Meghan and Harry

by Lady Colin Cambell

  The basic theme was that Meghan and Harry had gone to ground to await its arrival, but where, the internet and too many speculators wanted to know, was it coming from? A damaging number of people were now convinced that Meghan would not be giving birth at all. Had they known about James II, Mary of Modena and James, Prince of Wales, they would have concluded that this was an updated version of the Baby in the Warming Pan. Only this time it was being smuggled in right under the noses of the world’s press, according to the conspiracy theorists.

  To add even more fuel to the fire, the Sussexes now issued instructions stipulating the degree of privacy they required. These were new and increased demands, coinciding not only with the impending birth of the baby, whose due date they were careful to keep secret in defiance of precedent, but with their move from Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace to Frogmore Cottage. An exclusion zone was declared around their new residence. Press, public and neighbours were banned from its environs. Local residents who were used to seeing members of the Royal Family out and about, such as the Queen, the Duke of York, even the late Queen Mother and Princess Margaret when they had been alive, and who were used to exchanging nods and sometimes even brief words, were informed that they must not approach, acknowledge or even look in the direction of either Harry or Meghan. Some of the strictures were so taut that the recipients interpreted them as impertinent rather than merely offensive. For instance, if the locals saw the couple walking their dogs, they were not even to look in their direction, and if one or other of their two dogs bounded up to them, they were not to pet it. This was a new way of doing things, one that the locals believed claimed all rights for the Sussexes, while stripping them of their own rights, so that they could not even be civil or respectful to the couple or neighbourly with the pets. This did not sit well with any of their neighbours, some of whom made their sentiments known to such an extent that word leaked out to the press. The reality was, Harry and Meghan had created a cordon sanitaire around their property, themselves, and their pets such as had never been done before. Had they been trying to make enemies and create mysteries, they could not have gone about things more efficiently. But if they were trying to protect themselves and their privacy, they had gone about their objectives so cack-handedly that they had triggered suspicion, resentment, and hostility where a lighter touch, fewer demands and some respect for the rights of others and the traditions of this country would have given them, if not the privacy of private individuals, at least the respect and admiration which they presumably still wanted from the British public.

  Several journalists told me they had misgivings about what was happening, but the press nevertheless fell in with the party line. This was that the Sussexes were obsessed with privacy and were insisting upon being treated as private individuals instead of the royals they were, so, rather than the newspapers printing the suspicions that the ground was being laid for a deception on a massive scale, they ran with the story that Harry and Meghan were behaving like spoilt, demanding, hypocritical brats who contradictorily wanted to be treated as private citizens when it suited them, despite requiring at all other times that they must be accorded all the privileges and constitutional dignities that went along with being royalty.

  These demands were uncomfortably reminiscent of those made by autocratic royals going back a century or two, and since Harry and Meghan claimed to be progressive game-changers who wanted to be forces for good and to leaven the inequities of society, there seemed to be an innate contradiction which got the press’s back up as well as the neighbours’. Worst of all, however, was the suspicion, so far unaired in the mainstream press, that their restrictive imprecations smacked of paranoia, ‘unless they have a secret they need to keep,’ as a journalist from the Mail observed.

  Quite how Harry and Meghan had worked themselves into the position whereby the choice for journalists was between spoilt, hypocritical, mentally unbalanced brats displaying signs of psychosis or an astute pair harkening back to the bad old days when royals could do as they pleased and everyone had to fall into line, was not so easily unravelled. But the fact was, their erection of an unseen fence around their new home fuelled the fires of suspicion that they could possibly be preparing to practise a massive sleight of hand on an unsuspecting public, while their excessive secretiveness further fanned the flames. From the outside looking in, it might have appeared as if the British press were carping and petty, but to those of us in the know, their restraint was surprising and commendable.

  Unsurprisingly, Meghan and Harry’s behaviour had the undesirable effect of increasing internet speculation regarding the impending birth. This ran to theories that the royal couple needed to create a buffer zone between themselves and the world, behind which they could have a baby delivered that would then be passed off as one to which she had given birth. Many a questioner wanted to know why couldn’t the doctors’ names be made public? What was the big secret? If Meghan and Harry had nothing to hide, why were they hiding away like that? What was so confidential about the names of the attending physicians? Were they afraid that a doctor might confirm that the baby had been born to a surrogate and not to Meghan? Weren’t doctors’ patients protected by client confidentiality as a matter of course? Since their privacy was protected by legal and professional protocols, why the secrecy unless they were covering something up? The whole thing smacked of too many cloaks and daggers, and the common thread that emerged on the internet was that only those who are intent on practising sleights of hand demand the extraordinary degree of protection Harry and Meghan were demanding. As far as far too many people now believed, the extraordinary lengths to which the couple had gone led them to believe that Harry and Meghan were not protecting their privacy but themselves against the possibility of exposure.

  This was hardly a viewpoint any supporter of the monarchy wanted. It mystified many within the Establishment that Harry and Meghan would prefer to continue tripping down the path that had given rise to these suspicions rather than taking steps to overcome the suspicions. However, they dug their heels in and stubbornly refused to alter their plans. Indeed, they began to behave as if they were being victimised. They simply could not see that their own behaviour was almost entirely responsible for what was happening.

