Tom Bower – Michmutters
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The Queen: Summer Balmoral trip cut short, sparking fresh concern for the monarch’s health

Somewhere in Aberdeenshire there is a sad Shetland pony. Named Lance Corporal Cruachan IV, the diminutive equine usually gets one moment in the spotlight a year, an all-too-brief chance to bask in the glow of global media interest during which he occasionally tries to nip the Queen or eat her bouquet.

As the mascot of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, Cruachan IV usually, at this time of year, enjoys his starring role in the Regiment’s ceremonial welcome of Her Majesty to her Balmoral estate, a traditional outing involving bagpipes and lots of big smiles and which marks the official start of the sovereign’s summer holiday.

But this year both Cruachan IV and the Queen have been kept confined to barracks, so to speak.

This week it was reported that for “reasons of comfort” the ceremonial welcome happened in private but this is just the latest sign that the sovereign’s advancing years and ongoing health woes are posing an increasingly blatant impediment on usual schedule.

News that Her Majesty would not be enjoying her yearly face-to-face with Cruachan IV just tops off what has been a bit of a rotten start to her holiday; a holiday that is already shaping up to be something of a dud thanks to the machinations of Downing Street and her wayward family.

It was only at the tail end of the Queen’s summer holidays last year, a scant 12 months ago or thereabouts, that Buckingham Palace was busy touting what a packed autumn schedule of dozens and dozens of events were planned. The message was clear: The Queen is fighting fit and ready to Queen with some seriously impressive vigor and vim! Trips to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland were planned as things geared up towards her big Jubilee year from her!

That ambitious plan then collided with the reality of a woman fast approaching her centenary and since October 2021 we have had one cancellation after another with the diminutive monarchy increasingly retreating from public view.

We did not see her in Scotland for Cop26, at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day, on Commonwealth Day, Easter, at the State Opening of parliament or at the service of thanksgiving for her reign during her own Platinum Jubilee.

News that Her Majesty would not be facing down the bouquet-chomping Cruachan IV has only confirmed that things are changing, and fast, for the eleven irrepressible monarch.

However, this is the Queen we are talking about, a woman whose family has, in only the last few years, faced accusations of sexual abuse, racism, accepting millions of dollars from a controversial Middle Eastern politician and the brothers of Osama bin Laden and of “total neglect”.

The dark cloud over her vacation is that, in the months to come, Buckingham Palace faces all of these particular fires roaring back to full on blaze status.

It’s hard to think of a worse headline for any brand or business than one that ties them to the family of Bin Laden, but here we are thanks to Prince Charles and his seeming willingness to accept vast amounts of money for his Prince’s Trust charity from any stray billionaire.

In July it was reported that the Prince had accepted $1.7 million from the two of Bin Laden’s siblings, a shocking revelation that came only weeks after it was also reported by the Times he had accepted $1.7 million in cash stuffed in plastic shopping bags from a controversial Qatari politician.

Meanwhile, his former valet turned charity chief Michael Fawcett is still waiting to be questioned by Scotland Yard’s Special Inquiry Team after allegations of a cash-for-honours scheme embroiled Charles’ Clarence House last year.

Interestingly, the Prince of Wales has largely weathered these damaging reports and come out only slightly reputationally dinged, with the shocking claims have not really sparked any sort of public outcry.

The same likely won’t be able to be said when Prince Harry, the neophyte TV and podcast creator who is yet to actually, err, create anything, releases his memoir later this year.

If even a small percentage of the speculation about what he might reveal and what dirt he might dish is correct, this book is shaping up to be the most devastating royal release in 30 years and since Diana, Princess of Wales started whispering in the ear of Andrew Morton.

Given we are talking about Harry – a man who went on global TV screens alongside his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to accuse The Firm of racism and neglectful treatment at a time when thousands were dying-a-day of Covid and while his 99- year-old grandfather was in hospital – does anyone really think all we are going to get is a feel-good read? Several hundred pages of self-important bleating and the occasional smoothie recipe thrown in?

In Tom Bower’s recently released Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors he casts a particularly grim view.

He writes: “Most Britons could not understand Harry’s hostility towards his country and family. His disloyalty from him to his grandmother was particularly mystifying.

“No one realized how his hostility had grown during his conversations with John Moehringer, the ghostwriter of his memoirs. To secure vast sales and recoup the huge advance, the publishers had encouraged Harry to criticize his family of him in the most extreme terms possible. Easily persuaded, Harry edged towards betraying his father to him, Camilla, the Cambridges and even the Queen. And then, the deed was done. To earn out the publisher’s advance, nothing and no one had been sacrosanct.”

Or to paraphrase Macbeth, another disgruntled figure from royal circles, something very dangerous this way comes…

At this stage, all indications would point to Harry’s book potentially being the most painful chapter yet in the long and sorry tale of Megxit.

