Meghan and Harry Read online

  CHAPTER 1

  On May 19th 2018, when Meghan Markle stepped out of the antique Rolls Royce conveying her and her mother Doria Ragland from the former Astor stately home Cliveden to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, where she was due to be married at 12 noon, she was a veritable vision of loveliness. At that moment, one of the biggest names of the age was born.

  As the actress ascended the steps of St. George’s Chapel, its interior and exterior gorgeously decorated in the most lavish and tasteful spring flowers, she was a picture of demure and fetching modesty, stylish elegance, transparent joyousness, and radiant beauty. The simplicity of her white silk wedding dress, designed by Clare Waight Keller of Givenchy, with its bateau neckline, three-quarter length sleeves, and stark, unadorned but stunningly simple bodice and skirt, coupled with the extravagant veil, five metres long and three metres wide, heavily embroidered with two of her favourite flowers (wintersweet and California poppy, as well as the fifty three native flowers of the various Commonwealth countries, and symbolic crops of wheat, and a piece of the blue dress that the bride had worn on her first date with the groom), gave out a powerful message.

  All bridal gowns make statements. Diana, Princess of Wales, according to her friend Carolyn Pride, used hers to announce to the world, ‘Here I am. Take notice. I’m not a bit shy and intend everyone to know who I am.’ Catherine Middleton’s stated, ‘I am stylish, athletic, and traditional. I aim to please, and I relish my femininity. I possess exquisite but conservative taste, with just a hint of daring beneath the surface.’ Meghan’s not only conveyed that she loved clothes, was a feminine woman despite her avowed feminism, and something of an impact specialist where presentation is concerned, but also that she was a thoughtful, considered, deliberate and aware individual who would use traditions as and when they suited her, but was prepared to jettison them when they did not. She struck the absolutely right note for someone who was making her debut into the world’s leading royal family, letting the public know that her virtues were sterling and her performance would be polished.

  Beneath the message, however, there was controversy. The Queen was said to be surprised that her soon-to-be granddaughter-in-law, already married and divorced once, had chosen virginal white in defiance of all accepted custom in royal and aristocratic circles, where a nod in the direction of reality dictated that no colour lighter than cream should be worn. But Meghan was starting out as she intended to continue. Royal and aristocratic traditions were of scant importance to someone whose self-belief was so rock solid that her father-in-law-to-be, who liked her, had already affectionately nicknamed her Tungsten.

  The colour of her dress was not the only surprise Meghan delivered on her wedding day. Traditionally, after the couple signs the register and rejoins the congregation, the bride curtsies to the Queen and the groom bows. It has always been done and it was expected by all that it would be done on the 19th May 2018. Princess Anne did it at her two weddings. Diana did it at hers. So too did Princess Alexandra, the Countess of Wessex, the Duchesses of York, Kent and Cambridge. However, as Meghan rejoined the congregation and set about walking down the aisle with a beaming Prince Harry by her side, she omitted to curtsy when she passed the Queen. This caused consternation throughout the assembled company at St. George’s Chapel, one of whom told me, ‘No one could believe it. She walked out, sailed down the aisle, with not so much as the merest bob in the direction of Her Majesty.’ The Queen is not on record as having made a comment or a complaint, but ‘she will have noticed. Everyone did.’

  Like many of the people present, I put Meghan’s omission down to nervousness and forgetfulness. It really is easy for people who are not used to royal ways to forget each and every dance step in the choreography of royal life, but not everyone took so benevolent a view, especially as the run-up to the wedding had been fraught with scenes, tantrums and demands, most of which were carefully concealed from the public, although by the time of the wedding they were well known in Court circles.

  Meghan is wonderfully self-possessed. She has supreme self-belief. She knows what she wants and she sets about achieving it by brooking no opposition. She is astonishingly direct in a way only Americans of a certain background who have made successes of their lives can be. She does not shy away from making demands but expects those who are there to assist her to bring her desires to fruition. Harry adores her forthrightness and strength of character. He admires the fact that she allows no one to prevail when she sets her mind to a task. In Court circles, however, where people dance around issues and no one makes a demand much less asks a direct question or even makes a straightforward suggestion, Meghan was unwittingly making waves. This was laying the ground for the misunderstandings and bad feelings that would soon characterise relations between the couple and many of the people close to them.

  With the wisdom of hindsight, it is obvious that Harry should have nipped things in the bud before they degenerated further by pointing out to Meghan that she needed to adopt a more British approach. He should have explained that what works in the film industry in Hollywood goes down like a lead balloon in Britain. People would not admire her for her ballsiness but begin to resent her for what he and she might admire as forthrightness but they would deplore as being difficult, demanding and brash.

  Harry, however, handled this dichotomy in the worst possible way. Up to then, he had enjoyed a reputation for affability even if he was also known to be hot-headed and so emotional that he often took things personally when a degree of impersonality would have been the more justified reaction. This more emotional side of his character now came to the forefront in the most unfortunate fashion. He started throwing his weight around, playing the Alpha male protecting his little woman as he backed Meghan up even when he must have known that the more positive response would have been to have a quiet word with her instead of endlessly repeating the mantra, ‘What Meghan wants, Meghan gets.’ In doing so, he not only allowed her to continue getting people’s backs up quite unnecessarily and more than likely unwittingly too, but also antagonised those who had previously had a high opinion of him. In reality, he was adding fuel to the fire when he could easily have doused the flames with one part knowledge and a second part wisdom.

