Fresh dispatches have arrived from the Outer Limits.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been back in the UK for barely two weeks, yet they are already airing their grievances through the media.
That is, of course, the same media they routinely appear to resent and accuse of denying them privacy.
One might wonder how this is meant to restore them to the good graces of the Royal Family — or, for that matter, the wider British public.
The latest extraordinary claim, reported exclusively by the Daily Mail’s Alison Boshoff, came from a source who said: ‘Look, they expect to be let back in. Harry expects they [the Royal family] need him.’
It would be funny, were it not so detached from reality.
What, exactly, could King Charles and Prince William need from Harry and Meghan, given their continued refusal to accept the terms of their royal departure — terms they agreed to six years ago?
This week, reports suggested that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were taken aback by the formal letter issued by King Charles last Monday. It restated that Harry and Meghan are ‘private citizens’, rather than working royals, and that their HRH styles remain ‘in abeyance’.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been back in the UK for just two weeks, yet are already taking their complaints to the media
What role could King Charles and Prince William have for Harry and Meghan, who continue to resist the departure terms they agreed six years ago?
Again: The very terms set by the late Queen at the Sandringham Summit. Harry and Meghan were free to pursue their commercial endeavors in America, but in doing so would no longer be working royals, and no longer permitted to use the HRH.
Of course, Meghan was accused of breaching the latter restriction. Like her husband, she’s essentially a bratty child who wants what she wants when she wants it.
And still, they can’t understand why the royals have not welcomed them back — back to a country Harry said, just last year, he couldn’t conceive of returning to with his wife and children.
Too unsafe, he said, after his umpteenth attempt to secure taxpayer-funded security.
Now? The American dream has withered, the Hollywood deals have dried up, and a return to the royal fold seemed their last play.
If that was their thinking, one would assume a bit of humility would go a long way. An extended period of quiet, or attempting to blend in, to earn their way back to the King’s perimeter, at least.
In America, you could sense the on-brand blundering before they even left.
People magazine, the preferred outlet of the Sussexes and the one most historically friendly to them, reported last month that ‘those close to the Sussexes believe they have successfully executed the “half in, half out” mode Harry and Meghan proposed to the royal family in 2019.’
You know, the ‘half in, half out’ model the Queen forbade.
But that’s the Sussexes for you: They dwell in their own reality and, when confronted with an answer they don’t like, they obstinately push back. Again, just like children.
King Charles’s unprecedented letter felt like it was repeating, not so much for the rest of us, but the Sussexes themselves: ‘This position’ — as private citizens, which they agreed to — ‘distinct from the state and royal duties undertaken by the working Royal Family, and with the personal latitude it brings the couple in respect of financial independence and protection of their privacy as they would wish, will continue to be fully respected.’
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That reads like a checkmate, a door firmly closed, an argument brought to its logical end.
But Harry and Meghan, in my opinion, aren’t logical people.
Nor will they acknowledge that the Crown makes the rules here.
Instead, Harry and Meghan made it known that they were very offended by this.
Nay — they were blindsided by this letter!
Did they blindside the Royal Family by announcing Megxit in 2020 without properly consulting with them first?
They sure did. But the rules don’t apply to them, it seems.
Almost immediately, their spokesperson ran to the media to give a statement: ‘We were a little surprised not to have been told about this in advance.’
Really?
Once the Palace made it clear that a copy of the letter had been sent to Harry and Meghan’s team in advance — about an hour before release, but advance nonetheless — the story seemed to altered.
Now the Sussexes were angry that they hadn’t been able to make their own edits to the letter.
Truly, nothing has changed.
And any purported hopes of reconciliation with the ailing King — that their children would, someday, have a relationship with the Royal Family — may already be doomed.
If they were serious, they would keep their heads down, their mouths shut.
But all they seem to want is to be treated like royals while doing none of the work and holding everyone else responsible for their mistakes.
The decision by Uganda’s military chief to pull out of the Invictus Games, so as ‘not to be construed as being opposed to His Majesty King Charles III’, was promptly framed as the King’s fault.
‘Intended or unintended,’ a Sussex source told the Telegraph on Wednesday, ‘this is clearly a consequence of the Lord Chamberlain’s guidance regarding the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, that was rushed out without consultation on Monday.’
Without consultation.
Harry and Meghan won’t let anything go. They continue to blame everyone else for the consequences of their own behavior.
But that tactic no longer works. And they’re the only two people who don’t seem to realize it.