The Duke and Duchess of Sussex perform their final engagement as working members of the royal family on Monday. Meghan has a reach that the rest of the family do not: at the Robert Clack school in Dagenham on Friday, the children whooped when she kissed a schoolboy. On Saturday at the Royal Albert Hall she received a standing ovation.
Of course, this is partly Casablanca syndrome – you can love something once it’s only a memory – but for those who care about the survival of the monarchy, she was an asset. She mirrored a younger, more diverse Britain. But it’s too late now. The family have failed the Sussexes.
Malicious people have theories on why they left. One is that the Sussexes don’t want to be the second tier of the monarchy, supplanted by toddlers. If they can’t be the centre of attention, they want nothing.
Of course they are spoilt – how could they not be? I have always found Meghan’s “red-carpet philanthropy” absurd, but so is royal philanthropy. Does anyone really believe in the humility of a queen under a diamond crown? Professionalism is not humility. Yet the Sussexes do have self-awareness: enough to know that being a modern-day royal is no way to live. It wasn’t that what was offered was too little. Rather, it was too much.
The projection we perform on the royal family is not innocent. If you look only at the surface, you see bunting and smiles. But monarchy is an anachronism for a reason. I suspect the Sussexes know that the psychological contortion required to pretend to embody a nation – when the only person who still believes it does is the Queen – is emotional death. William and Harry’s recent interest in mental health is a muted cry. Monarchy killed their mother. You can talk about drunk drivers and seatbelts but why was she there, in that tunnel, at that time?
Support for the monarchy is an inch deep and a mile wide, and one day it will just blow away. Meanwhile, the drama is profitable. To some newspapers the royal family is meat to be consumed. They neither love nor hate the Sussexes. It is more cynical and self-interested than that, which is why there were pieces for and against them, on the same website, on the same day.
To survive this – and no one should have to – you need resilience. Why would a boy made to walk behind his mother’s coffin at 12 have this resilience?
“I think being part of this family, in this role, in this job, every single time I see a camera,” Harry said, “every single time I hear a click, every single time I see a flash it takes me straight back.” He also said: “I will not be bullied into carrying on a game that killed my mum.” The media only replied: be grateful. We do not want to hear it. It makes us complicit. Because we are complicit.
It began kindly enough, of course, with nonsense about fairytales, but that is only the first act. Did Meghan know that who she is did not ever matter? That she would never be allowed to impose her own “style” – that is, herself – on the monarchy, with its spin of fake humility and an eternal Blitz spirit? Today’s manifestation was the Mail on Sunday headline: “Queen: I Won’t Let Virus Stop Me Doing My Duty”.
There was a role waiting for Meghan. If you want to know what it was, look at the Duchess of Cambridge – who is immaculate, and always seems to be laughing.
Meghan tried. She wrote on bananas; she hugged; she talked about feelings. The mockery – and the anger – began. Her father’s story was bought and published. She resisted palace advice and was briefed against for coveting tiaras and making the Duchess of Cambridge cry. Who knows if it is true?
There was racism, but her crime was really that she was unwilling to meet the insatiable expectations; unwilling to be consumed.
Then came the unforgivable sin. She said she was unhappy. You cannot do this if you are a royal: we like our victims pliant.
“I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a ‘stiff upper lip’,” she told the ITV interviewer Tom Bradby. “I really tried, but I think that what that does internally is probably really damaging. I never thought that this would be easy, but I thought it would be fair.” It was never going to be fair.
I suspect the Duke of Sussex, like his great-great uncle Edward VIII, married a woman, however unconsciously, who would rescue him from this shabby and duplicitous splendour. He lived a half-formed life under a half-broken enchantment. If you have been a demigod, can you exist in the real world, represented today by Canada? We will see. I wish them well.
• Tanya Gold is a freelance journalist