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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle can even make the rain look good.
As they arrived at London’s Mansion House on Thursday evening for the Endeavor Fund Awards, a heavy squall burst over them.
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In the photos that flashed around social media within seconds of their arrival, the flashguns of photographers and camera phones lit up the drops of falling water like diamonds.
It was an entirely random trick of the light, to be sure, but the extraordinary pictures highlighted, most effectively, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s effortless brand of showstopping glamour.
The Awards honor wounded servicemen and women who have used sport or adventurous challenges to help in their recovery.
In presenting the Celebrating Excellence Award, Meghan (dressed in a fitted turquoise Victoria Beckham dress) said: “It’s very nice to be back. It’s the third year I’ve had the incredible fortune of joining my husband here. It’s just the most inspiring space. When we were watching the videos all the way in Canada we had the same moment of ‘How are you going to choose?’ Well, we’ve done our best.”
Meghan and Harry’s glamour is one that the royal family has not known since the era of Diana. The royals greeted its injection, and the promise it held of staying relevant in the era of global celebrity, with enthusiasm, but were ultimately unable to hold on to its purveyors.
Looking at those pictures, one can’t help but hope that some at the palace will realize the enormity of their mistake in failing to come to a more inclusive accommodation with the Sussexes (although some will doubtless seize on the one very loud boo heard emanating from the crowd outside as evidence of the damage that the Sussexes have done to the royal brand).
As Harry himself said in a speech at his beloved Sentebale charity days after the news broke: “Our hope was to continue serving the Queen, the commonwealth, and my military associations, but without public funding. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible.”
If Meghan looked fabulous on Thursday night, she had also looked happy and confident earlier in the day as she walked out of the Goring Hotel in central London, dressed in a full length camel-colored coat, and sporting a pair of shoes that were quickly identified as costing over $800.
It is believed that she and Harry, who left the hotel a few moments ahead of her, had lunch at the hotel but are not staying there, instead residing at their Windsor bolthole, Frogmore Cottage, the charming four bedroom, Georgian villa that he and Meghan once hoped to make their family home.
Last week, Harry went to Buckingham Palace, where, it is said, he then spent four hours with the Queen, dining on a typically austere lunch of poached salmon and boiled potatoes.
Harry was building bridges with his grandmother after the violent upheavals of recent months.
The meeting, by all accounts went well and ended with HM assuring Harry that, should he ever desire it, a way back for him, Meghan and his son Archie would be found. On Wednesday he was spotted leaving Buckingham Palace, and although it has not been confirmed if he touched base with his grandmother again, the fact that she was at the palace at the same time as him suggests it is not an unlikely eventuality.
Speculation has now turned to whether Meghan will be invited to a similar reconciliatory sit-down, as she makes her final visit to the U.K. this weekend as a senior royal.
While palace sources refused to comment on the private diary arrangements of Meghan, it is thought she will be hunkering down at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor with Harry, and the rumor is that Meghan is unlikely to have any formal private meetings with senior members of the royal family over the next few days.
This would be a mistake on the palace’s part.
As the writer Christopher Andersen, who wrote the New York Times—best selling portrait of Harry and Meghan, Diana’s Boys told The Daily Beast via email: “Just looking at the photos of Meghan and Harry bringing their star power, fashion sense, and glam quotient back to Britain, it’s easy to see why the Queen hasn’t gotten over their abrupt departure. Not to denigrate the contribution the Cambridges make, but William and Kate are really looking almost dowdy by comparison.
“The Royal Family is all about glitz and charisma, and whatever you think about the Sussexes, these are qualities they have in abundance. If the monarchy is to continue to thrive, the Windsors need Harry and Meghan back in the royal fold.”
It is likely to have been a massively emotional few days for Harry, as he closes the door on his old life forever, saying farewell to an existence that was mapped out for him at birth, and that he threw everything into for as long as he could.
Of course it’s not the case that Harry has been blithely caught in the slipstream of Meghan’s decision to walk away from it all, as some of the anti-Meghan British media have been making out, it’s more the case, as one source told The Daily Beast that she has given him “an alibi” to leave, and given him, also, the courage to make a leap he has long dreamed about.
As Harry himself said in that sad speech at his Sentebale charity: “There really was no other option.”
It will be a huge wrench for Harry to leave all his family and friends (even though he rarely hangs out with his old gang of rabble-rousers these days) and move overseas. Meghan, on the other hand, has made no secret of her feeling that it's a blessed relief to be free of it all, with friends briefing that Meghan felt that living within the royal confines was “soul crushing.”
A particularly emotional moment will come on Saturday night when Harry wears, for what will likely be the very last time, his military uniform, when attending the annual Mountbatten Festival of Music at the Royal Albert Hall, which is a fundraiser for the Royal Marines, of which Harry will cease to be Captain General when his transition to private citizen completes.
Harry seemed to be casting forward to that moment when he stepped up to the podium and presented the big award of the night to a serviceman who then spoke movingly about the horrors of PTSD.
Harry then took the mic again—and there was no mistaking the sadness in his eyes as he declared: “Being able to serve Queen and country is something that we are all rightly proud of, and it never leaves us. Once served, always serving.”
You could hear a pin drop in the room. Harry couldn’t be making it more clear that he wants to continue serving the Queen. If the royals have any sense, they will find a way to allow him to do it.
