Tag: prince-charles

Categories
King Charles III Prince Andrew prince charles royals

Then-Prince Charles was ‘not unhappy’ about Prince Andrew’s ‘Newsnight’ disaster

then-prince-charles-was-‘not-unhappy’-about-prince-andrew’s-‘newsnight’-disaster

Back in November 2019, I covered all of the stuff in and around Prince Andrew’s trainwreck Newsnight interview, where he spoke about his friendships with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and came across like an arrogant buffoon who couldn’t be bothered to show sympathy for the girls and women abused by his friends (much less abused by Andrew). The interview landed like a bomb, but for days afterwards, Buckingham Palace did nothing but give vaguely positive off-the-record briefings about how Andrew was pleased with the interview, and how he told his mother that it was a “great success.” Then-Prince Charles was traveling overseas when the interview dropped, and he had to call his mother and tell her that this could not continue and that Andrew needed to be put out in the cold. Charles was the one driving Andrew to “step down” from royal life. Well, what if the entire thing was a huge scheme by Charles?

On the eve of Amazon Prime’s screening of Emily Maitlis’s account of her demolition of Prince Andrew, she claims Charles approved of the interview which directly led to his brother’s banishment from royal duties.

Maitlis, executive producer of A Very Royal Scandal, tells the Radio Times: ‘One month after the interview aired, I was taken aside by someone close to [then] Prince Charles and told – somewhat cryptically – that ‘HRH was not unhappy with the interview’.

‘Was I being told that the man who would ascend to the throne just three years later as our King was perhaps relieved that this exchange had taken place? That he could use the opportunity to reorder the monarchy in a way that befitted these times and the public perception of what it should be?’ Deep waters, Emily.

[From The Daily Mail]

I mean… Charles knew that the Epstein stuff was out there, and that Andrew’s issues were just waiting to be exposed in a larger way. I think it was more of a happy accident for Charles – his brother imploded on national television, and Charles made his move and took care of “the Andrew problem” for a while. It was opportunistic from Charles, but I doubt it was a “relief,” especially since this was all happening as the Sussexes were detangling themselves from the monarchy too. But sure, Charles wasn’t “unhappy” that Andrew ruined himself.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, WENN.

Categories
Andrew Morton Meghan Markle prince charles Prince Harry Princess Diana royals

Morton: King Charles ‘will be quite pleased with his character’ in ‘The Crown’

morton:-king-charles-‘will-be-quite-pleased-with-his-character’-in-‘the-crown’

Robert Lacey isn’t the only royal-commentator with an advisor gig for The Crown. For Season 5, Andrew Morton also advised Peter Morgan on the show, particularly around Princess Diana’s storylines, and the book Diana: Her True Story. That’s one of the reasons why Morton comes across so well in The Crown – he was an advisor! Which isn’t to say that they were making things up – Diana is seen recording her story and getting the tapes to Morton through an intermediary, her friend James Colthurst. Morton previously spoke to the Royalist column in the Daily Beast, and now he’s speaking to Vanity Fair. He spoke about The Crown, the real Diana, plus the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s moves. Some highlights:

Working on Diana: Her True Story: “It was like the royal version of All the President’s Men, where danger lurked in shadows. One scene I’m surprised they didn’t do was James letting me listen to the first tape in a working-man’s café in Ruislip in North London. All these working men were sitting around eating their eggs and bacon. I put the headphones on and I was transported to another world, a world of bulimia, Camilla, and things which I’d never heard of. It was literally like entering a parallel universe where you had a secret and that secret was quite dangerous.”

Every reason to be paranoid: “Looking back, I think we had every right to be paranoid given what happened with [the leaked royal phone calls] Squidgygate and Camillagate,” says Morton, adding that the real-life experience was occasionally “even spookier” than depicted in the episodes. “It was a time where you didn’t know if you were being followed, where you didn’t know if you were being watched. Diana was worried about her phones being tapped.”

