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Meghan Markle birth rumor
U.S. sources tell The Sun that Meghan Markle is due to give birth to her and Prince Harry’s second child, a daughter, on Thursday—which would have been Prince Philip’s 100th birthday (had he not died on April 9, aged 99).
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The child could be called Pip as a “tribute” to the Duke of Edinburgh, the Sun reports, or Lily (as a tribute to the queen’s nickname, Lilibet). Diana is another option.
“They’re not exactly traditional royal names, but these two aren’t exactly a traditional royal couple,” a source told the Sun.
A source also said: “The baby is due on Philip’s birthday, and it would be so special if she came then. That, and naming her Pip, would be a lovely way to pay tribute to Philip. Harry has been discussing the due date and possible names with his close pals and they’re talking about it quite openly now it’s getting close.”
So, all puzzled royal-fan eyes to Thursday!
It’s Edward and Sophie’s time
The ascent of Prince Edward and his wife Sophie Wessex within the royal family continues, with an ever-so-polite, controversy-free interview with the U.K. Daily Telegraph magazine. Yet again, the vibe is very much that they’re stepping up, being good eggs, supporting quietly behind the scenes, and becoming their own axis of soft power.
It’s intriguing for longtime royal watchers to see the couple going center stage. But Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal exit means it’s all hands on deck, and so Edward and Sophie are here to play their part.
“We’ve plodded along doing what we're doing, hopefully doing it well. And then all of a sudden there’s a bit of a hiatus and things have changed a bit. Naturally, the media are looking for people to fill the so-called void,” Sophie said of their new public profile. “If people want to pay more attention to what we're doing, then great.”
Talk of Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was dismissed with gentle levity. “Oprah who?” Prince Edward replied, while Sophie said, laughing, “what interview” Sophie said she and Harry had chatted at Prince Philip’s funeral, and that “we are still a family no matter what happens, we always will be.”
Sophie told the Telegraph that “everything went still” when she saw Edward in the funeral procession. “I think the fact that there were so few of us only served to raise the intensity of it.” Sophie also noted, “To see Her Majesty on her own; it was very poignant.”
Edward added: “It’s always difficult with these kinds of things because you’re in the middle of it, so you’ve got no idea what it necessarily looks like from the outside. It became really poignant to be there because it was suddenly so very intimate.” He also talked about how “bittersweet” it would be to take on the title of the Duke of Edinburgh.
As The Daily Beast reported yesterday, Harry and Meghan have been demoted on the official royal family website, and are now below Edward and Sophie.
New kid on the book
Meghan Markle has dedicated her new children’s book to Prince Harry and her son with an inscription that reads, “For the man and the boy who make my heart go pump-pump.”
The new book, entitled The Bench, is officially published on Tuesday but copies are already available in bookshops, and the Daily Mail says it has managed to pick up a copy. The book tells the story of a father figure who is clearly based on Harry; a soldier with a shock of bright red hair. Meghan is believed to have received a substantial advance for the book, whose release coincides with the birth of her second child.
William and Kate get political
The importance of England’s union with Scotland to the Royals should never be underestimated. Indeed, the Sunday just before the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence was one of the few occasions where the queen has got overtly involved in politics, telling a group gathered outside a Scottish church that they should “think very carefully” about their decision, although Buckingham Palace has always officially maintained that the future status of Scotland within the United Kingdom is a question for the Scottish people.
Now a report in The Sunday Times says that Prince William and Kate Middleton are to become the royal family’s new secret weapon in the battle to keep Scotland on board. The reported plans would see William and Kate spend more time at Balmoral, the queen’s Scottish country estate, and build on their already strong connections with Saint Andrews, the university and golfing town where they met as students.
Just last month William and Kate undertook a week-long tour of Scotland. William gave an emotional address at the end of that trip saying of Scotland: “I’m shaped by this place. The abiding affection I feel for it is rooted in my experience of its every day life and people, relationships, and its ethic of neighborliness.”
The political future of the country is particularly acute right now as Scotland’s nationalist political parties, led by the SNP, slammed the traditional unionist parties in recent elections.
A source tells The Sunday Times: “They think of it as their Union. It was originally a union of crowns. They think the politicians have been losing Scotland for them. What William is doing is a deliberately more muscular approach to the crown investing in the relationship with Scotland.”
This week in royal history
Whatever happens on Thursday, it will be a momentous day—Prince Philip would have marked his 100th birthday on June 10th. Philip was born on June 10, 1921, on the dining room table at Villa Mon Repos in Corfu, Greece. We shall see if that centenary is the only royal occasion marked, or if more history is made on that day, with the birth of Harry and Meghan’s second child.
Unanswered questions
The biggest royal mystery is when is Meghan actually due, and if the answer is “on what would have been Prince Philip’s 100th birthday,” then that is both an unanswered question, and a wild possible answer.
