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Harry and Meghan “committed” to having second child
They are about to embark on a life in Los Angeles, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are also reportedly planning to have a second child to join son Archie, born last May.
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Or at least someone close to them wants to get the world talking about the possibility, and keep the spotlight on them. After all, they are in Hollywood now, baby.
“They’ll be trying in earnest pretty soon,” a source told Us Weekly of Harry and Meghan’s plans, which is a very strange, probably accidentally graphic way of putting it. “They just want to get firmly settled into their new surroundings first and give Archie as much attention as they can.”
The “insider” adds of Harry and Meghan: “They’re still enjoying these precious early days with him. They’re committed to having another baby, but don’t want to put too much pressure on the situation.”
This bizarre verbal spaghetti, we can safely assume, came from a very American “insider.”
William and Kate ready for coronavirus “frontline”
Well, this is reassuring. Sorry, novel coronavirus. The public relations wars between Harry and Meghan and William and Kate will not stop for you, or any global pandemic. There are Instagram followers and column inches to fight over!
Harry and Meghan could not have timed their royal departure for a worse moment, when their presence on the global stage—as campaigning “senior royals”—could have been powerful.
Instead, right now at least, they are on Instagram dutifully sharing World Health Organization advice, the queen’s official coronavirus statement, and also a promise to share “inspiring stories.”
With Harry and Meghan in Los Angeles, Prince Charles locked down in Scotland (where, as befits the the patron of Britain’s Red Squirrel Survival Trust, he has been enjoying house calls from the local red squirrels who he rewards with nuts, according to the Mail on Sunday) and the queen and Prince Philip in Windsor (there are renewed fears for their health following the Sun’s revelation today that a footman who had regular contact with Her Majesty has tested positive), it seems some palace spinners have decided to craft a new narrative. Kate and William are going to become the coronavirus royal heroes of the hour.
The storyline is being given its first tryout in the Sunday Mirror, where we are told the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have vowed to “do whatever they can—when the time is right.”
Hmmm, someone might want to tell them that the time is right now.
Royal sources, who seem to dig Kate and William a lot, told the Sunday Mirror: “In extraordinary times, you need an extraordinary effort. The Duke and Duchess have links to many sectors, the willingness to show unity with the country and an ability to bring people together. As other family members are out of action, they have been working flat out and stand ready on the front line to do whatever they can but when the time is right. William has spoken of his sense of duty and now, in the midst of this crisis, he feels it more than ever.”
The Telegraph also burnishes the pro-Cambridge news dump with a front-page story story flagging that William and Kate “will launch a £5million scheme today to support the nation’s mental health at a time of high anxiety during the coronavirus lockdown,” urging people to keep in touch with family and friends, sticking to regular routines, and focus on favorite hobbies or learning something new.
The Kensington Palace Twitter account also released pictures of them working the phones at their super chic home offices at KP (we love the old style phone with curly handset cables and the fact that Kate’s desk is totally laptop-free).
William, of course, has to live down being caught embarrassingly brushing off the coronavirus threat a few weeks ago in Dublin. To that end, he and Kate were recently pictured speaking to healthcare workers on the true frontline of the crisis. And their kids joined the country in giving NHS staff a round of applause—both broadcast to followers of their Instagram account.
A senior palace source said: “It was the family’s way of saying, ‘We are behind you and we thank you for all you are doing to keep the country safe.’”
How Harry and Meghan dumped “the Firm”—by email
A royal insider tells the Daily Mail this weekend, “Harry has given up everything, literally everything. He has burnt every single bridge back at home. And Meghan? Well I rather think she’s got what she wanted…”
There are more such juicy quotes and gossipy tidbits in royal correspondent Rebecca English’s essay about the cycle of events that led Harry and Meghan to leave the Royal Family.
The occasion for this illuminating essay is Harry and Meghan’s official departure from the Royal Family this Tuesday, which ordinarily would be a big deal, but with the novel coronavirus wrecking the entire planet, appears more ho-hum than anything else.
Harry and Meghan have now ditched Canada for Hollywood, so they can parlay themselves as the global celebrities around their very rich, paparazzi-magnetizing like-minded peers.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” one source said of the couple’s “complete self-absorption. The trouble is that they are so obstinate, stubborn and convinced of the righteousness of their cause, that even if Harry privately regretted it, he wouldn’t want to lose faith and admit they were wrong.”
