When you are the parent of a newborn child, there are a few good reasons to have it baptized.
If you're an observant Christian, for example, you'll want your child to have the advantages of one of the seven Sacraments that will set them on the path to Eternal Life.
Even if you're only a cafeteria Christian - taking what you like and leaving the rest behind - a baptism can be a lovely occasion to celebrate the birth with your family and friends.
But what if you don't care much for the Christian religion, you're at odds with your family, and you've ghosted most of your friends? Why bother with a baptism at all?
The baptism will supposedly be "private", attended by only 25 people, and held in the Queen's private chapel at Windsor Castle.
It's not unusual for a Royal baby to be baptized outside the view of the public; in the case of George and Louis, the babies were only photographed going in and out of church, plus one Press Association photographer providing formal photographs afterwards.
One could argue that baptism is a private, spiritual experience that shouldn't be shared by everyone.
In the Sussexes' case, however, "privacy" is probably more about copyrighting the photos and then charging media outlets to run them, as they have attempted to do with the photo of the Queen and Prince Philip meeting Archie right after his birth.
Charging for photos would seem to conflict with their roles as public figures whose home, travel, and living expenses are provided by the taxpayer.
But that's nothing new for the Sussexes, who seem to frequently use their position to generate income for themselves, money that Meghan spends on PR.
Harry and Meghan will surely be looking for the biggest names they can find.
Of course, they won't be the first parents to choose godparents based on what the godparents can do for the child; having a rich, single uncle as godfather is a common plot point in the novels of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.
But in a multicultural world, choosing godparents can be tricky.
In the Church of England, godparents need to be baptised Christians themselves. (A priest may ask to see their baptismal certificates.)
This crosses Meghan's longtime friend Lindsay Roth off the list; she is a practicing Jew. So is BFF Jessica Mulroney, whose maiden name is Brownstein - she proudly incorporated Judiasm into her wedding to the Catholic Ben Mulroney. Misha Noonoo is Jewish too. Amal Clooney is Druze, a religion with ties to Islam.
While all of these women may be fine people, they're poorly placed for one of the prime roles of a godmother, which is to help a child grow up in the Christian religion.
For what it's worth, George Clooney has been baptized. He was raised a strict Catholic, although he now calls himself an agnostic.
(Serena Williams is Christian, but she is a practicing Jehovah's Witness. They do not believe in the baptism of babies; they believe that the person being baptised should be old enough to understand the commitment they are making.)
There have, however, been suggestions in the press recently that he is chatting with his old wingman Tom "Skippy" Inskip again.
There's always William - but he's alienated William as well, and William as future king is doing his utmost not to be associated with "Artifichie", who now clearly seems to have been born with the help of a surrogate.
To admit that, however, would mean that the Royal family had been fooled by Meghan, and that's simply too embarrassing and would reflect badly on the Queen.
That's because a British monarch is also the head of the Church of England, and carries the title "Defender of the Faith."
Is Archie eligible for the line of succession?
He has no title, and technically, Royal babies must be born "of the body" of a Royal wife, a rule created long before IVF came into being just forty years ago.
But if nobody's willing to admit that Archie is not "of the body", then one could argue that he is indeed seventh in line to the throne - if he is baptized.
If you're an observant Christian, for example, you'll want your child to have the advantages of one of the seven Sacraments that will set them on the path to Eternal Life.
Even if you're only a cafeteria Christian - taking what you like and leaving the rest behind - a baptism can be a lovely occasion to celebrate the birth with your family and friends.
But what if you don't care much for the Christian religion, you're at odds with your family, and you've ghosted most of your friends? Why bother with a baptism at all?
The private baptism
While nothing has appeared on the court calendar, there have been reports that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will baptise their son Archie on Saturday, July 6.The baptism will supposedly be "private", attended by only 25 people, and held in the Queen's private chapel at Windsor Castle.
It's not unusual for a Royal baby to be baptized outside the view of the public; in the case of George and Louis, the babies were only photographed going in and out of church, plus one Press Association photographer providing formal photographs afterwards.
One could argue that baptism is a private, spiritual experience that shouldn't be shared by everyone.
In the Sussexes' case, however, "privacy" is probably more about copyrighting the photos and then charging media outlets to run them, as they have attempted to do with the photo of the Queen and Prince Philip meeting Archie right after his birth.
Charging for photos would seem to conflict with their roles as public figures whose home, travel, and living expenses are provided by the taxpayer.
But that's nothing new for the Sussexes, who seem to frequently use their position to generate income for themselves, money that Meghan spends on PR.
Godparents must be baptized
There has been a great deal of speculation about who Harry and Meghan will choose for the baby's godparents; according to tradition, there will be two men and one woman for a boy baby.Harry and Meghan will surely be looking for the biggest names they can find.
Of course, they won't be the first parents to choose godparents based on what the godparents can do for the child; having a rich, single uncle as godfather is a common plot point in the novels of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.
But in a multicultural world, choosing godparents can be tricky.
In the Church of England, godparents need to be baptised Christians themselves. (A priest may ask to see their baptismal certificates.)
