Devoted to self service: JAN MOIR says farewell to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Oh no, not the patronages! Anything but the patronages. Please, Your Majesty, don’t take the patronages away from us, we are begging you.

This is exactly what many imagine the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did not say when news came through that they had lost their last official duties and ties as working members of the Royal Family.

The patronages and honorary military appointments which were the gift of the Queen have now been removed from their grasp, winkled out like pearls popped from a shell, now to be redistributed amongst other, more dutiful, members of The Firm.

Sitting barefoot under the Baby Tree in the charming grounds of their Californian mansion, what will Harry and Meghan care about this latest development?

Not much, perhaps. Surely that grab bag of dreary duties only served to remind them of how they despised their status as lower rank royals stuck on the second tier of the House of Windsor cake stand; the Sussex plain scones doomed to languish forever beneath the Cambridges’ crème de la crème eclairs.

Sitting barefoot under the Baby Tree in the charming grounds of their Californian mansion, what will Harry and Meghan care about this latest development?

Sitting barefoot under the Baby Tree in the charming grounds of their Californian mansion, what will Harry and Meghan care about this latest development?

As it was their decision to step away from the work of the Royal Family, it is now not possible for Harry and Meghan to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with their life of public service,,, With one stroke of a queenly pen, their royal ambitions have been sunk for good

As it was their decision to step away from the work of the Royal Family, it is now not possible for Harry and Meghan to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with their life of public service,,, With one stroke of a queenly pen, their royal ambitions have been sunk for good

By comparison, in the grand life they are carving out for themselves in the gullible gulches and dreamy canyons of California, it is they who are the headline attraction, the stars of the show, master and mistress of their own, carefully-calibrated universe.

Out there, amid the razzmatazz of the Oprah interviews and the Disney documentaries, surely there is little room for the fuddy-dud military, Commonwealth and charitable associations of their old life?

To New World ears, even the names sound like something worthy of mockery from a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta; the Royal Marines, RAF Honington, Royal Navy Small Ships and Diving, The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, The Rugby Football Union, The Rugby Football League, The Association of Commonwealth Universities and The Royal National Theatre.

Where’s the stardust, where’s the global sex appeal of all that khaki and Commonwealth baloney when you could be filming amusing videos with James Corden or promoting a groovy feminist brand of coffee? Where indeed.

Yet there must be some part of Prince Harry’s blue-blooded heart that is deeply wounded by, for example, the loss of his Captain Generalcy of the Royal Marines.

Harry’s military life has always been the best of him; it defined him as a young man and gave him purpose and discipline at a time when he seemed lost and in danger of spiralling out of control.

‘Don’t cock it up,’ Prince Philip told Harry on the day he passed on the honorary command of the Marines back in 2017, after holding the title himself for 64 blameless years. They are surely words that now gnaw at Harry’s soul as his 99-year-old grandfather lies ill in a hospital thousands of miles away and the royal life that once bound them together through the twin strands of heritage and duty has turned to dust.

Yesterday’s statement from the Palace detailing the Queen’s thinking on the ongoing Sussex situation was unequivocal; as far as she is concerned the Duke and Duchess have left the life of public service and therefore their inevitable demise as official royals is now complete. The air has gone from their balloon of privilege, they are the jewels unceremoniously removed from the crown. And so it has been written.

As it was their decision to step away from the work of the Royal Family, it is now not possible for Harry and Meghan to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with their life of public service. On the choppy waters of the imperial sea they are unmoored, untethered, undone.

With one stroke of a queenly pen, their royal ambitions have been sunk for good.

One might have expected the couple to regretfully but respectfully acknowledge Her Majesty’s wishes — which after all are only following royal protocols — and perhaps publicly express a word or two of grateful thanks in her direction, particularly after all they have put her through.

But not a bit of it. ‘Not bovvered,’ seemed to be the sulky message emanating from the depths of the Sussexes’ West Coast bunker.

In an unmistakable ratcheting of hostilities between the two camps, a spokesman for the couple said: ‘As evidenced by their work over the past year, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex remain committed to their duty and service to the UK and around the world, and have offered their continued support to the organisations they have represented regardless of official role. We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.’

Surely they meant self-service? That is the only explanation that makes sense. If this statement wasn’t so downright rude, it would be laughable. Service to the UK and around the world? Who do they think they are, the Gandhi and Bambi of the Second Coming?