Then, there is another book, or at least the possibility of a book, that should be a very serious cause for concern for Her Majesty. Six months ago her son de ella Prince Andrew settled the civil sex abuse case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre with a payment that at the time was reported to be around $21 million. (The royal has always vehemently denied Ms Giuffre’s claims that he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was a teenager.)

this week The Sun reported that figure was allegedly much lower – somewhere between $5.1 and $8.6 million – and that “that was as much money the disgraced Duke could scrape together quickly to halt her civil lawsuit”.

The “cut-price deal”, according to the report, might explain why the mother-of-three Giuffre did not sign a nondisclosure agreement, meaning she is free to write a tell-all of her very own, any time she wants.

That there is even a skerrick of chance that this chapter, the most sordid and horrifying in modern royal history by far, could at any moment explode back into the headlines must be a cause for very serious concern.

All Andrew has ever done to try and manage this situation is given an appalling TV interview, showing an appealing deficiency of compassion or empathy for anyone but himself, put out a couple of statements and write a seven-figure check. If anyone thinks that this is in any case an adequate response and has drawn a definitive line under his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, or that the public is ready to move on then they are deluding themselves.

The 62-year-old is still, and will likely always be, despised by much of the world and the appetite for seeing him embarrassed or raked over the coals is unlikely to diminish anytime soon. Cue 101 book publishers with dollar-signs in their eyes.

So too has Ms Giuffre shown a steely backbone and unwavering commitment to speaking about the horrors she experienced during her time with Epstein. There is no reason to believe that she will suddenly back down or go quiet now which leaves us with the very real possibility that she might release a book of her own from her at some point.

Even if all of these swirling worries weren’t enough to blight the Queen’s holiday, then there is the fact that she will have to cut her break short thanks to the fact that the UK will get a new Prime Minister next month. On September 6, Boris Johnson will formally resign and the Daily Mail has revealed that Her Majesty will “interrupt” her holiday to pop back to London where she will “invite”, in the quaint nomenclature of royalty, the winner of the Conservative party vote to form a government.

A source told the Email: “Her Majesty does not expect the new prime minister to travel to Scotland, so the plan is that the Queen will travel down to see them.”

So much for a regal break huh?

Balmoral is agreed to be Her Majesty’s favorite home where she used to enjoy long walks and getting out into nature but in recent years her time there has been blighted by a rolling series of crises. In 2019, August saw Harry and Meghan skip the family getaway to flit about Europe in private jets and then the suicide of Epstein. Come 2020, the pandemic was in full swing and she and Philip were cosseted inside HMS Bubble and last year the monarch faced her first summer de ella without her husband of 73-years.

The poor woman must be so tired. Not only is she still working, more than three decades after most people retire, but her family de ella is a source of never ending scandal and strain with things only looking like they are going to ramp up more.

If you ask me, and no one is, what Her Majesty needs right now is not another wet week wobbling over the moors and ruminating on how it all went wrong but needs to rally her lady-in-waiting of more than 60 years Lady Susan Hussey and abscond for a 72-hour all-inclusive gals weekend to Malaga.

Sun, sand, sangria and not having to think about all the brewing Windsor scandals? Now that’s a real holiday.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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Categories
Entertainment

The Queen: Summer Balmoral trip cut short, sparking fresh concern for the monarch’s health

Somewhere in Aberdeenshire there is a sad Shetland pony. Named Lance Corporal Cruachan IV, the diminutive equine usually gets one moment in the spotlight a year, an all-too-brief chance to bask in the glow of global media interest during which he occasionally tries to nip the Queen or eat her bouquet.

As the mascot of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, Cruachan IV usually, at this time of year, enjoys his starring role in the Regiment’s ceremonial welcome of Her Majesty to her Balmoral estate, a traditional outing involving bagpipes and lots of big smiles and which marks the official start of the sovereign’s summer holiday.

But this year both Cruachan IV and the Queen have been kept confined to barracks, so to speak.

This week it was reported that for “reasons of comfort” the ceremonial welcome happened in private but this is just the latest sign that the sovereign’s advancing years and ongoing health woes are posing an increasingly blatant impediment on usual schedule.

News that Her Majesty would not be enjoying her yearly face-to-face with Cruachan IV just tops off what has been a bit of a rotten start to her holiday; a holiday that is already shaping up to be something of a dud thanks to the machinations of Downing Street and her wayward family.

It was only at the tail end of the Queen’s summer holidays last year, a scant 12 months ago or thereabouts, that Buckingham Palace was busy touting what a packed autumn schedule of dozens and dozens of events were planned. The message was clear: The Queen is fighting fit and ready to Queen with some seriously impressive vigor and vim! Trips to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland were planned as things geared up towards her big Jubilee year from her!

That ambitious plan then collided with the reality of a woman fast approaching her centenary and since October 2021 we have had one cancellation after another with the diminutive monarchy increasingly retreating from public view.

