of her family is absolutely disgusting, but it’s entirely what we have come to expect from these two,” Another source, a former courtier loyal to King Charles, said, adding, “I am appalled to hear this.”

On January 18, 2020, the Queen issued a statement saying that “together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward” and that the “agreement” would allow Harry and Meghan to build a happy new life. Buckingham Palace’s statement the same day said the couple were grateful for the support and understood they were required to step back from royal duties. The following evening, Harry said he had accepted the arrangement.

In other words, nobody “foisted” anything on anyone. Harry sat in the room at Sandringham. He negotiated. He ultimately accepted, and he said so the next day. I am sure he and Meghan wanted a different outcome. But they took the deal at the time, and the fact that they have now decided they don’t like it does not mean it does not bind them.

The Daily Mail has reported that Harry and Meghan are now seen as “cosplaying at being royal,” and that the palace is irritated. The Royalist’s sources concur: There is dismay, and among ‘the hawks,’ who have been pushing for much tougher sanctions against Harry, a great deal of “I told you so.”

Because what we saw during Harry and Meghan’s visit to Nottingham was two people behaving as full-on members of the royal family. The Royalist asked people on the street there whether they regarded Harry and Meghan as full-fat members of the royal family, and basically everyone said yes. From Harry and Meghan’s point of view, it was the entire purpose of the exercise: to blur the boundary. But that confusion is also the palace’s nightmare.

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And yet, bizarrely, there was also, unmistakably, the sense of the engagement serving as an audition for a return to the royal fold. “Look how well we do this. We let the royal rota in. We allow pool coverage. We pull a crowd.”

This is an enormous deal for the palace, and the signs so far are that it is being handled badly. (The royal press pack should have been in Cardiff on Thursday, for example, where the King was opening the Senedd—the Welsh Parliament. It was in Nottingham instead.) The strategy, insofar as there is one, appears to be to stand back and hope it all goes away, perhaps in the hope that they leave at Christmas and don’t come back.

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Which brings us to the central questions: Why is this happening? Why is it being allowed to happen? Why has Charles done nothing to control, limit or restrict Harry and Meghan?

Here is the answer: This is happening because Charles supports it. He encouraged their return, as The Royalist has reported repeatedly and as nobody at the palace has ever denied. His dream has always been a dream of unity, of the family whole again, of Harry and Meghan back inside the royal family.

The clearest example is the royal website. Harry and Meghan are still on it, with their own page!

The King should have said at the beginning, publicly and in plain English, that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not working members of the royal family and that their activities are a distraction. He said none of it. Harry and Meghan can do what they like, and they will. But the buck stops with Charles for allowing this to get as far as it has.

A rival court is open for business, but the man who will have to live with it is not the man who allowed it. That, rather, is what is being left to Prince William. It is incredibly unfair.

Want more royal gossip, scoops and scandal? Follow all Tom Sykes’ reporting at The Royalist on Substack or listen to The Royalist podcast on YouTube.

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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