Morton is shady about The Crown’s portrait of Charles: “I don’t know if [series creator] Peter Morgan wants his peerage but Charles is an intelligent, questioning, courageous, positive character in this depiction, so it makes me laugh when everybody’s getting up in arms about [the new season]. King Charles, if he ever sits down and watches, will be quite pleased with his character…it’s done [him] a big favor.”

On the Sussexit: “The big difference between Diana and Charles and Harry and Meghan is that Diana was trapped in a loveless marriage, whereas these two seem extremely happy together. That’s a huge difference. Secondly, Diana gave it 10 years before she rebelled and helped me [on the book]. They didn’t even give it 10 months. He was meeting with Oprah in November 2018, which was six months after they married, to discuss a tell-all [interview]. So it seems that they headed for the exit door fairly rapidly. Prince Harry’s made it perfectly clear that he found the royal world suffocating and difficult to cope with. In Meghan, I think he saw a pathway out.”

On the Sussexes’ Oprah interview: “My reaction was quite frankly bafflement. So many of [Harry and Meghan’s] statements just didn’t add up to me. So it was very different to the Diana interview, which came from her heart and came at a point when she’d already discussed much of it for Diana: Her True Story. You’ve also got to remember that Diana and Charles are more important people for the monarchy and for the nation than Prince Harry or Meghan will ever be because of their position. They were future king and queen. When you’ve got the future queen saying that the future king is not fit for the job, then that is something that you have to take very seriously. Harry’s allegations of racism, given what’s going on with reparations for the slave trade and so on, did strike a chord. [But] everything is about context, and there was no context for those allegations…. Harry and Meghan always mistook popularity for position. Harry will never be king. As every year passes, he becomes less relevant to the monarchy. Just like Prince Andrew, who was once second in line to the throne.”

On Harry’s memoir: “The fact that he’s called it Spare means that he’s going to deal with his relationship with his brother. It’s going to be a Cain and Abel saga. It will have a biblical resonance.” The author notes that Princess Diana would likely be heartbroken to learn that one of her sons had turned on the other. “Where she would part company [with Harry] is if he puts the boot into his brother. She wanted Harry to be William’s wingman, not a hitman.”

[From Vanity Fair]

“They didn’t even give it 10 months. He was meeting with Oprah in November 2018, which was six months after they married, to discuss a tell-all…” What in the world is he talking about? The early meetings Harry had with Oprah in 2018 and 2019 were about the series which would become The Me You Can’t See. It was a long-gestating project which Harry started before the Sussexit. Then they organized the 2021 Oprah interview to coincide with the one-year anniversary of their “stepping down” as working royals. Honestly, what Morton says about the Sussexes is so… odd. You need “context” for very specific stories about racism and questioning what color Meghan and Harry’s children would be? The whole “wingman” thing is so tired too. “Wingman” doesn’t mean “William is allowed to smear and destroy Harry and his wife just because Peg is the heir!”

The thing about Peter Morgan going easy on Charles… that’s very true.

Photos courtesy of Netflix/The Crown, Instar.

Categories
prince charles Princess Diana royals

Prince Charles waged a ‘systematic campaign’ against Princess Diana

prince-charles-waged-a-‘systematic-campaign’-against-princess-diana

I have a lil’ theory about the British media’s water-carrying for King Charles in regard to his campaign against The Crown. My theory is that there are a significant number of people in the British media who have been sharpening their knives and looking for a way to begin attacking Charles, and they thought “critiquing The Crown” would be their vehicle to do so. The fact that The Crown’s Season 5 was a somewhat flattering portrait of Charles has bummed them out, but they’ve still used the coverage to remind people about Charles’s despicable behavior, and how he treated Diana in particular. So it’s unsurprising to hear that Princess Diana’s former chief of staff – her longtime private secretary Patrick Jephson – spoke to The Scandal Mongers podcast and got into some nitty-gritty stuff about Charles’s gaslighting and smear campaign against Diana. Some highlights:

On Charles’s campaign to paint Diana as unstable & unwell: “This is not just some casual gossip, it was a systematic campaign. Okay, it was a long time ago, but … the man they were supporting is now our king and these things should not be buried, they should not be conveniently pushed to one side. They happened, in theory they could happen again, and certainly they shouldn’t pass without censure.”