We did not see her in Scotland for Cop26, at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day, on Commonwealth Day, Easter, at the State Opening of parliament or at the service of thanksgiving for her reign during her own Platinum Jubilee.

News that Her Majesty would not be facing down the bouquet-chomping Cruachan IV has only confirmed that things are changing, and fast, for the eleven irrepressible monarch.

However, this is the Queen we are talking about, a woman whose family has, in only the last few years, faced accusations of sexual abuse, racism, accepting millions of dollars from a controversial Middle Eastern politician and the brothers of Osama bin Laden and of “total neglect”.

The dark cloud over her vacation is that, in the months to come, Buckingham Palace faces all of these particular fires roaring back to full on blaze status.

It’s hard to think of a worse headline for any brand or business than one that ties them to the family of Bin Laden, but here we are thanks to Prince Charles and his seeming willingness to accept vast amounts of money for his Prince’s Trust charity from any stray billionaire.

In July it was reported that the Prince had accepted $1.7 million from the two of Bin Laden’s siblings, a shocking revelation that came only weeks after it was also reported by the Times he had accepted $1.7 million in cash stuffed in plastic shopping bags from a controversial Qatari politician.

Meanwhile, his former valet turned charity chief Michael Fawcett is still waiting to be questioned by Scotland Yard’s Special Inquiry Team after allegations of a cash-for-honours scheme embroiled Charles’ Clarence House last year.

Interestingly, the Prince of Wales has largely weathered these damaging reports and come out only slightly reputationally dinged, with the shocking claims have not really sparked any sort of public outcry.

The same likely won’t be able to be said when Prince Harry, the neophyte TV and podcast creator who is yet to actually, err, create anything, releases his memoir later this year.

If even a small percentage of the speculation about what he might reveal and what dirt he might dish is correct, this book is shaping up to be the most devastating royal release in 30 years and since Diana, Princess of Wales started whispering in the ear of Andrew Morton.

Given we are talking about Harry – a man who went on global TV screens alongside his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to accuse The Firm of racism and neglectful treatment at a time when thousands were dying-a-day of Covid and while his 99- year-old grandfather was in hospital – does anyone really think all we are going to get is a feel-good read? Several hundred pages of self-important bleating and the occasional smoothie recipe thrown in?

In Tom Bower’s recently released Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors he casts a particularly grim view.

He writes: “Most Britons could not understand Harry’s hostility towards his country and family. His disloyalty from him to his grandmother was particularly mystifying.

“No one realized how his hostility had grown during his conversations with John Moehringer, the ghostwriter of his memoirs. To secure vast sales and recoup the huge advance, the publishers had encouraged Harry to criticize his family of him in the most extreme terms possible. Easily persuaded, Harry edged towards betraying his father to him, Camilla, the Cambridges and even the Queen. And then, the deed was done. To earn out the publisher’s advance, nothing and no one had been sacrosanct.”

Or to paraphrase Macbeth, another disgruntled figure from royal circles, something very dangerous this way comes…

At this stage, all indications would point to Harry’s book potentially being the most painful chapter yet in the long and sorry tale of Megxit.

Then, there is another book, or at least the possibility of a book, that should be a very serious cause for concern for Her Majesty. Six months ago her son de ella Prince Andrew settled the civil sex abuse case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre with a payment that at the time was reported to be around $21 million. (The royal has always vehemently denied Ms Giuffre’s claims that he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was a teenager.)

this week The Sun reported that figure was allegedly much lower – somewhere between $5.1 and $8.6 million – and that “that was as much money the disgraced Duke could scrape together quickly to halt her civil lawsuit”.

The “cut-price deal”, according to the report, might explain why the mother-of-three Giuffre did not sign a nondisclosure agreement, meaning she is free to write a tell-all of her very own, any time she wants.

That there is even a skerrick of chance that this chapter, the most sordid and horrifying in modern royal history by far, could at any moment explode back into the headlines must be a cause for very serious concern.

All Andrew has ever done to try and manage this situation is given an appalling TV interview, showing an appealing deficiency of compassion or empathy for anyone but himself, put out a couple of statements and write a seven-figure check. If anyone thinks that this is in any case an adequate response and has drawn a definitive line under his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, or that the public is ready to move on then they are deluding themselves.

The 62-year-old is still, and will likely always be, despised by much of the world and the appetite for seeing him embarrassed or raked over the coals is unlikely to diminish anytime soon. Cue 101 book publishers with dollar-signs in their eyes.

So too has Ms Giuffre shown a steely backbone and unwavering commitment to speaking about the horrors she experienced during her time with Epstein. There is no reason to believe that she will suddenly back down or go quiet now which leaves us with the very real possibility that she might release a book of her own from her at some point.