This crosses Meghan's longtime friend Lindsay Roth off the list; she is a practicing Jew. So is BFF Jessica Mulroney, whose maiden name is Brownstein - she proudly incorporated Judiasm into her wedding to the Catholic Ben Mulroney. Misha Noonoo is Jewish too. Amal Clooney is Druze, a religion with ties to Islam.
While all of these women may be fine people, they're poorly placed for one of the prime roles of a godmother, which is to help a child grow up in the Christian religion.
For what it's worth, George Clooney has been baptized. He was raised a strict Catholic, although he now calls himself an agnostic.
(Serena Williams is Christian, but she is a practicing Jehovah's Witness. They do not believe in the baptism of babies; they believe that the person being baptised should be old enough to understand the commitment they are making.)
Harry has alienated his friends
Harry, meanwhile, has alienated a lot of the old friends he grew up with since he began his relationship with Meghan, snubbing several by not inviting them to the wedding reception.There have, however, been suggestions in the press recently that he is chatting with his old wingman Tom "Skippy" Inskip again.
There's always William - but he's alienated William as well, and William as future king is doing his utmost not to be associated with "Artifichie", who now clearly seems to have been born with the help of a surrogate.
To admit that, however, would mean that the Royal family had been fooled by Meghan, and that's simply too embarrassing and would reflect badly on the Queen.
The line of succession
There's one more good reason for the Sussexes to baptize Archie: technically, a Royal must be baptised to be part of the line of succession.That's because a British monarch is also the head of the Church of England, and carries the title "Defender of the Faith."
Is Archie eligible for the line of succession?
He has no title, and technically, Royal babies must be born "of the body" of a Royal wife, a rule created long before IVF came into being just forty years ago.
But if nobody's willing to admit that Archie is not "of the body", then one could argue that he is indeed seventh in line to the throne - if he is baptized.
Comments
Has there been any word in the publication of the royal birth announcement in the public files, or whatever they were supposed to do in the first 42 days? The deadline has passed, and it’s supposed to be public record...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-injunctions_in_English_law
Thanks for summing this up so succinctly; it’s what I’ve been saying all along. Once he gets baptized, he is being truly and formally accepted into the BRF & will be 7th in line to the throne. There’s no going back from this later, saying that he was not ‘born of the body’ and for that matter, most likely does not have Harry’s DNA. As head of the COE, I’m very surprised that HM would allow this.
I too have been wondering why nobody seems to have gotten a copy of the birth certificate. If, as you suggest, there is a super-injunction against discussing the circumstances of the birth, then the BRF are aiding & abetting in this lie. Isn’t that treason?
I have noticed a persistent drumbeat of unflattering stories over the past couple of weeks - the home renovations, complete with a separate story on replacing a dog-soiled carpet, and then Ingrid Seward trotted out to say that even she thinks the hide-and-seek with the baby pictures and the "private" baptism are too much. The announced Africa trip, with Meg cooling her heels in Cape Town while Harry visits Botswana and Angola on "little planes" (Luanda is a big city!) seems designed to annoy the Commonwealth.
Could Geidt be trying to get rid of every last vestige of support for Meg before kicking her to the curb?
The best outcome from a royal point of view would be for her to go back to the US (not Canada, it's in the Commonwealth) with Archificial and rarely be heard from again.
Harry, who seems just about at the end of his rope right now, should line up a sympathetic reporter, and just confess all. Let the chips fall where they may. Use some of that Diana wattage disarming candor and just let it out. Say he's made a big mistake and discuss rectifying it and asking forgiveness. For all that society seems to have gotten meaner, people are forgiving of a person like Harry whom they've watched grow up before their eyes. His family will rally to his side.
And Nutty I await each of your posts like I'm waiting for Christmas. Love it!
https://www.royal.uk/succession
https://www.royal.uk/archie-harrison-mountbatten-windsor
Geidt's work? He was hired in March 2019, but he did have to wait until after the 'birth' to get started in earnest.
The current lack of birth cert with royal physicians signing off would be for the opposing. What else would be for the opposing? Don't know based on what legal bread crumbs now available.
https://www.diffen.com/difference/Baptism_vs_Christening
None of this makes any sense.
None of it.
But all of it points to something significantly wrong and the senior royals are shunning the couple and the event.
My only guess is that MM had them all fooled for quite a long time and once they found out about the surrogate it was too late. If the BRF announces it, they look like fools on a Jerry Springer episode. If the BRF doesn't announce it, increasingly angry speculation and questioning ensue. PH may have been played early on in the pregnancy, but at some point, he became complicit. And now, thru silence, the entire BRF is complicit. If any of this is true, then MM is in a dangerous spot.
Someone questioned whether this privacy thing is an attempt by MM & PH to get the royal title for Archie, but I think that's a long shot explanation.
Markle's best protection this point is probably her US citizenship. If something suspicious were to happen to her, the US authorities would have to get involved.
On the flip side, her US citizenship might also give the US tax authorities the opportunity to investigate her financial affairs. That investigation could lead to so many other things.