On the official line that Diana was “a bit crazy”: “I get very frustrated. That has become the official line. If you ask people close to the current royal establishment — if you dare bring up the subject of Princess Diana, which very few people would — then I think that is the answer you would get; that it was a tragic story and that she was essentially troubled mentally, and the implication being that she was not entirely up the job, which essentially then she failed at.” Referring to the new Queen Consort Camilla, he said: “And the unspoken addition is that everything is alright now because we have her replacement, who is wonderfully down-to-earth and grounded and not at all flakey or paranoid.

The real Diana was perfectly sane: “When I hear people follow this line, when I see it not being challenged, I think, well, wait a minute. I knew Princess Diana probably better than almost anybody — certainly professionally — and she was one of the most sane people I ever met. Considering the life she lived, considering the pressures she was under, she wasn’t just sane, she had a kind of ability to restore sanity to crazy situations. As an eye witness, she could be a bit of a handful sometimes, but she was always extremely aware, sane, grounded, and funny.”

Diana would turn those accusations to her advantage: “Once it became apparent her critics were trying to smear her with allegations of mental instability. She said ‘Yes, I do have an eating disorder,’ for example, and she gave a speech about eating disorders. I can’t think of a better definition of sanity than [to] have people accuse you of being nuts, and stand up and make a speech about the condition that you do have,” and explain how it “affects a lot of people, particularly young women. I think that is a sign of extraordinary strength and shows the essential pettiness of her accuser,” Jephson added. He said the stories about her mental health were spread “by and large, by men, about a woman in a marriage with the intention to help another man.”

Diana wanted to tell her story & people really were after her: “It was also no wonder that Diana turned to Andrew Morton to tell her story in a book —and no wonder that she fell for Martin Bashir’s lies… There was plenty of evidence that people were briefing against her, they were tapping her phone, they were hostile to her in many ways and determined to clip her wings as a princess. There were reasonable grounds also to think that her connection to her children might be at risk during the divorce negotiations. Bashir knew what he was doing, he undermined her confidence in her ability to form decisions that she could have confidence in, in those circumstances, to act in a cautious way. If she believed what he told her, it was a perfectly reasonable response to do what she did.”

Diana wanted someone to call Charles to account: “She was also far too aware that nobody was calling the prince to account for his conduct, nobody in his family was calling him to account. They seemed to be complicit in what to her was a betrayal. The establishment was complicit, the affair with Camilla was well known in establishment circles and all they did was to talk about Diana behind her back, to whisper about her. Nobody offered her support, nobody took her to one side and said ‘now look this is all very unfortunate, but it happens in all families, but but you’re going to get through it and we’re going to support you and you’re doing a great job and we want you to do more of it — but no. She was left isolated, she was left with no acknowledgment of the situation she was in, the stress she was under, the challenges she faced every day to raise her children in these circumstances, plus she had to prepare them for a life of service. And she thought, ‘How am I going to get my side of this out?’”

No one understood what an asset Diana was: “Unfortunately, instead of embracing Diana as a fabulous asset, as somebody who could be an essential part of the modern royal family, they chose instead to be suspicious of her, to resent her, to undermine her and to dislike her.”

[From Page Six]

“They happened, in theory they could happen again, and certainly they shouldn’t pass without censure.” It’s literally happening again because the same people are running the exact same play against Diana’s younger son and his wife. The same establishment has tried to convince everyone that Prince Harry is weak, unstable, mentally ill, and that’s why he was attracted to Meghan. Let’s not forget that when Meghan was truly suicidal – after they did everything they could to make her so – they refused to get her help.

