DERELICTION OF DUTY

The King Let Meghan and Harry Run Wild. It Will Cost Him

Charles likely knew what was coming with Thomas Markle and welcomed them anyway. Now his reign looks like a squalid episode of Jerry Springer.

opinion

When the news broke on August 19 that Prince Harry and Meghan were moving back to Britain, Buckingham Palace let it be known that King Charles was delighted.

The uniformity of reportage was striking. NBC’s source had the King “welcom[ing] the opportunity to see more of the Sussex family” in a private capacity, and near-identical wording surfaced at the BBC, CNN, People and Hello! magazine.

Less than three months later, as Thomas Markle channels Jack Nicholson in his new mugshot, one wonders if our weak and indulgent old King Lear is yet ready to concede that he made an epochal-level mistake by “encouraging” (per my sources) Harry and Meghan to saunter back into the U.K. without a word of censure, let alone a challenge.

The disruption and chaos they have towed in their wake was entirely predictable, as it seems hard to believe that King Charles was not aware at least of the general tenor of allegations facing Thomas Markle.

His son, Thomas Markle Jr., according to the Sun, actually informed the FBI of his discovery of the material on Friday, July 10, THE SAME DAY that Charles hosted the Sussexes and their children at Highgrove.

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Do we really believe that Meghan and Harry had not received any comms from the venal Thomas Jr. prior to this? Come on. They very likely were aware that their dark secret, which they had known about since January 2019, was going to come out one day, but its imminent revelation might even explain why the King gave them a private meeting at all, and indeed why this meeting was organized directly between Harry and his father, not through the King’s principal private secretary, Clive Alderton. Katie Nicholl of Vanity Fair was told by a source close to Charles that it was “completely cloak-and-dagger, orchestrated by the king,” and uncharacteristically last-minute.

It might also explain why Camilla felt she had better be there to record what was said. She drove over from Ray Mill in “quite a hurry” once the meeting was fixed. The official line given to Vanity Fair was that “Charles wanted Camilla to be there for moral support”. A witness, more like.

The revelation that Markle Jr. went to the FBI on July 10 also makes a great deal of sense of the date Alderton chose to announce he was quitting. A staff message from Alderton on Monday, July 27, announced his exit.

There are plenty of people, including me, who find it preposterous that the King and his chief aide did not know what was brewing with regard to Markle Sr. Are we really to expect that the King of England’s red boxes, which carry material from the highest levels of government and intelligence (and this is a Five Eyes country, sharing intelligence with the U.S.), contained not a hint of what was to come? And how far back did the knowledge go? Are we to believe that the police sent a copy of a lurid denunciation of his son’s father-in-law to Meghan but didn’t share it with his father?

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Meghan says the letter made “troubling and disturbing allegations” against her father, and adds: “I was given assurances that these were being investigated.” Scotland Yard confirms it took delivery of the letter and passed it to the Sussexes’ office, and concedes that no authority overseas was ever told.

Are we to believe that when Harry and Meghan complained that the Mail on Sunday had not only infringed their copyright by printing the “dear daddy” letter to her father, but had also edited it (Harry’s statement of October 2019 accused the paper of “strategically omitting select paragraphs, specific sentences, and even singular words”), they hadn’t explained to the royal dad exactly what else the letter contained? It is not feasible that the King didn’t know.

And what about the summer of 2018, when the Queen and Charles asked Meghan to go and see her father? Meghan’s own text messages, released by the Court of Appeal, complained that the family was “constantly berating” Harry about her father. Her witness statement called the idea of flying to Mexico “completely unrealistic,” and she even actually told Netflix that her letter to him was, in the end, “suggested by the Queen and the Prince of Wales”. Are we really to believe that when the Sussexes said they couldn’t go, they did not explain exactly why?

It is painfully apparent, in my opinion, that Charles knew what was coming and welcomed them home anyway. Perhaps because he thought he could protect them? Perhaps just because he put his own emotional needs before the good of the institution? Either way, it has now caused untold damage to the royal family.

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And there will be more to come. Sooner or later, a publicity-hungry lawyer will demand that Meghan, Harry, and Doria be deposed, and then called to give evidence in any future trial. It is a nightmare that will run for years and years to come, that will overshadow the work of the royal family every time it hits the front pages. While it would have been a sideshow if they were overseas and clearly out of the family, with them living here as fake royals, the impact on the royal family will be pronounced every time they appear on the school run.

How very different it would be if the King had had the good sense to nip this escapade in the bud when they landed, and send them back. If they were 5,000 miles away in California, it would have been clear that they were separate. Instead, they are posing as royals: the European Parliament, Harry in his medals in Northamptonshire on Remembrance Sunday, the Nottingham mumming show. It is royal-coded cosplay, complete with an armored Range Rover whose number plate differs from one of the King’s cars by a single letter. They might even get their security back one day.

What was the King thinking? They should have been kept a million miles away, in de facto exile. Donald Trump could see it. “I would not have taken them back,” he said in the Oval Office.

It is a dereliction of duty. The Queen always put the institution first. Charles is failing as a monarch because he does not, and he is allowing these people to make a mockery of the Crown. They must be sent back, now, using any and all levers at his disposal. Pay them. Threaten them. No one cares. It is time for some realpolitik, and Charles needs to grow a spine.

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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