I'm not sure Sara Latham is that PR person, however. She certainly never allowed her previous client Hillary Clinton to confess anything.
Mischi, I wonder why they would bother to have the child recognized by the church. Neither one of them seems in any way religious, except for Markle's new-age aphorisms.
Nonreligious "naming ceremonies" are popular in many European countries; the Sussexes should consider one.
William, Catherine, Camilla, Andrew, and Anne have all made it clear they can't stand her.
Apparently they don't have any power to do anything about it, however. It seems the only people who have that power are Charles and the Queen.
I just can't imagine with all of their resources that there isn't a way to smooth this over, even if it means throwing PH under the bus with her.
How it got this far is beyond me - with their access to intelligence departments etc. There are people who's jobs are LITERALLY to read things like this blog. To take the temperature of the public with regards to whatever they do.
There is NO WAY they were in the dark or didn't at the very least have suspicions.
Even so, the 'birth' was a shambles!!!! The only logical thing I can think is as someone said earlier, they're letting MM dig her own hole.
But, none of that will reflect positively on the BRF. They'll end up looking like fools.
I don't believe they would have put themselves in a position to be 'held hostage' by MM.
Wrong way to handle it.
They could have put such a positive spin on this - with apologies for the 'pillow' - they could have said that a family was so important to the newlyweds and conception at her age (or whatever reason) made the gift of a surrogate a blessing for them. Blah blah blah. You get where I'm going.
I wonder if history will show that their lack of action had something to do with the conflict between the Queen and Charles, or Charles and his parents.
Markle seems to have bamboozled Charles - at the very least, he always seems willing to give "Tungsten" another chance - and the Queen has been trying to step back and give him more power.
Maybe he was saying, "Let me handle it."
And he has handled it very badly, but taking it out of his hands would interfere with the overall succession and transfer of power.
I don't think William particularly wants to take over the top job while he still has young children at home, but in a decade or so they'll all be at boarding school.
Beside, William needs to learn how to run the Duchy of Cornwall before moving on to the top job, or whatever is left of the top job once he gets there.
Diana always said she believed that Charles would never be King. But then again, Fergie used to say that she believed Bea would be Queen someday, so who knows.
Harry and Meghan seem angry at William, and seem to be blaming him for the problems they have created for themselves.
This is such a difficult damned-if-you-do kind of situation. HM is 93 yo - somehow coming out to the world as duped and the legal/political machinations involved - I don't see how that ends well. OTOH, letting it go until it's eventually outed won't end well.
Maybe Lord G is on it and it will be found out another way, but sooner than later. At that time, PH and MM will have been asking for privacy, no one in the BRF will have spent significant time with poor baby Archie (I pity him, and hell, I even feel bad for Darren at this point), and HM will not have been present or informed. Then, when the news breaks, the senior royals do have plausible deniability because PW & PC are probably two men on earth who haven't seen MM buns up since she got preggers. This approach would probably involve throwing PH under the bus, but he could always come back apologetically later and "explain" that he "didn't know" until it was "too late" and then "fill-in-the-blank, Lord G".
>>>>My only guess is that MM had them all fooled for quite a long time and once they found out about the surrogate it was too late. If the BRF announces it, they look like fools on a Jerry Springer episode. If the BRF doesn't announce it, increasingly angry speculation and questioning ensue. PH may have been played early on in the pregnancy, but at some point, he became complicit. And now, thru silence, the entire BRF is complicit.<<<< (Elle)
My thoughts:
This has all gone too insanely far for the Royal Family to not take some heat for it when the truth does finally come out . . but the longer they wait, the more complicit they look. Because they *are* complicit. To potentially illegal/treasonous activities. At the best, this is the psychosis of a severely unbalanced woman who needs residential psychological help. The worst case: that a grifter is taking the British monarchy, and by extension, the British public, for a ride and laughing, laughing, laughing all the way to the bank (an off-shore account in the Cayman Islands.)
I can accept that MeGain concocted a pregnancy story, which she set into motion at Eugenie's wedding. The weddding high had worn off and she wasn't getting enough attention to suit herself. She (along with Harry, presumably) must have thought that they could obtain a baby (private adoption/surrogate) by her alleged due date of 'late April/early May'. I could understand the family and the Queen accepting things as normal in the early going. But it is not customary to refuse the Queen's doctors, or refuse to provide BP with updates on her medical progress. The Queen may not follow much press on the family any more, but she has a whole staff of people dedicated to just that . . did none of these people report back to Her Majesty and Charles that the pictures of the Duchess during her pregnancy seemed odd? Why did the Queen approve a visit to Morocco late in MM's pregnancy, when flying wasn't recommended for expectant mothers, and in a region with known Zika virus . . all as an excuse for allowing her to write off clothing expenses? Why was she permitted to leave the U.K, while pregnant with an heir to the succession on an unsanctioned trip to the United States? Serena and Amal paid for it all . . but what of the CPS officers who would have had to accompany MM? In short, there is no way that the Palace was oblivious to one of their members flying abroad *for a high profile event* that appeared in all the magazines and all over the Internet. Meghan should have been grounded from that hour, not flown the next month to Morocco and promised another international tour in the fall.