As for Jephson’s pointed comments about Charles’s campaign against Diana and how desperate she was to be heard and acknowledged… again, that’s what people thought The Crown would be this season. They were expecting Peter Morgan to get into Charles’s very real smear campaign against Diana and how poorly he treated her overall. The fact that Morgan largely ignored or soft-pedaled that part of that story is narrative malpractice!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Categories
prince charles Princess Diana royals

Andersen: Prince Charles told Diana he was gay to avoid having sex with her

andersen:-prince-charles-told-diana-he-was-gay-to-avoid-having-sex-with-her

When Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage began to fall apart, they eventually fell into a routine where Diana based herself at Kensington Palace and Charles based himself at Highgrove. But there were years where Diana and their sons would come to Highgrove for the weekend and that’s when a lot of screaming and fighting would happen between Diana and Charles. This was basically everything after she gave birth to William – from 1983 through to their separation in the early ‘90s, there were fights, tears and drama constantly. Well, Christopher Andersen’s new book, The King: The Life of Charles III, delves into those times. Apparently, during one fight, Charles told Diana he was gay as a way to stop her sexual advances. During other fights, their protection officers were worried that Diana and Charles would come to physical violence.

Charles and Diana’s unhappy marriage was so “highly combustible” that royal protection officers were worried someone would get hurt. One of Charles’ valets remembers seeing Diana “hurling epithets and mocking her husband’s obsession with the dreary-looking Camilla,” writes Christopher Andersen in the upcoming biography, “The King: The Life of Charles III,” out November 8.

The valet watched on as Diana “literally pursued” her husband “down hallways, up staircases and from room to room” at Charles’ Highgrove House country retreat, Andersen writes.

“Why won’t you sleep with me?” Diana is said to have asked her husband, who “had for all intents and purposes unilaterally called a halt to their sexual relationship,” since Prince Harry’s birth in 1984. Charles’ sarcastic alleged response: “I don’t know, dear. I think I might be gay.”

During one heated argument, Charles childishly demanded that he be given the respect “that he felt his position warranted,” according to the book.

“‘Do you know who I am?’ he demanded of his wife.

“Diana answered that he was a ‘f–king animal,’” writes Andersen. “You will never be King!” she shouted. “William will succeed your mother. I will see to that.”

The tension in the royal household only increased as time passed. “The clashes between Diana and Charles were now so raw that ‘violence seemed inevitable,’” one bodyguard notes in the book. Officers were concerned by the “sheer firepower” contained within Highgrove’s walls, which included shotguns, rifles and pistols, according to the book. “The detectives in charge of protecting members of the royal family were deeply concerned that ‘in the heat of anger,’ any one of these could be used to commit suicide, homicide or both,” writes Andersen.

[From Page Six]

I don’t know about all of this. Yes, we’ve heard before that Charles refused to sleep with Diana after she gave birth to Harry, but I’m not sure Diana would follow him around, berating him about Camilla’s looks and challenging Charles to sleep with her. Diana was the kind of woman who would find someone to talk to, preferably an attractive man, and pour out all of her sorrows on him. I also don’t think Charles is armed to the teeth at Highgrove. Sure, he would have hunting rifles, but pistols and shotguns? This is the English countryside! And no, Charles isn’t gay. He just has a thing about being attracted to horsey mother surrogates and nanny-figures. Charles and Diana fundamentally didn’t work because she wanted a father figure and he wanted a mother figure.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Categories
Camilla Parker Bowles King Charles III prince charles Queen Camilla royals The Crown

The finale of ‘The Crown’ Season 6 will be Charles & Camilla’s 2005 wedding

the-finale-of-‘the-crown’-season-6-will-be-charles-&-camilla’s-2005-wedding

Currently, The Crown’s Season 6 is in production, filming in Europe. Season 6 will pick up with Tony Blair’s victory and quickly move into Princess Diana’s death in Paris later that summer. It will be interesting to see how Peter Morgan handles the subject matter now, considering he’s “revisiting” that storyline as the screenwriter for 2006’s The Queen, directed by Stephen Frears. Obviously, Season 6 will go through most of Tony Blair’s years as prime minister. What’s interesting is that Peter Morgan now insists that Season 6 won’t go all the way through until 2007, when Blair stepped down. Morgan has been telling people that the series will end on a high note for King Charles III: Charles and Camilla’s 2005 wedding in Windsor.