Over the past few months the couple have visited food banks in Los Angeles on a couple of occasions, while indulging in their favourite pastime of lecturing others on where they are going wrong in their lives and urging us all to be more perfect like…well, like them. It all hardly amounts to a hill of organic beans, let alone a lifetime of devoted service to the UK, to America or to anywhere else.

It is no secret that Harry and Meghan were once so desperate to flee the deprivations and imagined horrors of royal life they didn¿t even have the decency to alert the Queen to their escape plans

It is no secret that Harry and Meghan were once so desperate to flee the deprivations and imagined horrors of royal life they didn’t even have the decency to alert the Queen to their escape plans

Over the past few months the couple have visited food banks in Los Angeles on a couple of occasions, while indulging in their favourite pastime of lecturing others on where they are going wrong in their lives and urging us all to be more perfect like¿well, like them...

Over the past few months the couple have visited food banks in Los Angeles on a couple of occasions, while indulging in their favourite pastime of lecturing others on where they are going wrong in their lives and urging us all to be more perfect like…well, like them…

Harry and Meghan mean well of course, but they would be wise to remember that sainthood and beatification by the masses is still a long way off — and that there are plenty of others out there who do an awful lot more for much less fanfare. Who don’t, in fact, feel it necessary to organise and orchestrate their own glamorous photo shoots in military cemeteries or elsewhere to draw attention to the pumping geyser of their righteous bleeding consciences.

What is disappointing here is not the dismissive tone or the rampancy of egos behind the Sussex statement, it is that Prince Harry has failed to protect his well-meaning 94-year-old grandmother from the withering disdain of the publicity chiefs on his payroll. That is completely unforgivable.

Even worse, perhaps the words actually do reflect a hardening attitude from the Prince and even a new contempt for the rules and regulations that once shaped his life.

One hopes not, but should it be true, it is a great pity. The Queen in particular, who has behaved with admirable restraint and kindness throughout the apocalypse of their leaving, demands a little more respect.

After all, she is the head of the family that gave Prince Harry absolutely everything, including his wealth, status and identity.

Despite much provocation, the fact that she has not removed their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles, the royal designations upon which their entire success in America depends, bears testament to her continued goodwill.

So where do Meghan and Harry go from here? Despite their brittle bravado in the face of this latest demotion, much of the Sussexes’ international appeal is contingent on public understanding that they remain enmeshed with, and indispensable to, the Royal Family.

Without that, who or what are they? Just another couple of Hollywood starlets seeking to impress with their charity portfolio, perhaps. In royal circles they remain much loved, but now have about as much official standing as a pair of corgis.

And why should anyone in the world beyond care about them or what they think?

It is no secret that Harry and Meghan were once so desperate to flee the deprivations and imagined horrors of royal life they didn’t even have the decency to alert the Queen to their escape plans.

Yet it remains fascinating that despite the growing disdain they now seem to harbour for the House of Windsor, they have never been quite appalled enough to consider giving up being a Duke and a Duchess.

If the Sussexes really wanted to carve out a progressive new role for themselves, surely the encumbrance of these ancient royal titles would have been the first thing to be ditched, in favour of the sunny, Californian, linked-not-ranked meritocracy that they claim to love and admire so much?

Instead, Harry and Meghan still want to enjoy the prestige that these ancient crowns of privilege bring to their celebrity status; their titles are key tools in their battle to capture hearts and minds with the whipped blancmange of their fashionable beliefs, which include climate change, mental health issues and unconscious racism.

As I say, I am sure they mean well. But it is entirely possible to understand their motivations, to agree with their causes, to appreciate their politics, but at the same time still feel that you’re being strangled by their double rainbow of smug conceit.

And this latest row with the Queen shows a worrying lack of humility in the face of adversity. ‘To do something of meaning, to do something that matters,’ was the Sussexes’ stated aim when they launched their not-for-profit Archewell Foundation last year.

The name, they told us, was a combination of ‘an ancient word for strength and action, and another that evokes the deep resources we each must draw upon’.

Until that point, the only deep resources Harry and Meghan had drawn upon were poor Prince Charles’s bank accounts.

All this, and the unstinting support of the Queen, seems to have been forgotten in this week’s rather abrupt and unworthy lack of grace towards the Royal Family who have given them both so much.

Yet so much of what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex do and say now seems to raise more questions than answers.

If they really want to lead lives of public service across the world, why didn’t they just quietly begin in America by doing good works and letting their philanthropic profile emerge naturally?

Instead of this endless blaze of publicity and self-congratulation?

And while we are here, why can’t the pair of them be a little kinder to their own respective families along the way?

Charity begins at home, after all.

source: dailymail.co.uk