The entire 'private' baby reveal/birth certificate debacle two months ago was the last time that the Queen could have issued a statement to the effect that the Duchess of Sussex was not pregnant and was undergoing mental health care privately. The Queen allowed MM to hold the world in thrall to an 'impending baby' for weeks, and then allowed a signboard out front attesting to this birth . . along with that picture of herself and Philip meeting the baby. If nothing about these activities is honest or legitimate, why participate? Why stay silent?
Whatever comes out about this, the fallout will be bad for the family, but the longer they wait, the worse it will be. If this 'christening' is allowed to go forward, I don't know how they are ever going to be able to claim they didn't know the level of fakery and deception going on. The birth of this baby was not marked by any of the normal protocols for the birth of a Royal baby, so they know darn well there is a sham in progress. I don't understand why admitting months ago that they had been duped by a mentally ill person is somehow deemed *worse* or more embarrassing than what is being allowed to play out now, unchecked. The massive spending on Frogmore without tangible results is a related issue.
I fear the Queen is out to lunch and is no longer capable of riding herd on her family members. Perhaps they allow MeGain her shenanigans because the alternative is admitting that HM has become mentally incapacitated, and they are in scramble and cover mode. MeGain provides a useful distraction & handy villainess to take the heat while the courtiers try to figure out a greater constitutional crisis. The Elizabeth of old would not have stood for this, I feel. Though ER never met a miscreant so impervious to correction as this one. But if they really wanted to cut her off . . they would do it. They could force Harry to annul the marriage and deport her from the country. This is what it's going to take, and it doesn't seem like anybody's got the stomach for it. So we may be seeing 'pieces of Archie' on Instagram until he's 10 years old, or proved to be false, whichever comes first.
Based on MM's unhinged appearance/demeanor at the baseball game, she was under the influence of something. Her eyes looked manic and glassy. If she is, than Harry probably is. I can't understand why his family is so hands-off with toxic situation. Don't understand it at all. It feels like the house of Windsor is imploding before our eyes.
She's *NOT EVEN GOOD AT IT*, that's what makes it all the more galling.
I, too, feel sorry for Archie (and Darren - priceless!!!), and I hope that the surrogate used her own egg; therefore, Archie can stay with Harry and the family. You know, the family MM never had.
(Elle: Darren lol!)
"Bollocks! Is that... ?!"
"Why yes, and..."
Both gasp.
"Skippy, too?!!
"Quite!!"
while mentally making notes to ask Camilla and Kate, respectively, if maybe, after the coronation, just once for the king and all...
Everyone is so delicate about demanding 'proofs' of a pregnant mother . . but in MM's case, she was (allegedly) incubating an heir to the crown of Great Britain. Her body and its cargo was, therefore, in the broadest terms, property of the state. The Palace could have demanded that an official representative of the Queen accompany her to doctors' appointments . . not to 'peek under the curtain' as it were, but to ascertain that the Duchess had been receiving top-notch prenatal care and was progressing satisfactorily in her pregnancy. After all, is the Queen not entitled to be concerned for the health and well-being of her future great-grandchild? MM might have been able to pay someone off to pose as her obstetrician, but she'd have to buy off a whole Harley Street practice and that sham would have been exposed, I think.
Alternatively, the Queen's lawyers could have deposed Harry and Meghan as to the legitimacy of this pregnancy and others of their actions, financial and potentially treasonous (disseminating false/injurious information about the Cambridges and other family members.
HM could have insisted that Meghan be accompanied by her chosen representative to be on the premises, if not in the room itself, for any home birth or travel to a hospital. Any medical personnel allegedly assisting at either venue could also have been deposed as to the truthfulness of their involvement.
The Queen has supreme authority to do these things, and she has declined to exercise this authority. So she's being made to look like a senile old woman by a grasping foreign con artist.
Probably some © at SussexRoyals
And I, too, hope that little Archie Darren gets to stay with the BRF and the family MM never had because she and the other family she never had are all merde of the bat cray cray.
Did PH go under that bus willingly?
Can you imagine the conversation between Clooney and Markle on the jet returning to London? Updates on the surrogate, etc.
But (theory question, essay format, no right answer):
Even if we did, would we tear the BRF down to nothing to prove we're right?
I don't know that we would. That's why I think plausible deniability might play on a grander scale as well.
I don't know the legalities there, but here, even with a confession corroborating evidence is required.
I touched upon this in another comment, but I am wondering how much ER is involved these days in the business of state or her family. She still turns up at engagements, smiling in her bright hats, and looks well for a woman of 93, but I can't imagine the ER of former days tolerating what She has permitted of the Shambolic Sussex show. If Meghan is actively engaged in making Her Majesty look a fool, with a fake baby and fake home renovations, not to mention, jetting off to America without permission, spending a million dollars on clothing and planting insidious stories each and every day that hurt the monarchy . . .why is Harry's wife permitted anywhere near HM? Why allow her a carriage and a balcony spot at One's own birthday? Why allow One's image to be exploited in a potentially digitally manipulated photography beaming at "Archie"? Why reward this foreign chaos agent, who has spread hurtful and hateful stories about the Cambridges with a trip to South Africa? This marriage was done hastily, and it can certainly be undone just as quickly. Harry was duped; they all were. If this heinous fraud is apparent to the most casual onlookers . . why does it persist?