Even if all of these swirling worries weren’t enough to blight the Queen’s holiday, then there is the fact that she will have to cut her break short thanks to the fact that the UK will get a new Prime Minister next month. On September 6, Boris Johnson will formally resign and the Daily Mail has revealed that Her Majesty will “interrupt” her holiday to pop back to London where she will “invite”, in the quaint nomenclature of royalty, the winner of the Conservative party vote to form a government.

A source told the Email: “Her Majesty does not expect the new prime minister to travel to Scotland, so the plan is that the Queen will travel down to see them.”

So much for a regal break huh?

Balmoral is agreed to be Her Majesty’s favorite home where she used to enjoy long walks and getting out into nature but in recent years her time there has been blighted by a rolling series of crises. In 2019, August saw Harry and Meghan skip the family getaway to flit about Europe in private jets and then the suicide of Epstein. Come 2020, the pandemic was in full swing and she and Philip were cosseted inside HMS Bubble and last year the monarch faced her first summer de ella without her husband of 73-years.

The poor woman must be so tired. Not only is she still working, more than three decades after most people retire, but her family de ella is a source of never ending scandal and strain with things only looking like they are going to ramp up more.

If you ask me, and no one is, what Her Majesty needs right now is not another wet week wobbling over the moors and ruminating on how it all went wrong but needs to rally her lady-in-waiting of more than 60 years Lady Susan Hussey and abscond for a 72-hour all-inclusive gals weekend to Malaga.

Sun, sand, sangria and not having to think about all the brewing Windsor scandals? Now that’s a real holiday.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

.

Categories
Entertainment

Sad sign Prince Harry’s new book is going to target the Queen

The pen, at least according to playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton, is mightier than the sword but then I suppose eight-figure book deals didn’t exist in 1839 when he was busy jotting down that famous line.

Because he thinks, whether a badly chewed Bic or a Mont Blanc, might be powerful – but a humungous deal with the world’s largest publisher is even mightier still.

Currently, in some secretive computer drive protected by a password only marginally stronger than that protecting the nuclear codes, is the manuscript of Prince Harry’s memoir. Reportedly set to be released before the end of the year, the author himself has promised that he would be writing “not as the Prince I was born but as the man I have become”.

And that man have you become? Well, that man looks like he has quite the ax to grind, with new clues suggesting his book of him could be even more of a Buckingham Palace-rattling doozy than he previously thought.

The question that has started to take shape is this: Is Harry about to ‘betray’ the Queen once and for all?

Since bailing on palace life to swan around California in hulking four-wheel drives and to pay energetic lip service to the notion of service, Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have obviously done their darnedest to become the loudest and most vociferous critics of the royal family since the English Civil War.

But still, even in the face of all that, some ties with the monarchy mothership, and especially with Her Majesty, have held. After all, the Sussexes were there, albeit in the literal and figurative second row, back in June for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and they paid the 96-year-old a quickie visit back in April when they were on their way to the Netherlands.

But that was then and this is now.

As the clock ticks down to the launch of Harry’s book, will – or even can – this fragile tie hold once his autobiography lands with a thud?

‘Nothing is sacrosanct’ in Harry’s memoir

For months now there have been reports speculating about what revelations and criticisms the Duke might have been busy scribbling in his ‘My First Tell-All’ notebook.

Tom Bower, in his newly released Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsorsmakes the case that “nothing and no one” have been held “sacrosanct” by Harry in writing his book.

Uh oh… let’s hope the corgis and dorgis haven’t learned to read.

Rewind to February 6 this year, Her Majesty’s Accession Day, when the Queen made the unexpected announcement that it was her “sincere wish” that her daughter-in-law Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall would be crowned alongside her son Prince Charles.

Bower writes that in the wake of the Camilla news, “any doubts about Harry’s antagonism towards his country and family were dismissed by his stony silence” on the matter and that his “refusal to acknowledge the Queen’s decision foreshadowed the problems to come”.

According to Bower: “Occasionally, [Harry] seemed willing to betray every value he formerly held dear. No one realized how his hostility to him had grown during his conversations with John Moehringer, the ghostwriter of his memoirs of him.

“To earn the estimated advance of about $US20 million ($A28.8 million), Harry would be expected to give Moehringer emotional confessions and secret details. These would settle his scores with his family and friends with him. ”

“Among the targets besides William, Kate and Charles would be Camilla. Meghan had identified her as racist.”

In revengeBower writes that the Duke of Sussex was “[edging] towards betraying” some of the people he had been closest to.

“To secure vast sales and recoup the huge advance, the publishers had encouraged Harry to criticize his family in the most extreme terms possible,” Bower said. “Easily persuaded, Harry edged towards betraying his father, Camilla, the Cambridges and even the Queen. And then, the deed was done. To earn out the publisher’s advance, nothing and no one had been sacrosanct.”

It is that last sentence that is the most ominous.

