It was all going so well. A curated couple in matching beige wowing a carefully selected crowd in Australia with a heady mix of celebrity and charity. “Just call me Meg,” insisted the duchess on the first day. Apparently, the penny had dropped, Meghan finally understood that on a not “royal” tour she can’t stand on ceremony. Sick children smiled, and dear Haz gladhanded at a veteran’s museum with abundant charisma. Hurrah, the House of Montecito are here! Day one of their Australian tour was a surprising slam-dunk for brand Sussex.
So where did it all go wrong?
Yesterday the headlines curdled, the temperature rose, and by all accounts, it is not just Brits who are furious. How dare the Sussexes inflict a “faux royal tour” on Australians already unable to decide which side of the monarchy line they sit. For Harry and Meghan to re-enter such a fragile ecosystem was always going to be risky. Having enjoyed a full-fat royal visit to Australia in 2018 to universal acclaim, the stakes were high.
Meghan and Harry visit a mental health engagement programme during their tour of Australia (AP)
If these days the couple are no longer part of the monarchy, then what are they exactly? Cosplaying royals? Profiteering celebrities? Do they bat for Team America? Or just Team Sussex? How to square the circle of a touring prince who is not a working prince but who is still a prince? It is a challenging question, and one Harry proved unable to answer.
Cue the Duke at a lectern intoning to a room of Australian business leaders: “After my mum died just before my 13th birthday – I was like ‘I don’t want this job. I don’t want this role – wherever this is headed, I don’t like it.” Here, you are forgiven for asking, “if you didn’t like the job Harry, why have you replicated that same job on a repeat tour in a constitutional monarchy?”
Miles from home, in a challenging landscape, blinded by his own privilege, and never a great thinker, the giant contradiction at the heart of the Duke’s angry thesis roared to the surface once more, breaking the hearts of monarchists and serving red meat to republicans. If only Harry and Meghan could acknowledge that their lives are gilded in exorbitant privilege thanks to their intersection with monarchy, a hangover which they wear daily: their titles, their inherited jewels, their well-documented royal back story. Instead, they lament their former difficulties while replicating much of their former lives. Argh! Cue more of the very same trolls that Meghan claims she ran away from when she left the House of Windsor. Make it make sense!
For those of us who long to move the script forward, this is more than cognitive dissonance; it is a reminder of why the Sussexes have ultimately set back the cause of much-needed reform in the institution of monarchy. Their truth-to-power departure in 2020 was a potential moment of reckoning for the House of Windsor. A chance to open up the doors and let in the light, to root out cronyism, encourage financial transparency and lean into a new democratic age.
Harry is an uncomfortable reminder of why our working royals are tightly scripted, who say it best when they say virtually nothing at all
But six years on, the self-involved, repetitive woes of Harry have failed to move the dial towards progress. There is no fresh new narrative, or alternative model. Harry continues to operate in the royal mould; he is still platformed thanks to his extraordinary start in life, as he sashays around the world, resting on his blue-blooded laurels. The only difference is that nowadays the Duke is paid with private money, not through the public purse. He has to sing for his supper, with tickets to hear Harry talk about his dislike of royal life selling for a cool AU$997.
“So what?” you may well think. Better to be remunerated openly and honestly for a speaking gig than to acquire money through extraneous, illicit means. The problem is that Harry, operating off piste with nothing new to say bar a few more parenting observations, tells us that when let out of their royal cage, princes are just a self-involved version of ordinary.
His series of banal utterances merely serves to further diminish the once transcendent glamour of monarchy. In short, Harry is an uncomfortable reminder of why our working royals are tightly scripted, who say it best when they say virtually nothing at all. The King’s much-anticipated speech to Congress in a couple of weeks is a case in point – brains in the Foreign Office are no doubt already fine-tuning their platitudes. In contrast, the Duke, with an unscripted surround-sound of his own making, doesn’t stand a chance.
The couple pose for a picture during the Scar Tree Walk in Melbourne (AP)
The upshot isn’t only a downgrade for the Sussexes, it tarnishes the entire royal edifice. Once upon a time in 2018, the couple were a smash hit in Australia – a unifying national glue that spread the love from one continent to another – we basked in the reflective glory of our monarchy and Australia’s monarchy too! How times have changed.
These days, Harry and Meghan are working for themselves, Britain is out of the picture, and Australia in a sulk. The cost of security has proved divisive (a petition against that burden numbers tens of thousands of signatures). The country struggles to acknowledge the fantastic free advert the pair have bestowed upon their great nation – sunlit Australia is all over the international news. No matter, nowadays, split in two, the royal family no longer encourages international unity, but rather feeds echo chambers and angry silos looking for something to rage against.
If Harry and Meghan stand for a nepo-baby new age opulence, our old school working royals have been pushed further into a once green and pleasant land now occupied by flag-waving, rigid little Englanders who won’t tolerate change or criticism of any kind. Next stop America for a state visit with a warlord leader of the once free world – the optics that come with a president who professes to love the King, but loathes the Pope will prove uncomfortable to say the least.
In the land of Oz: The purpose of the couple’s recent trip is somewhat unclear (AP)
Gone are the days when the monarchy offered an alternative to a brace of strongmen operating with impunity. Instead, the option is a them-or-us version of royalty. And the posturing of the Sussexes this week has further diminished a unique national feature that once helped us feel good about ourselves. The problem is personified by Meghan, who looked every bit the Duchess at a lunch for the homeless in Melbourne, her slender wrist adorned with Diana’s Cartier watch, and her neat frame showcasing a dress by Karen Gee, an Australian designer. But without the bulwark of the British state and the protection of the palace walls to conveniently buffet away awkward questions, who and what is it all for? An Instagram moment? A paycheque? Or a calling?
And if we ask those questions of Meghan and Harry, then it is only fair we ask them of William and Kate, of the King and Queen. By pulling at the royal tapestry one stitch at a time, the danger is the whole facade starts to fray. Arguably, it already has. These days, Meghan and Harry are just a sideshow, a harbinger of what could come as less deferential generations push forward and demand value for money and transparency from an institution rocked by a curious cocktail of Epstein-induced scandals and family feuds.
Perhaps the monarchists among us are hoping for too much when we pray for a reconciliation that will take the sting out of the Sussexes’ showboating and help redeem the embattled working royals. While it may be the stuff of nightmares for Kate and William, if silver linings are what you are looking for, the optimists believe the couple’s joint tour of Australia is a dummy run for a return to Britain this summer. If that’s the case, as a conciliatory gesture, perhaps the King could lend Harry his speech writer?
Tessa Dunlop is the author of ‘Elizabeth and Philip, the story of young love, marriage and monarchy’