When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle staged their dramatic departure from the royal family five years ago, there were various conditions attached to their ‘Megxit’. One of the most insistent was that the pair were no longer allowed to use their HRH, or Royal Highness, titles. These were solely reserved for those working royals who are expected to perform often arduous and tedious duties, rather than a pair of chancers who saw the opportunity to monetise their birthright (him) and the chance to cash in on an advantageous marriage (her).
Meghan must content herself with jam-making, podcasts and effortful attempts to stay in the public eye
However, old habits have a habit of dying hard, and even Meghan can be forgiven for having moments of wondering ‘what might have been’ had she remained a rather talked-about member of ‘the Firm’. During a recent podcast interview it emerged that, should one be fortunate enough to receive a gift from Meghan – perhaps a pot of her notorious As Ever-branded raspberry jam – it is likely to come with a note, on monogrammed paper no less, reading ‘with the compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex’. Is this an exercise in wish fulfilment, or an apparent oversight?
Most neutral observers would assume that the HRH period of her life had come to an end when she and her husband left Britain for California. But the existence of these cards either suggests that Meghan and Harry had an awful lot of spares knocking about on their departure, or, alternatively, that it has suited her to continue to use her former HRH billing whenever an opportunity presents itself. (Amusingly, given the likelihood that this news would have become public before now had the compliments cards been sent out in quantity, it seems that this is either a very recent development or that relatively few of these gifts have been given. Who can blame her, given the no doubt considerable costs of postage?) In any case, this is a clear violation of the agreement that Meghan and her husband reached with the late Queen not to use their titles after they flounced off to Montecito and their new lives.
A (put-upon) spokesperson for the Sussexes has issued an unconvincing denial, saying ‘they do not use HRH titles’. This is a surprisingly definite statement given that there is now clear visual indication to the contrary.
If we were to be generous, we might say that it barely matters how Meghan chooses to embroider her stationery. If she wishes to continue to believe that she is HRH in her own self-created kingdom, then who are we to judge?
The whole affair brings to mind the increasingly hapless efforts of Edward, Duke of Windsor, to have his wife Wallis Simpson given the HRH title that he craved for her, something sternly resisted by the Palace and regarded with disinterest by Wallis herself. Yet there was at least one occasion when the title was used freely and with great respect, and that was when Edward and Wallis visited Nazi Germany in October 1937. Had the Duke been installed as a puppet monarch in the event of Hitler conquering Britain, no doubt Wallis could have had all the HRH branding that she might have desired.
It is unlikely, although not entirely impossible, that Harry and Meghan will return to the country in triumph to reign in the event that Britain is invaded by a fascist power. In the meantime, she has to content herself with jam-making, podcasts and increasingly effortful attempts to remain in the public eye.
Still, there has been one particularly terrifying-sounding premonition of things to come. It seems almost inevitable that she will write her own autobiography, following on from her husband’s Spare, and that while we muse on what it might be called (Suited?), she suggested that ‘people are often curious about whether I’d write a memoir, but I’ve got a lot of life to live before I’m there’. No doubt this much-lived life will continue to be led in public, complete with HRH monogrammed compliments cards and all.
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