If what Bower reports is correct, then it sounds like the Duke of Sussex’s book could go even further than the denunciations of the monarchy and his family that he and Meghan have wheeled out thus far. (You know, the sensational charges of palace racism, “total neglect” and a callous disregard for the wellbeing of The Firm’s most vulnerable members.)

Who is in Harry’s firing line?

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Daily Mail‘s very well connected Richard Kay has reported that “there is considerable anxiety in Buckingham Palace circles that Harry, 37, will use the memoir to settle perceived scores with family members and senior courtiers.”

“It is the disintegration of the bond between him and William over the past three years which has so alarmed courtiers.”

One person who has routinely been named as a possible target of Harry’s literary ire is Camilla.

According to Kay, “Five years ago, long before he had thought about writing a book, Harry invited friends of his mother to share memories and private photographs of her.

“One at least had a lengthy discussion with him about Camilla.”

“It was pretty clear that he did not have a high opinion of her,” Diana’s friend later told Kay. “He wasn’t very complimentary about her and I very much doubt he forgot what we talked about that day.”

Blow to the heart of the monarchy

If you take Bower and Kay’s claims together, then it is looking increasingly like the seemingly perma-disgruntled Prince will be pulling no punches on the page when it comes to his family and the monarchy.

And what that means is that, even if he only writes in the most glowing and affectionate terms about his grandmother herself, his memoir could be an abject betrayal of Her Majesty.

Should Harry spend a chunk of his book taking aim at particular family members and various pinstriped staffers who run the royal dog-and-pony show, that would still constitute a strike against the woman who is the head of both the House of Windsor and the institution of the monarchy.

Anything that humiliates or undermines the monarchy indirectly humiliates or undermines the Top Lady (as Diana called her mother-in-law).

Or to quote Louis XIV, “l’etat, c’est Moi,” which translates to “the state is me”.

If Harry does go down this route, then it would be a watershed moment, the sort of line to which there is a very clear ‘before’ and a dramatically different ‘after’.

In this scenario, it is hard to see how he could ever go back in any sense.

In early 2021, Harry appeared on James Corden’s Late Late Show in a dignity-defying appearance (who could ever forget him asking a complete stranger if he could use their loo?) and revealed that the Queen had given the Sussex family a waffle maker for Christmas. This year, will any household appliances be winging their way from Windsor to California?

So, so much is on the line with this book and it might turn out that in 2022, a huge check might end up being the mightiest force of them all.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Read related topics:Prince HarryQueen Elizabeth II

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Kate and William at Commonwealth Games shows where Meghan went wrong

Of all the gin joints, chintzy drawing rooms, Chelsea pub back rooms, Norfolk kitchens, and private members’ clubs in the UK; of all possible backdrops for a couple of deeply illuminating royal moments, whoever would have thought the 22nd Commonwealth Games in Birmingham would be it?

The first one took place outside a train toilet. really.

Matthew Syed is a journalist and Commonwealth Games gold medal winner – for table tennis, no less. This week, he and his son Ted were traveling to the Games to catch the action and he took to the pages of the Times to recount a truly extraordinary tale about the trip.

“Five minutes before pulling into [the Birmingham station], I use the bathroom (we are traveling first class) as Ted waits outside. As I am doing my thing, I hear him talking to a woman in the vestibule.

“They continue chatting as I use the soap, then tap, then dryer. Judging by the laughter, they are having a whale of a time… By the time I am finished, we are only a couple of minutes from the station.

“’Come on Ted,’ I say, ‘we have to get off!’

“’Oh, and thanks for keeping him company,’ I say, turning to the woman waiting [for] her turn when I am stopped in my tracks. My brow furrows, my face works. ‘Kate?’ I blurt out. There are no security guards in the vestibule; not armed guards. But here is the Duchess of Cambridge, chatting merrily with my son.”

Then we get to our second moment, starring Kate’s husband, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge in a chlorine-soaked aquatic center.

On Tuesday, the Duke, the Duchess and their daughter Princess Charlotte attended the swimming. While sitting in the middle of the crowd, he happily posed for a selfie with a group of Games volunteers who were seated in front of him.

Now, both of these instances could be filed under ‘Aw, aren’t they lovely?’ examples of two people who might be destined for coronations and crowns but who have not let their elevated status turn their heads.

But, this all comes after the publication of Tom Bower’s Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsorsa 464-page full-frontal take-down of Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

And this week’s William and Kate stories? Those two, simple, brief interactions with the public? Well, they go a way to underscoring one of his key arguments about him, which is that Meghan’s expectations of royal life were a world away from the often unglamorous reality. Think, more making polite chitchat outside a public loo than private jets and Pol Roger.

At the heart of Bower’s book is the contention that when Meghan, clad in several hundred thousand dollars worth of couture Givenchy, made her way up the aisle of the 15th century St George’s Chapel at Windsor, she had little understanding of, or interest in learning about, the fabled institution she was joining.