Smarkle does what she is allowed to get away with and will continue to do so. It's like Her Majesty is afraid to call Markle's bluff. It should have been done a year ago--with every breach of protocol resulting in consequences. The 'pregnancy' should have been closely monitored, and the expectant mother kept at home for the good of her health and the baby's . . not sent to the end of the world, risking a potential blood clot . . or to a known Zika virus region in her 8th month of pregnancy.
The entire Royal family has been pretending for months. Markle thinks she's good, but she's not . . a scheme of her magnitude cannot be pulled by one person, without a lot of complicity from the top.
I think the shrewd Queen is no more. But even if they have something up their collective sleeves to bring Smarkle down . . why wait, and keep waiting to strike? The Queen is known for her devout Anglican faith. Would Elizabeth really allow the charade of a plastic doll or a rent-a-baby christening--a sacred rite--to take place in her private chapel, before the eyes of God if not the eyes of the world? To even allow the pretense of an announcement that it's happening, just because it 'looks' better than admitting the truth? This is not the Elizabeth of yore.
How can this lockstep compliance 'look better' than admitting the hoax? With every day that passes, as Smarkle, emboldened that no one has called her on her lies, spouts more and more outlandish tales . . the BRF only look ineffectual, hand-tied and dim. Charles is getting blame for being laissez-faire, but he is not the one in charge yet. Her Majesty gave her blessing to this marriage, so the buck has to stop with her. She permitted it to happen and she's the only one who can put a stop to it. If Lord Geidt is her means of putting a stop to it, he needs to be given full authority to do what is necessary. No half measures. When you've got a rank weed in your garden, you've got to bring out whatever is going to obliterated it, or it will just keep springing back.
I'm not suggesting physical violence. But there have to be some consequences for her blatant insubordination. I'm not suggesting house arrest, either, but as such a highly public figure, every time she leaves the house, it's an Event and requires huge expenditures for the Crown in terms of security and logistics.
What I am suggesting is that someone who has behaved as disrespectfully and most likely *criminally* as MM has should not be rewarded with unlimited access to Crown funds and opportunities to travel on the Crown and flaunt herself for merching opportunities. She shouldn't have unfettered access to social media to plant lies about the Sussex 'charity work' and the other royals.
I think the Queen very well could forbid Meghan to have untrammeled personal freedoms to wreak havoc, and should do. She is not a private citizen any longer . . she represents the Crown. She seemed to be in a hurry to renounce her American citizenship, and technically, she is now a subject of the Queen. But she's never acted like it. Some of the things she has done have been tantamount to treason, or would have been considered so in an earlier age. Why should the Queen permit these activities to continue?
Diana had a great deal of personal freedom both during her marriage and after it. She conducted numerous affairs while married to Charles . . and her conduct as a divorcee . . .well, it led directly to her death. Curtailing some of Meg's freedoms might be construed as being for her own good . . or at least for Harry's good, if they don't care about her. Being tied to her is hurting Harry, and they should care about *that* enough to take action.
Even without hard-core proof that Archie is not M & H's natural child . . though that would be easy enough to obtain, even with a kit from the drugstore . . there should certainly be resounding proof that the monies allocated for Frogmore are not being spent as claimed. If they can't bring Smegs down through reproductive fraud, they certainly could for financial fraud . . and that paperwork would be a lot easier to get.
All *we* can do here is speculate . . but I have no respect left for the monarchy if the Queen is as in the dark as we are about MeGain's activities and cons. I thought Her Majesty's Secret Services had checked this woman out before the marriage? Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective could have dug up enough damaging dirt on her pre-wedding to have it called off, methinks, never mind the combined forces of the best spooks in the United Kingdom. If not then, then how about in the year interim since? She's provided so much material . . so many dodgy connections, so many demonstrable untruths.
Surely this kid glove treatment cannot all be on account of her black mother? Give me a break. She is defrauding the Crown and the United Kingdom, and the rest of the world really, on a global scale. It's blatant. That should transcend any delicacy about her color. How ironic that S'MeGain did everything possible to renounce her black heritage until it became expedient to play that biracial card.
This 'private christening event' is so low-key, it's not on the Court calendar . . I guess this probably means the Obamas will not be godparents after all . . . .
But physical violence isn't necessary for the BRF to appear as if they're bullying poor MM. I do not believe that the BRF can forbid MM getting on a plane, for example. They cannot force her back into a car for showing up as a Ho-2-Go. They cannot forbid her coming onto the balcony when she shows up without warning, but they can cram her derriere into a carriage with Camilla and Kate and shove her to the back of the balcony and politely overlook her. They cannot out her to the press as a common trollop, but they can let others out her and then fall back on deniability. That's what I mean by strong-arming tactics.