“Megxit,” as has been posited before, is an unfair term because the couple’s detachment from the royal family is as much of Harry’s doing as Meghan’s, said English.
However, Meghan’s determination to go her own way was apparent early on; fro example at one public engagement she was attending with the queen it was made clear to her that the queen would be wearing. The inference was she was expected to as well. Meghan declined.
One royal insider told English of Harry and Meghan’s demands, “People had bent over backwards. They were given the wedding they wanted, house they wanted, office they wanted, the money they wanted, staff they wanted, tours they wanted and had the backing of their family. What more did they want?”
Harry and Meghan, for their part, “felt that the institution only wanted to trot them out to exploit their popularity when convenient. Otherwise it wanted to constrain because it was jealous and threatened by their popularity.”
‘They felt the family just couldn’t handle them,” another source told English. “They felt trapped and believed senior Establishment figures, including William, were trying to derail them.” Naturally, royal sources claim this is all balderdash.
English says Harry emailed the queen and Prince Charles in early January to tell them of his and Meghan’s plan to quit the Royal Family. Harry was told to take a moment, think, and submit a more detailed plan. His staff “pleaded” with him not to do it.
“He thought his family were stonewalling and decided to push the nuclear button,” said a source, which meant the releasing the explosive public statement that led to this point.
No longer “senior royals,” and unable to use “Sussex Royal” to market themselves, Harry and Meghan are now setting themselves up as royals-in-exile in Hollywood, feeling that the conventional Royals have treated them in a “punitive and spiteful” way. And anyway, they know George and Amal and soon Oprah, Reese, and Jen will be popping over for impromptu yoga/chai/breath-work, so F.U., stuffy posh Brits.
A source close to Meghan told English, “She grossly misjudged how culturally different the UK is from America. And then you add to that the protocol... To be fair, she didn’t really have any girlfriends to say to her, ‘If you don’t wear a hat when you are with the Queen, you are going to mess this up.’ She didn’t understand how bad it was to get something as simple as that so wrong. Harry didn’t know how to handle the situation. He would often go in to see his private secretary, Samantha Cohen, begging her to help. It was a bit of a mess.”
And it remains so, even if Prince Charles’ coronavirus diagnosis—and general sense of family pulling together, while so geographically fractured—seems to be helping all parties to, for now at least, build some bridges.
One source said Meghan had told Harry: “Archie and me are your family.”
Harry had been “hopeful” of balancing both having greater independence and royal commitments. A source told English, “But Meghan convinced him there was no other option, She forced him to choose. He has spent three months convincing himself he has done the right thing.”
Other sources tell English, “To be honest, they checked out months ago. They have their eyes on a very different prize.” And that prize is symbolized starkly in the couple’s move to Hollywood, where they can become stars, they hope, on a grand scale, running a rival royal court with added celebrity wattage.
The Mail says “a gaping wound” has been left behind, with a source bemoaning that “The Queen doesn’t deserve to be treated in this way… what they have done will have ramifications for possibly generations to come.”
As an American, Harry will have to renounce royal titles
Remember all the time, energy and angst expended by the royals on arguing about what titles Harry and Meghan should hold upon their departure from the royal family?
Aside from how disgracefully self-indulgent that debate now looks at this time of global crisis, it is all completely meaningless anyway if Harry becomes an American citizen. As the Sun points out, to become a citizen of the United States you have to agree to give up any “hereditary title” or “order or notability in any foreign country,” and as part of the Oath of Allegiance applicants have to swear to give up any allegiance to any “foreign sovereignty” such as the queen.
This week in royal history
The queen mother died on March 30, 2002, at Royal Lodge, Windsor, bringing to an end a significant chapter of royal history. The queen mother was most famed for surveying the bombing of Buckingham Palace during World War II, and saying, “I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.”
In later years, she was the best-loved royal, and was satirized by British puppet show Spitting Image as a ribald, snobby, gin-soaked grandma, with a West Midlands accent. The queen mother died just over a month after her daughter Princess Margaret in 2002; meaning the queen lost her sister and mother in quick succession. The queen mother was buried at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.
Unanswered questions
Where will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle settle in Los Angeles? What will Harry, Meghan, William, and Kate do in terms of coronavirus campaigning? What is the state of Prince Charles’ health? How are the queen and Prince Philip?