Having, for so many long years, failed to claw her way out of the B-list, here she was, finally, about to become one of the most famous women in the world. The case that Bower makes is that the California native’s assumptions about what would follow were markedly different from what was, in actual fact, about to come next.

In Bower’s telling, even before the opening strains of Handel’s Eternal Source Of Light Divinewhich played as she made her way towards the altar, things were going off the rails.

Pre-engagement, when the couple was dating, Bower says that after “Harry’s demand for a dedicated female bodyguard for Meghan had been approved” that on one occasion, he met the Duke “on the tarmac at Heathrow with a police escort”.

“Meghan sped out of the airport towards Kensington. This was indeed the super-celebrity lifestyle for which she had always yearned.”

Then in the run-up to the big day, Meghan already “was confusing being famous with being a royal,” he writes. However, “the royal world is expected to be one of altruism, history, tradition and low-key patronage for no personal gain.”

Meghan’s misconception, in Bower’s reading of the situation, is that she fundamentally mistook the global fame of the royal family with Hollywood stardom, not grasping that, despite having become a Duchess and been catapulted to the highest stratosphere of stardom, she was not therefore automatically entitled to Beyonce-worthy treatment.

Take the issue of luxury gifts. Bower writes: “Palace gossip related that the publicity departments of some famous designer labels – Chanel, Dior, Armani, Givenchy and others – had been surprised by calls from a member of Meghan’s staff with a request: Meghan would be delighted if the House were to bequeath a handbag, shoes or an accessory to Kensington Palace in the near future. These items would be treated as goodwill gifts, the publicists were told. The women were puzzled by what they called ‘the Duchess’s discount’.

“In the past, their offers of gifts to Kate had been rejected on principle that the royal family did not accept freebies. Meghan’s staff, it appeared, were not worried about that rule.”

The veteran biographer writes that it would only be in 2019 that the Duchess “began to understand that the British monarchy, costing the public just £85 million ($A148 million) a year, was neither flush with money nor an invincible luxury Rolls-Royce machine. The power and influence which she assumed to have acquired from her marriage to Harry was an illusion.”

In the summer of that same year, one particular Meghan incident made international headlines. Attending Wimbledon with a couple of friends, their party de ella sat in the middle of a sea of ​​empty seats for a match, unlike when Kate regularly attended and took her place de ella in the stands, sitting in the midst of other tennis fans.

At one stage during the match, when a man sitting in the section in front of Meghan’s, got up to take a selfie of himself with the players, one of the Duchess’ protection officers “warned him about taking pictures in her vicinity,” according to the Daily Mail.

Former BBC sports commentator Sally Jones was also courtside.

“I felt this tap on my shoulder and was asked not to take pictures of the Duchess – but I had no idea she was there until then. I was absolutely gobsmacked,” Jones told the Email.

That Meghan took umbrage (or someone on her team took umbrage) at anyone trying to take her picture, despite that she had chosen to sit in a public place, where there were live TV cameras, looked all too much like suspiciously diva-ish behaviour. .

Contrast that scene with the events this week in Birmingham: In each instance, we have members of the royal family, at sporting events yet demonstrating two starkly different approaches to royalty.

At the end of the day, what William and Kate seem to fundamentally understand is that royalty is not the same thing as celebrity; it is not about special treatment, favorable seats or four-figure accessories finding their way into your wardrobe, free. It is about tedious devotion to duty no matter how repetitive or dull it might often be. (How many times do you think the Queen has asked, “And what do you do?” In her life de ella? I think we could confidently say the figure would have to be in the hundreds of thousands.)

The meat and potatoes of royal life is not swanning off to New York for an A-list baby shower held in a $100,000-a-night hotel suite but sitting through hospital wing openings and charming pensioners.

Really, HRHs are part public servants, albeit ones who don’t have to contend with home brand tea bags in the office kitchen, and part politicians stuck on lifelong hustings, forever trying to win the public over one handshake and smile at a time.

None of this is any sort of secret; none of this is insider knowledge. So why wasn’t Meghan better prepared?

One of the points that the Duchess of Sussex made during the Sussexes’ infamous Oprah Winfrey interview last year was that she “didn’t do any research about what that would mean” to marry into the royal family.

“I didn’t feel any need to, because everything I needed to know, he was sharing with me. Everything we thought I needed to know, he was telling me,” Meghan said.

That turned out to be a bit of a mistake now kids, didn’t it?

That an intelligent, educated woman would give up her career, adopted homeland, one of her dogs, and all of her friends to move across the world to dedicate her life to an ancient institution she knew nothing about defies all logic.

If she had done even a cursory Google search, she might have come across an excellent piece that Patrick Jephson, Diana, Princess of Wales’ long-time private secretary, had written way back in 2006 called “What Kate Should Know” in which he imagined what advice his old boss might give the younger woman.

Jepshon argues that the Princess would have urged Kate, that “modesty must be your watchword” and to “go easy on the conspicuous consumption”.