I do think that there will be consequences, just not of the obvious variety. I do not see the BRF calling it out directly. Any blatant fraud accusations, even with proof, turn this into a sordid scandal that they cannot deny. It's embarrassing and trashy and messy, and I do not think the senior royals are in the mood for that. I personally believe that they are going with plausible deniability - I could be wrong, just what I think based on the little we know now.
And as for the private event, there is always the possibility that the Obamas are the reason she had to reschedule and lock it down for security reasons. They could just fly in without an official visit announced and the requisite security concerns associated with it. I hope the Obamas don't do this, but you never know.
Unfortunately, one of the two looks like he'd like to make a break for it, and there's one video where she is trying to talk to him, he ignores her completely, and she goes back to faux-happy-TTC style.
"Manhandling" connotes physical violence to me, I guess. Would steering someone back into a car or away from an event to which she is categorically *not* invited be construed as manhandling? I don't know. I wouldn't blame the Queen one iota if she had given instructions that security officers were to escort the Duchess of Sussex out of Her sight, as firmly as was required, short of tying her up and throwing her in the boot. Anyone who would violently resist and make a scene (smells like Smarkle to me) under the circumstances perhaps needs to be sedated and evaluated by a doctor.
I disagree that the Queen and all her adult children are utterly powerless to bar one petite post-partum (haha, that's a good one) from entering Buckingham Palace or its balcony. Physically if need be . . 'Ye . . . shall . . not . . .pass!" End of. She's handily outnumbered; they are just so indoctrinated in appropriate social manners that they are not prepared to deal with someone who has none. Does the Queen of all the Britons have zero power to tell a gate crasher she is not welcome at Her house? Even if the gatecrasher is her grandson's wife? This is exactly my point--Meghan is now a member of the Royal family and a subject to the Queen. She does not get to behave exactly as she did when she was an American, ie, exactly as she likes. Not any more. Her position comes with great perks, but there are demands, too, and the rigorous code of social behavior expected of Royals is one of those demands. This woman is personality-disordered and relentless . .polite ignoring would be devastating to someone raised in an aristocratic circle, but Megs is tone-deaf to nuances like these.
They don't have to play her game of planting defamatory stories in the press about her trollop past, although she's given them enough ammunition to. No, the best, and probably the only way to take Smarkle down is through legal means. The RF needs to build brick by brick an airtight case for any number of frauds by her, resulting in the marriage being nullified. Harry was coerced, or perhaps she didn't get properly divorced or annulled from either of her previous marriages.
Harry really picked himself up some used goods . . and the Obamas would be mental to get affiliated with the Sussex Shambles. They still have their dignity and I'm sure they'd like to keep it. If they agree to be godparents, she's got her hooks into them for life.
I am only mildly concerned about "Archie" and where he fits into all of this because I have strenuous doubts that he's real, or if he exists, that H. and M. have custody of him. They claimed that they were up all night with him the night before the baseball game . . perhaps to explain his/her addled appearance/demeanor. Lack of sleep or drugs? Who can know? Short of a pee test, we can't. If the Queen of England can't even know for sure that her grandson's wife just presented her with a great grandchild I'm sure we'll be the last to know if the Sussexes are doing cocaine again.
It's too late to avoid a sordid scandal, in my opinion. The BRF's staunch public denial of the reeking mess that's right under their noses does not render it a sweet smell in the nostrils of the public or the Lord.
I don't think she's just hats, gloves, handbags and smiles.
You're right about the complicity, but I just don't think that the Queen would jeopardize her entire history, bloodline and country for this grifter.
"If she were manhandled back into the car and whisked away before cameras could capture her picture every time she turned up at a public appearance not properly dressed . . we'd never see her. ..."
So that is why I used it and didn't think you would mistake my meaning.
So, your question:
"Manhandling" connotes physical violence to me, I guess. Would steering someone back into a car or away from an event to which she is categorically *not* invited be construed as manhandling? "
My answer:
Yes, from my perspective, this would be manhandling, and out of bounds rude and inappropriate. Just because someone is rude and horrid to me does not mean that I have license to respond accordingly. I believe that one has to respond in keeping with one's own moral compass. I do not mean being a doormat, I mean acting with integrity.
That's just how I would see it. But again, two different perspectives, both valid, and that's why we're here on Nutty's blog - to see what others are thinking, not always have a consensus. I think there are many possibilities here. I just do not see that the "throw the hussy out!" direct approach is in keeping with the BRF.
If i am reading this situation right, I will predict right now that one godparent will be royal (so she can hold on to that connection) and one will be from her "friends" (to pay off all the favours she had to get), who may not be royal but wealthy and influential.
witness this lie (that he is a legitimate child ‘from the body’ and Harry is the father) while the child is being Baptized means that they’re accepting him into the BRF.