  A case in point was the fuss Harry and Meghan made over the emerald and diamond kokoshnik Princess Eugenie had chosen for her wedding. Harry will have known the score. The date of his cousin’s marriage had had to be pushed back to allow him to be married first because he took precedence over her. It would be unfair to deprive Eugenie of the tiara she had chosen. This had once belonged to Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II’s elder sister. It had been sold to the Royal Family when the grand duchess was given refuge in England following the Russian Revolution and the execution of her brother and many other members of her family at the hands of the Bolsheviks. The Queen had promised Eugenie the use of it. There the matter should have rested, and would have, had Meghan not decided that she wanted to wear Grand Duchess Xenia’s kokoshnik at her wedding, and Harry, so eager to fulfill her every wish, neglected to point out that she couldn’t be lent something that his cousin had already been promised.

  There were, of course, other tiaras from which to choose. Most of the really spectacular tiaras in the British Royal Family’s collection actually come from the Russian Imperial Family and were bought by Queen Mary, the present Queen’s grandmother and a great collector of art, jewels, and furniture. These include the famous Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara with the detachable drop emeralds and pearls, which is only ever worn by a present or future queen. As the future wife of a second son of an Heir Presumptive, Meghan never had a choice of the truly spectacular jewels, to include the Vladimir or Greville tiaras, which are worn by Camilla, Duchess
of Cornwall. Jewels are allocated according to precedence, and what a senior royal wears, a junior royal cannot.

  Although Meghan did have a choice, no incoming bride can just scoop up whatever jewels she wants and wear them as if by right. She has no right to anything. All she can do is accept a loan, and a loan, moreover, that means that the lower down the order of precedence she is, the more limited her choice. Meghan, however, is a clothes horse, and knows what suits her and works best as she presents the image she wants to purvey. She is not the daughter of an award-winning lighting engineer for nothing. From early childhood she was privy to the secrets of good lighting and photography. She is bright and capable and learnt her lessons well. Her many years in front of the camera have also honed her skill in choosing what works well for her. One of her favourite words before she married into the British Royal Family was ‘classy’. She also understands glamour as few other women do. Being more intelligent than most, this gives her greater insight into scenarios, and allows her to have a more historic dimension than someone of her background would typically have. There is little doubt that Grand Duchess Xenia’s kokoshnik appealed not only because it is more spectacular, but also because its history is more romantic and exotic. Who, with Meghan’s sensibilities, would fail to want the more spectacular and historic tiara over Queen Mary’s bandeau, made in 1932 to accommodate a brooch which is still detachable?

  If Meghan’s choice could not be faulted as regards taste, it was on promissory grounds, and the Queen could not very well be expected to ignore her promise to Eugenie, nor would it be appropriate for successive brides to wear the same tiara. The Queen, after all, could not collude with her granddaughter’s thunder being stolen by a granddaughter-in-law. So she was put in the onerous position of having to make it clear by way of her trusted dresser, dress designer and good friend Angela Kelly to Meghan and Harry that they would have to accept what was on offer and not demand what was not.

  The matter might have rested there, with no one any the wiser, had Harry and Meghan not made an almighty fuss, not only about the tiara, but also about such things as the scent of St. George’s Chapel and the ingredients of certain dishes being prepared for the wedding. Meghan, in the questing, forthright way which had hitherto worked so well for her, caused great offence to a member of staff when she implied that that individual was a liar because Meghan claimed to be able to taste the existence of an ingredient which she had banned from a dish. The purported culprit, deeply offended, denied its existence, and Meghan was duly informed that royals don’t speak to their staff like that, causing offence all around, for now the bride-to-be had injured feelings as well. There was also the kerfuffle surrounding how St. George’s Chapel smelt. Meghan floated the idea of having it sprayed with a perfume of her choice: a suggestion that went down like a lead balloon. As one courtier told me, ‘We were really astonished to find that this minor TV actress from California was so demanding that she was giving us the message that we should up our game and satisfy her much higher standards.’ While the courtier thought that ‘the arrogance and impertinence were breathtaking, exceeded only by the disrespect,’ Meghan would have had an entirely opposite view. From her perspective, it was her wedding. She could make any demands she wanted. As Harry kept on saying, what she wanted, she must be given. He knew that, after years of struggle, she had finally achieved the way of life she had always aspired to, and he wanted to have all her desires fulfilled. As far as he and she were concerned, who were these people obstructing her? They were merely employees, irrespective of their pretensions. They were there to serve, and now that she was going to be a member of the Royal Family, they should be doing all in their power to make her happy.

  Meghan will neither have foreseen the offence she was causing, nor have realised that she was trampling on sensitivities, though in reality she and Harry were belittling staff and making them feel devalued. As far as she and Harry were concerned, she was their victim; they were not hers. How could they be, when they were there to serve her, and they had failed to do so?