It will trawl through one of the Royal family’s darkest and most tumultuous periods. But the sixth and final series of The Crown will end on a high for King Charles when it is released next year, show insiders have insisted in the wake of a slew of criticism.

The last episode will depict the wedding of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles in April 2005, highlighting what proved to be a notable turning point for the monarchy and leaving viewers with a feel-good, positive image of the institution. The dramatisation of the civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall will bring the curtain down on one of the most successful yet controversial dramas in recent history.

The final series, which is currently being filmed and is likely to be released next November, will turn its spotlight on the “adventures and misadventures” of New Labour. A source told The Telegraph that a “chief focus” will be the premiership of Tony Blair. It will also cover the death of Diana in a Paris car crash and chart the lives of Prince William and Prince Harry in the immediate aftermath of their mother’s death. The series will depict Queen Elizabeth II’s thawing towards her future daughter-in-law.

For the King and Queen Consort, as they are now, such celebratory scenes and a focus on largely positive developments will come as a welcome relief.

Writer Peter Morgan said he could not continue beyond the early 2000s as he believed that there should be at least a decade between a real-life event and its fictionalised retelling in order to gain “proper perspective”. He is said to have become irked by the recent criticism, having been keenly focused on historical research and determined not to convey events purely to be “sensational”.

A source defended the high-budget drama, arguing that the Royal scandals dramatised by Morgan were of the family’s own making.

“He purposely seeks to dramatise historical events as they happened,” they said. “He can’t change history, he reflects it – hence the controversial content of season five that is currently under discussion. Royal events took an upward turn post-1997 and, thankfully, a return to political events, so The Crown can return to that.”

[From The Telegraph]

“The series will depict Queen Elizabeth II’s thawing towards her future daughter-in-law…” WHO? Are we talking about Sophie, Countess of Wessex? That would be the only “future daughter in law” around this time frame (Sophie and Edward married in 1999). I find it curious that Morgan would end the series in 2005 and not 2007 though. What is he afraid of? Having to dramatize Prince William and Kate’s infamous 2007 breakup? Anyway, let’s be real – Charles and Camilla’s 2005 wedding was not the beginning of some grand new royal storyline, it simply put a bow on the sh-tshow that was and is Charles and Camilla’s relationship.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, WENN and Avalon Red.

Categories
Meghan Markle prince charles Prince Harry royals

Prince Charles is ‘freezing out’ the Sussexes during their charitable trip to the UK

In the Duchess of Sussex’s The Cut profile, the coup de grace happens towards the tailend of the profile. Meghan says, “It’s interesting, I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking. I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to.” She says she’s made an effort to forgive the people who hurt her and smeared her, that she’s “really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything.” Those quotes have struck fear and panic into the very heart of the monarchy, and the British media too. Dan Wootton suggested that Kate and William fly out to California to kidnap Harry and bring him back to the UK. Sarah Vine cried about how diabolic it was, the idea that Meghan could tell her own story whenever she chooses. Don’t forget the clownery from Kensington Palace too – they ran to the Telegraph to cry about how KP staffers would become “whistleblowers” and tell all about Meghan too. Well, it looks like Prince Charles is crying about Meghan’s implied threat to tell all, and he’s telling people that he’ll “freeze out” the Sussexes. Freeze them out of what again? Some highlights from this bonkers Daily Beast/Royalist story:

Charles will freeze out the Sussexes: The friend told The Daily Beast: “Charles adores Harry, and would like nothing better than to get the relationship sorted. But a meeting next week is unlikely. Everything was already on hold until they saw what was in Harry’s book, but if Meghan is actively threatening to reveal further secrets, and telling interviewers, ‘I haven’t signed anything, I can say anything I want,’ then it’s not surprising they are being frozen out.”

