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Happy families
After a private christening ceremony with just 25 guests in Windsor on Saturday, two gorgeous pictures of baby Archie were posted to Instagram by his proud parents, showing just how ludicrous the futile attempts of the British press to bully and harass Harry and Meghan into inviting cameras into the ceremony really were.
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However, it is hard not to notice the rather large expanse of empty green sofa between the Sussexes and the Cambridges in the group photo released to the media. Kate and William are not just physically isolated from the main group, they are emotionally on another planet. While the rest of the gang smiles at the camera of Chris Allerton with twinkling eyes, William looks stiff and Kate appears to be wearing a rather forced smile. It looks for all the world as if someone has wheeled in one of those cardboard cut-outs of Kate and William found all over London which tourists can sidle up to and have their pictures taken with the royals. Inevitably, the pictures have reignited rumors that relations between the four young royals are not all they might be.
Who’s who?
Attention immediately now turns to the young man’s likely godparents. By not naming them, Harry and Meghan have created a bona fide royal mystery, which every royal reporter in England is now keen to solve. Harry’s childhood nanny Tiggy Pettifer (née Legge-Bourke) was spotted arriving at the ceremony and seems a shoo-in (William and Harry are godparents to her kids) and it’s hard to imagine at least one of Diana’s sisters, Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, who were both featured prominently in the photo released to the media, have not been included. The Times reports that Charlie van Straubenzee, an old school friend of Harry’s who gave a speech at the wedding where he teased Harry for being a ‘ginger,’ is one of the godparents and The Mail claims that Izzy May, a former publicist for Soho House, and Markus Anderson, the Canadian-born director of membership at Soho House, are also on the list.
Love All
Wimbledon is Kate’s thing (she is a patron of the All England Lawn Tennis Club), but Serena Williams is Meghan’s best friend, hence her appearance courtside this week (after dropping the first set, Williams went on to win her game in an hour and 34 minutes). There have long been rumors that Kate is not particularly keen on having Meghan show up and steal her thunder at Wimbledon, but palace insiders have previously denied these rumors to The Daily Beast. Still, it could make for an interesting court-side dynamic if Serena (who did not attend yesterday’s christening) makes it to the final. Would Meghan and Kate both be in attendance? Would they sit next to each other? Who would the BBC give more screen time to? Or would Meghan decide discretion is the better part of valor and watch at home with baby Archie on her knee?
Royal fashion watch
If you’re attending Wimbledon, white is for the best, but how do you make it flowy and chic, rather than stiff and formal? Step forward Kate Middleton in an excellent Suzannah tennis-white shirtdress with puff sleeves and a black Alexander McQueen belt.
Accessories are everything, and—according to Today—the purple and green bow Kate was wearing is reserved for the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club’s patron, president, committee of management, vice presidents and four members of their executive staff. Oh, and check out the mini-clutch, if all you need to carry around is a handkerchief.
This week in royal history
On July 9, 1982, Michael Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace, confronting the Queen in her bedroom. The Queen—Fagan told The Independent in 2012—asked him what he was doing there, before bolting from the room to get help.
“It was a double bed but a single room, definitely—she was sleeping in there on her own,” he told The Independent. “Her nightie was one of those Liberty prints and it was down to her knees.”
Fagan said it had been the second time he had broken into the palace; the first time he had apparently lazed around on the Queen’s throne.
Unanswered questions
It had been widely assumed that the flight of Princess Haya, the wife of the ruler of Dubai, to London, was triggered by her disgust at her husband’s treatment of his daughter, Princess Latifa, who was captured attempting to flee the Emirate in a yacht and returned to her father last year.
The Telegraph, however, has an intriguing if unsubstantiated suggestion that Haya had ‘enraged her husband by lavishing gifts on a former British army officer.’ Who could he be?
