If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, a members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox on Sunday.
Meghan and Harry keeping quiet, for now
It’s reasonable to expect Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to be ecstatic about the Biden victory—Meghan called him “divisive” and “misogynistic,” after all—although The Daily Beast understands there is unlikely to be any briefing, official or unofficial, coming out of Montecito.
ADVERTISEMENT
The couple and their advisers were, perhaps naively, stung by the anger and outrage that their rather anodyne, deeply uncontroversial pre-election messages triggered.
Despite their well-known political affiliations, they essentially said nothing more controversial than, “get out and vote,” and despite some claims of deep concern in the palace, the truth is that Harry and Meghan’s messages were greeted with a rather less exciting emotion: irritation. Even Britain’s leading constitutional scholar, Vernon Bogdanor, no slouch when it comes to chastising infractions of magisterial duty, said their various videos and appeals were well within the bounds of propriety.
“Members of the Royal Family other than the queen are not bound by the advice of ministers,” he said at the time, “They can act and speak as they wish so long as in doing so they do not embarrass the queen. Clearly this means that they must abstain from any partisan comments. But the advice to Americans to vote is in no way partisan.”
Well, quite. And to be frank, one imagines that it is a bit of relief to everyone in the palace that they won’t have to host Trump again. There was none of the chemistry between the Trumps and the queen that there was, for example, with the Obamas.
Still, we should not expect Meghan to fall silent now that a Biden victory has been achieved. Her activism “won’t end after the U.S. election” because she feels “encouraging people to get involved” is “important,” her spokesperson told Insider.
The spokesperson said: “Part of being an active member of society is to take part in the democratic process. So encouraging people to get involved in politics is something that is important.”
Harry wreath request refused
Prince Harry’s request to have a wreath laid on his behalf at Britain's Remembrance Sunday service was turned down.
The Sunday Times reports that Harry “was denied by courtiers on the grounds that he is no longer representing the monarchy.” The queen was not made aware of the request or its decline, and Harry has been left “deeply saddened,” given his decade of military service and links to veterans’ organizations.
The decision, the newspaper said, is “the clearest sign yet that his official links to the royal family are permanently severed.”
The queen made a socially distant balcony appearance for one of the biggest, most important and most somber days in the royal calendar, which took place today.
Her Majesty, dressed all in black, stood on the balcony of the Foreign Office in London’s Whitehall.
Below, her son, Prince Charles, laid a wreath of poppies on London’s Cenotaph—the United Kingdom’s official national war memorial. He was also watched by his wife Camilla, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Princess Anne, and Prince Edward and wife Sophie. Prince Andrew, needless to say, was not present.
Also in attendance: Boris Johnson and the other leaders of Britain’s political parties, some of whom were also invited to lay wreaths on the monument along with other senior military and establishment figures including former prime ministers.
All attendees, including members of the military and the bands, observed a distance of 6 feet between each other, although some will feel that an opportunity to show leadership was missed by the decision for this to be a mask-free event.
Although not lacking in dignity and moment, the inevitably subdued nature of Remembrance Sunday 2020 was rather sad, given that it had been destined to be an especially important, even glorious, iteration of the event. (There was no march past by 10,000 civilians as in previous years, for example.)
The First World War ended at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, and this year marked not just the hundred-year anniversary of the erection of the Cenotaph, but also the centenary of the interment of the body of an unknown soldier Westminster Abbey on that day as well.
Before the pandemic, a huge event had been planned to mark the centennial with a special service on Armistice Day (Wednesday) and a procession echoing elements of the original journey of the unknown British serviceman’s body as it was transported from Northern France to London before being placed on a gun carriage drawn by six black horses through London’s streets and carried to its final resting place.
Over the course of the summer, it became increasingly apparent that such a huge event was going to be impossible. A smaller ceremony is now scheduled to take place on Wednesday at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior, but with Britain having gone into a four-week national lockdown on Thursday, there was no way the queen would have been able to attend.
Instead, a secret operation was launched on Wednesday, just hours before the new lockdown kicked in. Her Majesty was spirited to London from Windsor on Wednesday morning, heading to the Abbey, where she was received by the Dean at 11:45 a.m. Lt. Col. Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah laid a bouquet of flowers on the grave. News of the visit and pictures were released today. The queen is wearing a black coat, hat and gloves—and a mask.
Farewell, Rabbi Lord Sacks
Prince Charles had another somber duty this weekend, issuing a statement of condolence on the untimely death from cancer of Britain’s revered former chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks.
In a statement shared by Clarence House, Prince Charles wrote: “It was with the most profound personal sorrow that I heard of the death of Rabbi Lord Sacks. With his passing, the Jewish community, our nation, and the entire world have lost a leader whose wisdom, scholarship and humanity were without equal. His immense learning spanned the sacred and the secular, and his prophetic voice spoke to our greatest challenges with unfailing insight and boundless compassion.
“His wise counsel was sought and appreciated by those of all faiths and none, and he will be missed more than words can say. Although Rabbi Lord Sacks’ death is a cause of the greatest possible sadness, we give thanks for the immeasurable contribution which—in the tradition of the most revered teachers of the Jewish people—he made to all our lives.”
This week in royal history
Happy birthday, Prince Charles who turns 72 on Saturday. The heir has survived coronavirus this year. So has son Prince William. Prince Harry is now in California. And still, he awaits the throne. Prince Charles really does deserve some kind of durability award.
Unanswered questions
What does the coronavirus mean for the likelihood of a state visit by Joe Biden to the U.K.? Britain has always sought to use the promise of a meeting with the queen to persuade American presidents to make the U.K. an early foreign priority, but when you look at the age/risk profiles of the queen (94) and Biden (78 later this month) you have to wonder if this is a meeting that will ever happen.