Also, whatever eventually happens with the situation, I
don’t think that she’ll just be allowed to walk away free and return to CA. She’s very vindictive and will be writing a book, going on talk shows, etc., to spill the secrets of the BRF. That’s why he married her in the first place; she was blackmailing him. No, I think
she’ll end up in a mental health facility or in jail.
1) The baby isn't Harry's or
2) Harry isn't a blood member of the royal line.
I could be wrong though:)
I seriously do not understand how this is going to end. Is there a baby now? Surely, there must be. Where did it come from, and why did they go through three nannies in six weeks? I can’t fathom, unless they were experienced, and knew the age of the baby was wrong, or there was no baby, or...? Idk. My money is on the surrogate.
I don’t know why she gained weight after the birth, esp since she reports breastfeeding so often, which burns a lot of calories. Also, why on earth would she want the christening to occur when the main vicar isn’t even in town? Unless this is all a ruse, and the head vicar/father wasn’t willing to lie about the proceedings (renaming Darren as Archie; just taking pics to imply a christening; idk)? Gah, so many questions!
Beatrice?
Poor Edo doesn't know what he's getting himself into...
It would also be extremely helpful if they had some kind of evidence of Meg herself being racist - video or audio of her saying something vicious to one of the nonwhite staff, for example.
Maybe this is why they're sending her to South Africa. She's been so rude on previous visits; can she avoid treating one of the Black South Africans she'll encounter just as badly?
I agree that the Sussexes insistence on "privacy" is covering something up. It's hard to know what it is, however.
I did use that word before, and in retrospect it was a poor word choice. On a personal level, I rather enjoy the mental image of Herself being shoved into a car by a couple of big guys since she thinks she's somehow impervious to any rules that apply to other people, including the Queen's own children. But that's for entertainment purposes only; no sense in giving her more ammunition against the family she has infiltrated. I think at certain times (say, when getting arrested and refusing to comply with the directives of law enforcement officers) a person might have to be 'physically directed' to comply. I can just see MeGain now if she were in that scenario . . .the officer(s) saying 'Get in the car, Ma'am,' and her saying "Make me."
MeGain has gotten precisely where she is by continually forcing herself into situations where she is not wanted and has no business being (eg. trying to force her way into a private meet-n-greet with Mrs. Obama, no doubt with the aim of getting pictures to plaster on the Internet). It seems like Michelle was able to do in that instance what the Queen wouldn't . . .her 'No' was firm and unequivocal, and MeGain did not get her way that time. But her MO in life has always been to push her way in, disregarding all conventions of polite behavior, and direct instructions. If she's told "Wear a hat.", she goes bareheaded. If she's not invited somewhere, she turns up anyway. She is always counting upon the intrinsic good manners *of other people* to not say anything and capitulate to her whims rather than make a scene. MeGain herself has no problems making a scene, but it's profoundly distasteful to most people, and in this environment she's in now, it is the epitome of classless behavior. But this particular epitome of classless behavior is now a member of the Family, which makes it tough for the Queen to exclude her from these family occasions. That's what MeGain is banking on, and, sad to say, it's working. All families have dysfunctional members, and each one has to work out for themselves to what degree they are going to allow themselves to be held emotionally hostage to the dysfunctional member's demands at every family event, and interpersonally.
Appearing with the Queen anywhere is a privilege, not a right, even for her own kids. Everyone else is toeing the line expected of them to earn that privilege, and then we have little Miss Sparkles who basically issued Her Majesty and everyone else present a giant helping of F-U, I'm here whether you like it or not. I don't think refusing her to attend these public events that she lives for in light of her conduct is being too harsh . . it's the only form of consequences that is going to get through to her. If HM needs to place a regiment of the Household Guard in front of all the entrances so S'MeGain cannot enter, that would certainly make her point.
Megs is lucky she's alive today. In former times, a subject who was so brazenly disrespectful to the sovereign would have been hauled to the Tower and possibly shot. Really, if she was not invited to TOC, she was trespassing, and there should be consequences for that. Even if they have to disinvite Harry and make him stay home with her. When you play chicken with the Queen of England, she should not be the one to flinch first.
@jdubya,
Found your comment in my email but I can't find it on this thread so I am replying here:
>>>Just curious hikari, are you a brit?
No, I'm not. I'm from the Midwest, but I would consider myself an Anglophile. I am well-versed in British TV and movies, and a lot of the British expressions come naturally to me now. I've got a good mate in the U.K., but unfortunately I've never been there yet. A tour of the British Isles is on my bucket list for sure.
When MM and Harry announced their engagement, my reaction was two-fold:
1. "Meghan Who?? .. never heard of her. How the hell did they meet? and
2. "I guess he's kinda cute and all, but why would an American want to join up with that lot? We called off that ridiculousness in 1776."
Particularly as Meghan proclaimed herself a feminist and a proud woman of color . . and 'modern' . . I smelled problems from the off. I just never dreamed it would get *this* bad. I assumed back then that she loved Harry and she'd do her best to fit in. Ha!
There's a lot to like about British culture, and the beauties of Albion . . but I am most definitely a republican . . .and coffee is my drink of choice.