The quasi-royal tour:The couple’s decision to visit the U.K. on a quasi-royal tour next week has been greeted with irritation behind the walls of Buckingham Palace. While outsiders may simply see the couple as altruistically giving their time to support causes that are, as they say, “close to their hearts,” crown loyalists and their critics argue that the couple is provocatively treading on the territory of the actual royal family.

Meghan is doing something with Edward Enniful? One evening, fashion sources say, will be given over to attend the launch of her friend Edward Enninful’s memoir. The British Vogue editor invited Meghan to guest-edit the September 2019 issue and has consistently been one of her most ardent supporters.

The Queen’s prime minister meeting on Wednesday: Appearing in the traditional photo of the hand-kissing ceremony and making some small concession to her health—holding a stick or sitting down, for example—would blow away coverage of Harry and Meghan in the domestic press for days.

The WellChild Awards appearance: On Thursday evening, Harry is due to attend the WellChild awards, an event he used to go to when he was a working royal. Critics say the couple is attempting to continue casting themselves as, to all extents and purposes, full-fat royals.

The Cambridge kids’ first day of school: It will be interesting to see which British newspapers (if any) choose to devote Friday’s front pages to Harry and which to William and Kate’s children, all three of whom have their first day at their new school, Lambrook, on Thursday, following the family’s move to Windsor over the summer. William and Kate are likely to do the school run themselves, their presence an implicit rebuke to Meghan’s assertion in The Cut that to do the school run in the U.K. would have involved her running a gauntlet of 40 photographers. One photographer will be present for the official photo that will then be distributed to all media.

[From The Daily Beast]

The Royalist also quoted from “British publicity strategist Mark Borkowski” who claimed that the Cambridges will do nothing and not try to see the Sussexes because William and Kate are safe in the knowledge that Meghan has no support or empathy from the British people, and that Brits see Meghan as “a caricature media monster.” True story, Kate repeatedly exploited a murder victim for her own ham-fisted PR rehabilitation, so STFU with “Meghan is a caricature media monster.”

It’s hilarious to me that the Windsors are suddenly doing the most to look booked and busy during the week the Sussexes will be in town. If this was any old September, we wouldn’t see Kate until the end of the month, when she would suddenly turn up with fresh Botox, a fresh blowout and a deep tan from her two-and-a-half month summer holiday. Ten bucks says that William and Kate do a lot more than just the awkward school photo on Thursday too.

As for Charles “freezing out” the Sussexes… what is left to freeze out? The Sussexes don’t take Charles’s money, they’re not asking for his help with anything and he only *just* got to meet his granddaughter Lili in June. Charles is such a disappointment.

Photos courtesy of Instar, Avalon Red.

Categories
Meghan Markle prince charles Prince Harry Queen Elizabeth II royals

The Windsors think the Sussexes ‘need’ to constantly remind people they’re royal

the-windsors-think-the-sussexes-‘need’-to-constantly-remind-people-they’re-royal

Roya Nikkah at the Sunday Times did a lengthy piece about the return of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the “royal reaction” to everything that has been happening in recent weeks. I’m left with the distinct impression that the Windsors are obsessed with everything Meghan and Harry do, everything they say and everything they’re involved with. Instead of simply shrugging off Harry and Meghan’s charitable visit and flatly ignoring the “wayward couple,” the Windsors can’t help but telegraph their own creepy, intense interest with all things Sussex. The Windsors have to complain and explain why Harry and Meghan are bad, why they’re hurting the poor Queen, why Charles is beside himself, how William is (as always) full of rage. At some point, you’d think the Windsors would instruct their communications people to strike an ambivalent tone regarding the Sussexes. But they can’t – the Windsors know that the Sussexes sell papers, and the British media is constantly demanding their pound of flesh, so here we are.

The Sussexes are breaking the terms of the Sandringham Summit! A royal source says: “It is hard to see how what they’re doing would equate to the values of the Queen, who has never encouraged people to discuss deeply personal family relationships in public.” The monarch soldiers on, but as a source who knows her well says: “She doesn’t want to be on tenterhooks all the time, waiting to see what the next nuclear bomb will be — that will take its toll.”