He writes: “Remember that living in a very big house surrounded by servants and riding in a gold carriage are all the excess that your future subjects will readily tolerate in their royal family. Don’t overlook the priceless symbolic value of Tupperware boxes, and try to develop a famous enthusiasm for turning off unnecessary electric lights.”

The piece (you can read it here) is basically a very sensible warning: Don’t let the gilded trappings of royalty go to your head. Understand the job for what it really is and get on with it.

If only Meghan had read Jephson’s piece; if only she had gone into royal life with a much clearer sense of what she was signing up for. That’s not to say ella she should have swallowed it holus bolus once she got there or not have tried to inject at least something fresh into the creaky monarchy – but forewarned is forearmed.

If Meghan had done a spot of Googling, she might also have come across the famous essay written by the journalist and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge in 1955 at the height of Princess Margaret’s fling with Group Captain Peter Townsend. In the piece, Muggeridge argued that “the application of film star techniques” to the royal family would ultimately have “disastrous consequences”.

He also said that the monarchy was “an institution that is accorded the respect and accoutrements of power without the reality”.

And, if the former Suits star had read a bit more still, she would have learned that the reaction to Muggeridge’s essay was so swift and furious it forced him out of the Garrick Club. (What a horrendous!)

Taking on the monarchy is not for the faint-hearted but joining it? That’s for people happy to take trains, make small talk with the public and to pretend to like watching competitive bowls.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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Royal author claims Prince Harry married Meghan Markle to be ‘like’ Princess Diana

A royal biographer has made a wild claim that Prince Harry married Meghan Markle “as an alternative to his mother” Princess Diana.

During Sunday’s episode of GB News’ Real Britain with Darren Grimesavailable to stream on Flash, author Angela Levin weighed on newly released book Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors.

The latest royal book written by Tom Bower has caused an uproar, criticizing the Duchess of Sussex on numerous occasions.

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Levin was asked if she thinks the former Suits actress is the victim of a media witch hunt.

“I don’t think it’s a witch hunt. We all loved her when we arrived, we were all thrilled Harry found someone to love and who loved him,” she said on the program

“I was one of the presenters of the wedding and I watched her with hawk eyes for 10 hours and I was thrilled to bits she joined the Royal Family.

“However, since then she’s rejected us very firmly.

“She’s rejected the country, it’s too small and she wants to talk globally.

“She’s rejected our Royal Family who most of us love and respect and I think she’s made a very difficult place for herself.

“One of the problems that I think is one of the causes is that Harry sees as an alternative to his mother and that she’s more like Diana than he could have possibly wished for.”

Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Twitter users were quick to hit back at Levin over her comments.

“Where does this woman dream up this nonsense…?!?!?,” one person wrote.

“Lord have mercy on this woman. They’re more issues in the world right now than H&M. Move on Angela,” another said.

“Meghan bashing on steroids there Angela. Leave this couple alone,” a third person wrote.

“He chose who he wanted to marry. You are not a happiness or marriage expert and should stop attacking Meghan.

“Well if not for Meghan some of us would never know you.”

A fourth person added: “Enough of this drivel.”

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s unprecedented pressure after 12 hellish days

The very best thing about being Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, right now, as far as I can tell, is that no one is going to make them go to Birmingham. On Friday, the Commonwealth Games opened in the Midlands city and in the coming days, various members of the royal family will be sent forth to do their flag-waving best.

Never mind that much of Europe is busy slathering on the SPF 50 or that the Queen has begun her usual summer hols or that the beaches of Mustique are calling. To be a working member of the British monarchy this week requires that all available HRHs front up while looking jolly pleased to have to wear a Team GB polo shirt and watch badminton.

Having absconded more than two and a half years ago for sunnier climes and fatter bank accounts, this sort of tedious duty is no longer part of the Sussexes’ lives.

Small mercies, huh?

However, aside from the fact that the couple won’t have to contend with so much polyester and so many hours of archery anytime soon, things are not exactly looking that rosy over Montecito way, with the couple having taken hit after hit over the last 12 days or so.

Rewind to July 18 and Harry and Meghan were jetting into New York where they had an appointment at the UN, with the duke having been asked to give the address to mark Nelson Mandela Day. In the couple strode to the famed building’s foyer, a masterful demonstration of what has become a hallmark of their post-royal careers – purposefully marching into the important buildings for supposedly important meetings and events after which … nothing much would seem to happen.

Anyway, they were back! Back at doing their quasi-royal darnedest! Harry had a speech, Meghan had a Jackie O-esque black dress – what could possibly go wrong?

Well, for one thing, not that many people turned up. As the Duke of Sussex gave his address to him, talking about climate change (conveniently forgetting that the family uses private jets on the reg), disinformation and abortion rights (all the good stars on these fronts) the vast majority of the seats were visibly empty.