  The palace would have had to be particularly inept not to understand that Harry and Meghan’s behaviour was feeding rather than defeating the latter-day version of the Warming Pan rumours. ‘You can imagine how people were tearing their hair out at the palace,’ a royal cousin said. This was just the sort of conjecture no reputable organisation wants. But Harry and Meghan had done everything possible to increase rather than decrease the speculation with which the internet was alive. No one was pleased by what was happening, but it was impossible to get through to the couple. He faithfully backed up her demand that she was entitled to give birth however she pleased, and supported her requirements to such an extent that even people who had originally thought that the Warming Pan rumours were preposterous began to question whether there might not be some substance to them. Quite how such rumours could be in anyone’s interest, much less a royal couple’s, seems to have eluded them. But Meghan and Harry are a united couple, and one which adheres to its chosen path despite opposition, for the lesson Meghan had learnt over the years was to stick to her guns and do what she thought best. The lady is most definitely not for wavering.

  It was amidst this extremely dubious background that the birth of the baby was first announced on the Instagram account that the Sussexes had started the month before. The announcement was simple, stylish and effective in a ‘classy’ way as befitted the mother from Hollywood who had recently announced to someone in the presence of a deeply insulted onlooker, ‘I’m here to show ‘em how things should be done. They’re just not classy enough.’ Certainly the account was a lot more stylish than anything any other royal had hitherto thought up, and so too was the announcement. It was nothing like the dull, conventional notice posted on an easel in a plain frame lat
er that same day behind the railings of Buckingham Palace, when the Queen and the Royal Family announced how pleased they were that the Duchess of Cambridge, later altered to Sussex, had been safely delivered of a boy, with mother and baby both doing well.

  Meghan and Harry’s Instagram announcement rocked with updated glamour and contemporary chic. ‘It’s a BOY!’, the communique rang out, the white lettering of the words tastefully contrasting with the royal blue background, beneath the stylishly regal ducal coronet and the intermingled H and M initials of the couple in Meghan’s own calligraphic handwriting at the top of the page. Underneath those three dramatic words, was another, equally emphatic, and surprisingly revelatory hint of those aspects of the Sussex identity which were being highlighted: ‘Their ROYAL HIGHNESSES the DUKE and DUCHESS of SUSSEX are OVERJOYED to announce the BIRTH of their CHILD.’

  To those in the know, this slick, highly-professional, hyper-glamorous and attention-grabbing presentation was only to be expected. According to Liz Brewer, socialite doyenne of the British aristocratic PR world, whose information came from someone at Buckingham Palace’s Press Office, and according to a European prince whose information came from a British royal, Meghan had flown to LA shortly after the baby’s conception with the specific objective of employing the best Instagrammers in the world. The brief she gave them was straightforward enough:

  1) I need you to create the world’s number one Instagram account for me. It needs to end up having more followers than any other Instagram account on earth;

  2) I want to be bigger than Diana, Princess of Wales;

  3) I need you to make me the most famous woman in the world.

  If Meghan was naive enough to think that the palace wouldn’t hear about her plans, she was mistaken. There is very little that happens in the royal world that the palace doesn’t get wind of, usually sooner rather than later. As long as she functioned within royal parameters, no one objected to her ambitions, though the feeling was that it is always safer to err on the side not being too driven, excessive ambition being somewhat suspect in royal circles since the days of Lady Macbeth and certainly something to be avoided since Charles I lost his head to the axe in 1649.

  Although Meghan’s well-wishers, myself included, would have liked her to set her sights lower, she has always been astonishingly open about her objectives and ambitions, including to the professionals she briefs. As Nelthorpe-Cowne has stated, Meghan told her that she and Harry intended to ‘change the world’, which she actually interpreted as meaning that Meghan wanted to ‘rule the world’. While that might seem an exaggeration of Meghan’s aim, the admission that she and Harry felt they could change the world showed that they both had no issues with confidence and that they were eager to wield influence above and beyond what royals are expected to possess in this democratic age. She also told her media people that she wanted to break the internet, and would later on that year be disappointed when the Vogue magazine issue which she guest edited failed to achieve that objective, despite her specific instructions that her American media representatives, Sunshine Sachs, should strive to achieve that objective.

  For all her forthrightness, Meghan did not seem to appreciate that articulating such ambitions, when you’re a member of a royal family, might be acceptable in the United States, but in Britain they leave the listener wondering whether you really have any understanding of what your role should be. It is no more appropriate for a royal duchess to want to break the internet, to be the most famous woman in the world, or to have the largest Instagram following, than for her to want to pose nude in Playboy magazine or become the Pope of Rome. Each ambition is equally undesirable, for the reasons which follow.

  The royal world is not a platform for personal achievement or the realisation of personal ambitions, but a fully-established and functional organ of state. Popes, prostitutes and princesses should not aspire to certain degrees of recognition, for, in doing so, they denigrate their proper function and disparage the institution of which they are a part.