  What Harry ought to have known, and Meghan could not have, was that most people at Court work for ridiculously low sums. The rewards of service to the monarchy are all non-financial and what is important to them isn’t measured in practical coinage but in terms of the regard their employers and fellow employees have for one another. This was, in actuality, the clash between the straightforward transactionalism of the California way of life and the far more subtle and obtuse royal way, but it also shows why each side regarded itself as entitled to its feelings. The values and traditions of the Old World were now colliding with the requirements and expectations of the New, and though no one knew it at the time, this clash of two different and sometimes incompatible cultures would only worsen, creating problems but also opportunities for all sorts of interest groups, not the least of which were the press, various political entities, and even the couple themselves.

  Before the marriage, therefore, the rumblings about Meghan and Harry’s behaviour and how they were rubbing people up the wrong way, had begun. The public, of course, remained unaware of any of this. The hope in royal circles was that Meghan was suffering from pre-wedding nerves, that Harry was playing macho man to impress his wife-to-be, but that things would settle down once they were married. That Meghan would dampen down her Californian ways and that Harry, who was rapidly alienating admirers and gaining a well-earned reputation for throwing his weight around in a wholly unacceptable manner, would revert to the right-on, lovable bloke he had been up to then. No one foresaw that Meghan and Harry were on a roll, that they would spark each other to ever greater heights, that they would not buckle to any opposition, that they regarded those who stood in their way as needlessly obstructive, and that, if they didn’t get their way, they’d decamp. Certainly no one in royal circles could ever have envisaged a scenario where, within eighteen months, female MPs, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the author Hilary Mantel would be adding their voices to those who claimed that Meghan’s failure to adjust to royal life was down to racism, while she and Harry went about moving from the restraints of royalty to the freedom of global celebrity entrepreneurism.

  Throughout Britain, in particular in royal, aristocratic, media, political, populist and ethnic circles, people wanted the marriage to be a success. Although in royal and aristocratic circles there had been initial reservations about the suitability of the union when the couple first got together, owing to the celerity with which Harry and Meghan had committed themselves, and the fear that each of them might have been blinded by their desires and might not be well suited for the long haul - the last thing anyone wanted was yet another divorce - once it became apparent that Harry was determined to marry her, the whole Royal Family, and the Court, fell into line. Meghan’s virtues were focused upon, not only in terms of her undoubted intelligence and determination, but also her sweetness of manner, her charm, vivacity, sense of humour and last, but by no means least, her heritage. The fact that she was a good looking, stylish, glamorous, photogenic, mature woman with an interest in philanthropy was one thing, but what sealed things in her favour was her ancestry. Not only was she an American, and a well-educated one with a patina of sophistication, but she was also a woman of colour. The Queen, who is well known to be a wit, said to a friend, ‘Mr Corbyn will find it much more difficult to get rid of us now that Meghan’s in the family.’ This conveyed a welcome degree of truth as well as humour, for Meghan’s bi-racial identity made the monarchy both reflective and representative of multicultural, multiracial Britain in a way that a white, 37 year old, California-born actress who had been a cast member of a popular television series could never have been.

  The British press and general public, as well as the political establishment, also embraced Meghan’s mixed-race heritage. There had been other mixed-race unions in other royal houses and the general feeling was that it was high time the British Royal Family caught up with their Continental cousins. The Queen of Denmark’s second son
had married a Eurasian woman. The Ruling Prince of Lichtenstein’s second son had married a Panamanian-born American of colour. Prince Rainier of Monaco’s nephew had married a West Indian of colour. Two of the Archduke Geza of Austria’s sons had married three Sub-Saharan Africans. The Queen had given her blessing to two of her first cousins once removed, when the Hon James Lascelles married the Nigerian aristocrat Joy Elias-Rilwan in 1999 and Lady Davina Windsor married Gary Christie Lewis, a Maori carpenter/house renovator in 2004. But both these cousins were members of the extended as opposed to the actual Royal Family. Meghan Markle’s inclusion in the British Royal Family itself would send out a positive message which would not only play well in Britain, but also in the Commonwealth.

  Of course, not everyone everywhere shared this viewpoint. There have always been, and presumably always will be, people who are racist. They will not have been happy with Meghan’s inclusion in the Royal Family. But they were sufficiently few and far between to be of no consequence. Moreover, it is a crime in Britain to discriminate against someone on the grounds of race. Hate crimes are rigidly enforced by the authorities, so the racists will have found themselves baying into the abyss, ignored by all but a few like-minded bigots. In fact, they were both voiceless and powerless and would never become a factor, though their existence would confuse the American press into thinking that Meghan was a victim of racism in Britain when nothing could have been further from the truth.

  It is fair to say that, the racist minority aside, practically everyone welcomed the marriage, mostly on racial grounds, and no one at Court wanted the behind-the-scenes difficulties to leak out, lest they colour the public’s opinion and acceptance of Meghan. Her father’s non-attendance was a blip which was managed as well as it could have been, and the day itself went off without a hitch. According to Nielsen Social, 29 million Americans and 18 million Britons watched the wedding, while the BBC estimated that 1.9 billion people tuned in worldwide.