Charles finds this all dreadfully painful: Charles’s friends say the jibes continue to be “painful” for him, particularly after spending time with Harry, Meghan and his grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet, during the Platinum Jubilee in June, which Charles saw as a “minor act of reparation”, according to one friend, after the Sussexes’ explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey last year. The friend says: “For two years, there has been a steady stream of really challenging things said about a man who cannot [publicly] defend himself by a couple he obviously loves and misses. That is incredibly difficult on a personal level. He is completely bewildered by why his son, whom he loves deeply, feels this is the way to go about managing family relationships.”

The Windsors genuinely thought Harry & Meghan would never speak: A royal source, who was involved in the negotiations around the couple’s departure, says the current direction of travel is frustrating: “Everyone hoped they would go off to be financially independent, pursue their philanthropic endeavours and be happy — and that in going their own way, they might no longer feel the need to rail against the system as much as they still do. But then the star power of them requires an association with the royal family, and the fuel on those flames is the family discord.”

No removal of titles: There is no appetite from the Queen to remove the titles conferred on the couple when they married. She has already forbidden them from using their HRH styling and the word “royal” in commercial ventures. As a well-placed source says of the family’s thinking: “You can never un-royal a royal. You can take the HRH away, you could take the ‘duke’ away, but Harry is still the son of the future king.”

The palace strategy: The Palace’s strategy is not to comment on every outburst, but to hammer home the distinction between official working members of the royal family, who represent the Queen, and the Sussexes as “private citizens”. In turn, the Sussexes continue to remind the world of their royal status. In her recent interview, Meghan mused on being a royal role model: “It’s important to be thoughtful about it because even with the Oprah interview, I was conscious of the fact that there are little girls that I meet and they’re just like, ‘Oh my God, it’s a real-life princess.” As a source who knows the Sussexes says, they “need to remind everyone they’re royal” because it carries a “higher status”.

The Sussexes are ruining the Windsor Brand! The plummeting of royal stock down under will ring alarm bells for the monarchy. There are fears the Sussexes’ antics will fuel the growing republican movement in Australia, which is expected to reappraise its status as a realm when Charles becomes King.

Meghan’s humble-brag comparison to Nelson Mandela: Meghan’s comments sent eyebrows skywards in royal circles. “The whole thing is just staggering,” said a royal source. “Nelson Mandela? Who’s next, Gandhi? There are simply no words for the delusion and tragedy of it all.”

William is not incandescent these days: The Duke of Cambridge is now acclimatised to the Sussexes’ gripes, which no longer raise his hackles as much as they once did. “He’s not really spending much time thinking about it,” says a source close to Prince William, though friends concede he does not relish the prospect of Harry’s book. The Cambridges are now happily ensconced in Adelaide Cottage, their new Windsor home.

The courtiers don’t understand the Sussexes’ strategy: Courtiers are bemused by the Sussexes’ determination to rage against the past. As Davis observed of Meghan in her article: “She has taken a hardship and turned it into content.” A source who knows the Sussexes questions why Meghan “is constantly looking back at how awful it was to briefly be a royal. What does success look like, is it a number in the bank? Is it that they’ve killed off the monarchy?” Another Palace source says: “Ultimately they are bashing the institution that has put them in the position they’re in, the longevity of that strategy is not sustainable.”

[From The Times]

“The Palace’s strategy is not to comment on every outburst” – imagine the courtiers briefing Nikkah with that and keeping a straight face. Whenever Harry and Meghan do ANYTHING, the courtiers from every royal court run straight to the media to whine and cry. As much as the Windsors criticize and obsess over all things Sussex, surely they have to admit that Harry and Meghan have actually been quite conservative in what they’ve said so far. There was even a palpable sense of relief post-Oprah interview that Harry & Meghan didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of who said what and who was responsible for the torrent of racist abuse.

Nevermind the fact that – AGAIN – if the Windsors felt so strongly about keeping the Sussexes silenced and compliant, all the Queen would have had to do is accept the Sussexes’ offer of being half-in. It would have been that simple.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, WENN.