  Once the palace were informed about Meghan’s brief to her people in LA, they naturally worried that she might inflict damage upon the monarchy as she set about achieving such contemporary and inappropriate ambitions. Nowhere in her brief had there been the typically royal concepts of duty, obligation, unsung public service, or any of the other driving forces behind the monarchy. If the information as reported back to them really was as stated by the well-placed source - and there was no reason to doubt it, as it came from an impeccable quarter - Meghan’s objectives seemed to them to be fame for fame’s sake. This was truly frightening to them, for everyone of rank and status knows that the pursuit of fame as an end in itself is invariably destructive. Partly, this is because positive publicity never gives sufficient column inches to fame-hungry people. The only thing that keeps the flame of fame flickering brightly is variability. The narrative has to have twists and turns, negativity and positivity, drama and conflict, controversy and unpredictability. Without these elements, the level of fame each individual achieves is determined by the degree of interest that his or her activities and talents genuinely attract. This is true of even the most famous people in the world, for instance the Queen, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, or Albert Einstein when he was alive. The flame of publicity will flare up intermittently for them, but no matter how famous you are, unless you’re actively pursuing attention, you are often out of the news. The only people who remain topical with any constancy are those who court publicity, who do what it takes to keep themselves splattered over the papers and before the eyes of the world on a daily or weekly basis.

  The palace had been down this route before and they had no desire to do so again. Diana, Princess of Wales had been a fame junkie. If a day went by when she was not in the news, she could become depressed and find some way of inserting herself back into the narrative. At the very moment that she was bemoaning how the press were pursuing her, how she could get no surcease from their unwanted attentions, and how no one must let the press know that she would be attending this or that event, she herself would violate her own privacy. There is a very entertaining description, in former Conde Nast International president Nicholas Coleridge’s memoir The Glossy Years, of Diana attending a luncheon at Vogue House under the most secretive of conditions. As Coleridge is walking her out to her car at the end of the meal, they are papped. He wonders who on earth could have betrayed their trust. Upon making enquiries, he discovers that Diana herself had rung up the press to inform them that she would be leaving Vogue House at such and such a time.

  There were many different variations on this theme, several of which were known to Buckingham Palace, if only because Diana tried just about every trick in the book to ensure that she remained a figure of interest to the press. She was so resourceful that her tactics are still regarded as the ultimate manual for press manipulation. The idea that Meghan might develop into another Diana ‘filled them [everyone at the palace] with terror’, according to a princess who is a close friend of mine. Their reasoning was simple. Fame-hungry people are only satisfied when they are the story of the day. Scandal and controversy must inevitably form a major part of the narrative, otherwise there is no story for the press to report upon. Fame junkies will therefore do the most bizarre things which they would never have done otherwise, had there been no press about to report on their activities. It’s what playing to the gallery is all about, and it rattles all sensible people.

  If Meghan truly wanted to be the most famous woman on earth, as her brief stated, that must mean that she is a fame addict. A fame addict is like any other addict. Addicts do not play by the same rules as ordinary people. One of the first warnings the friends and relations of alcoholics receive in Al Anon is, ‘Never get between an alcoholic and his bottle. If you do, you’ll always end up the loser.’ Addicts are notoriously ruthless in achieving their fix. Because the palace understood the consequences of Meghan’s brief as it was reported back to them, there was real fear that she would deli
berately stoke the fires of controversy in a quest to achieve her objective. ‘You don’t become the most famous woman on earth by being a dutiful duchess,’ a courtier said. ‘You become the most famous woman on earth by creating drama, chaos, controversy, call it what you will. You only need to look at what made the Princess of Wales and Elizabeth Taylor so famous to see that that degree of fame is a five-word letter spelt h/a/v/o/c.’

  Because only time would tell whether Meghan really was as fame hungry as her brief suggested, the question remained unverified. What was beyond doubt, however, was that she had a gift for scripting her own narrative. Two days after the baby’s birth, she and Harry presented him to a select crew of cameramen and journalists at Windsor Castle. They gave a brief interview while Harry held the baby, swaddled in white from head to toe, with only the tiniest glimpse of his nose and mouth visible. Gayle King voiced the complaint of everyone everywhere when she said on CBS’s This Morning that the baby’s face wasn’t visible. The ‘very proud mother’ and ‘over the top, giddy Dad’, as she called Meghan and Harry, radiated joy but failed to provide the baby’s name until later in the day, when they announced that he would be known as Master Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. They also posted on their Instagram page a black and white photograph of his presentation at Windsor Castle to the Queen and Prince Philip in the presence of Doria Ragland, who had been staying with them at Frogmore Cottage since April. His great-grandparents were plainly thrilled with little Archie, as they ought to have been, for he is undoubtedly an adorable baby and he was the first member of the British Royal Family who was indubitably mixed race, though the Queen and Prince Philip are descended from one, and possibly two, women of colour in the forms of Madragana of Faro and Philippa of Hainault, while Harry and William undoubtedly have Indian blood as a result of their many-times Scottish great-grandfather Theodore Forbes’s progeny Katherine Scott Forbes, the daughter of his Indian mistress Eliza Kewark. Prince William even gave blood to stand up the supposition, which plainly shows that he is proud of his mixed race heritage.