For whatever reason, the bulk of the great and good of the international body would seem to have decided to be elsewhere and not watch the sixth in line to the throne have a crack at international statesmanship. (Maybe the UN cafeteria was serving waffles?)

If Harry looked grim when the couple was caught by the paparazzi leaving Italian restaurant Locanda Verde, he had every reason to look sour. That week saw the publication of biographer Tom Bower’s Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors.

Bower’s book is a largely unrelenting, highly unflattering take on the Sussexes, casting them as fueled by ego and some misguided notion that Meghan was going to be Diana mark two, aside from the fact that, in the biographer’s telling, she seemed to have no interest in the monarchy, no willingness to learn its fusty ropes and little enthusiasm for the boring parts of HRH-dom.

As the week progressed, Bower did the press rounds, offering a series of caustic takes including that he thought “they pose a real threat to the royal family” and labeling the duchess “a very scheming” person.

What is surprising has been the reaction from Montecito, with the Sussexes having so far not commented. While in the past, the duo have filed multiple court cases against various media outlets and sent out legal letters during the storm over their daughter Lilibet’s name, however in this instance they have remained staunchly silent.

Then came the development playing out in a court in Florida when lawyers for the duchess got into the “subjective” nature of truth. Earlier this year, the former actress was sued by her estranged half-sister Samantha Markle for allegedly telling “false and malicious lies” during her bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview last year.

This week, the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers moved to dismiss the case, with legal papers filed by their side arguing that Meghan’s description of growing up “as an only child” during the interview was “obviously not meant to be a statement of objective fact” and was “a textbook example of a subjective statement about how a person feels about her childhood.”

While it’s an argument that has more than a tinge of Philosophy 101 (what is truth?) this strategy then raises an obvious question: If Meghan’s characterization about her upbringing was “subjective” then were any of the other devastating claims she made during the two -hour tell-all “subjective” too?

One bright spot on the horizon for the duo during all this was Harry’s successful appeal to the High Court for a judicial review over the Home Office’s decision to no longer automatically grant him full-time bodyguards when he is in the UK.

Except, even this was not exactly a slam dunk; just because the review was granted does not mean it will automatically be successful.

Then there is the cost of the whole legal imbroglio. the Sun has reported that the UK government has spent $156,000 on the case from September last year to May 2020. If Harry’s costs are similar then that would mean he has also spent well into the six figures to argue the case over his security arrangements which only pertain to the handful of days per year he has spent, on average, in the UK since quitting.

That bill could only go up if he ultimately loses the case, with the Home Office having previously said it will look to recover costs if they win.

While August is a traditionally quiet month on the Planet Royal, the rest of the year is shaping up to be a barnstormer of a doozy.

Harry is looking down the barrel of some of the most monumental months of his life since the sonic boom of Megxit, with news his memoir will be published before Christmas and with Page Six having reported that Netflix wants the couple’s “at home” docu series (shush you in the back there yelling “reality show”!) to hit screens this year too.

This book and show will very likely prove to be huge commercial successes for the couple, much needed professional wins after having released exactly no content up until this point for the streaming giant, since 2020 – but at what cost?

If either or both of these projects are focused on little more than the Sussexes launching a fresh volley of complaints about their treatment by the royal family, interspersed with some vignettes of them doing some caring, then they could be playing with fire.

If this scenario came to pass, they would run the risk of looking dangerously like little more than perpetual whingers who are clinging to the self-appointed victim status inside their $20 million mansion at a time when war, fire, floods and monkeypox are blighting the world.

Then there is what toll these two releases could take for his tattered relationship with House of Windsor, a bond that is reportedly hanging by a thread.

as the Sun’s former royal editor Duncan Lacrombe recently told the Daily Beast: “Once the book is out, William will have to make a decision about what he is going to do about Harry, but he is not going to do a thing until he knows what is on.” every page of that book. The reality is that if, as a senior member of the royal family, you have written a tell-all book, you have broken rule No. 1 of the royal family.”

If Harry’s book and/or their Netflix series sees them paint big fresh targets on the monarchy’s backs then will Queen & co. sit idly by and suffer through a fresh hellish round of monarchical character assassinations?

Thus far the Sussexes’ repeated media provocations have been met with a certain imperiousness and contrived dismissiveness from London but should the duke and duchess continue to bait the royal family but we might soon discover that The Firm has some very sharp teeth.

For example, the duo do still, of course, use their gifted Sussex titles from the Queen, day in and day out. While only parliament could officially revoke those titles, that is not to say the weight of the Crown and Harry’s father and brother could not be brought to bear pressure on them to no longer use them.

Would Prince Harry and Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor (or Prince Harry and Princess Henry of Wales) as they could only then call themselves be quite so marketable for Hollywood?

There is so much on the line for them in the coming month – their image, reputations, careers and potentially even a large chunk of money. But, there is always a sliver lining: At least no one is going to be making them sit through a table tennis match any time soon.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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