Follow in his footsteps? Have all the advantages of education and position but barely scrape through school and have no steady job or position in life? Be 'rich person broke' with no prospects for earning a living?
Maybe I'm overly influenced by the Tom Cruise story, but my guess is that if there is a divorce in the next year or two, the line will be that "Archie belongs with his mother."
I don't even think restraining her is necessary. But, honesty is. As has also been said, if they want such a private life, they need to get off of the UK's teat. Otherwise, they have a responsibility to share aspects of their lives as they live it on the peoples coin.
I also DO believe that what ever baby there is, does carry Harry's genes. Surrogacy seems the most likely scenario. Whether the RF knew or signed off on that is anyone's guess, but the longer they let this charade continue, the less respect they will have when it finally comes to light.
I don't think anyone would be able to play the race card if it was revealed she faked a pregnancy while using another woman to carry their child.
I wanted to say that I agree 100%.....this is just so far gone....is there any coming back for the BRF? I use to enjoy the random (not everyday) royal outing or state dinner. It is becoming so ridiculous that I don't even care anymore.
I don't know what the right approach is to solve this problem, but I do believe that if the BRF is perceived as the aggressor, it will not bode well. I think that the BRF, with all of the information they and Lord G have available, have probably gamed this out, considered the long-term consequences, and have decided against unilateral and overt action. For now. MM is such a volatile, chaotic, dishonest, unlikable mess, she will blow herself up of her own accord. The only real concern is who she'll take with her when the inevitable destruction hits.
And again, I could be wrong about everything, these are just my evolving opinions, not deeply held convictions.
That said, Harry may be allowed to blow this up, too. Watching him on video turning on her at the baseball game and some of the facial expressions - he does look disgusted and done with her. All the teenagers-in-love diatribe doesn't change the body language in unguarded moments. I still like the idea of his tell-all to a sympathetic reporter. Piers maybe lol?
And, would likely be merching him (doubt she would be giving that up after leaving).
It could well be his genes. I was thinking about her passing customs with his DNA.
But ... timeliness would be what is paramount to be useful.
The she could have saved her eggs and advances can still happen in IVF but she is still stuck with the born of the body issue.
That they have not publically released the birth certificate is, to my thinking, another loose end to a bigger problem they are trying to sort. That the date keeps shifting on when is the christening is another. It's like they want something to happen so certain things won't and all the loose ends will be swept away.
Occam's razor.
Welcome to our society. A good group of people here, all engaged in pondering the eternal question . . ."WTF is going on across the Pond??!?" We have ample evidence that Duchess Difficult isn't just 'difficult', or 'pushy' . . or tone-deaf to cultural mores, but psychologically disturbed. Look up the photos from her 'surprise' visit to the the ballgame the other day . . Clock the faces of *everyone* in the frame with her. She's so stuck on herself I don't think she sees that they were all smirking at her . .or looking quite alarmed. She put on quite a show there, you can tell just from people's facial expressions . .incredulity, scorn, distaste, startlement . . not, I don't think, a single genuinely happy, thrilled face to be meeting the vaunted Duchess of Sussex. (Privately I call her something else . . a riff on 'Sussex' but not suitable for print in a family chatroom. But it goes really well with salad dressing!) MM is a textbook narc. She and our illustrious President have so much in common, it's pretty ironic. They are male and female flip sides of the same coin . . apart from Donny having had a rich daddy to smooth his way and give him his first million. Meg did not have such advantages starting out. Once upon a very long ago time, I admired her industry; really, the girl is *always* working it. But I'm not pleased with the results anymore, and I'm convinced also that Megs does not come by her inexhaustible supply of energy through yoga alone. Oh, no. She was quite obviously high at that appearance.
I noted the Harkles were rooting for the Yankees at the game; still lingering bad feeling over the small tea party incident in Boston in 1773, I imagine. Surprised Herself didn't root for Boston if Harry was rooting for New York . . since she's so proud of her 'American roots'. Just not her African-American hair roots . . (Meow)
Poor Haz must really be so dim to have fallen for her cheap con. She can't even hide her true self for very long, so I imagine their 2x a month transatlantic booty calls back when they were 'dating' . . for 12 whole months . . Sparkle can never quite remember when it was that she and Harry met. But if her mental derangement is obvious to people who meet her casually for a few minutes at an event, how was she able to snow the British Royal family into letting her in . . a snowjob that is ongoing. (rhymes with Sparkle's other favorite kind of job . . )
Harry has invited a vampire into his house . . and you are never, never, never, never supposed to ask a vampire to come in. Another pet name I have for Sparkle is 'The Sussex Vampire" (after a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). Even Sherlock Holmes would be stymied as to how she is apparently winning this game of chicken with the Royal family. Her Maj never should have allowed this marriage. Technically she could not prevent it after the birth of Louis . . Harry could have eloped anyway. But HM should have put it to the couple that She was not sanctioning their marriage and there would be no lavish televised church wedding. She could have put Sparkle's commitment to the test right then and said they could marry in a registry office in Gretna Green or not at all, and Harry would have to find somewhere else to live because they were not welcome at Nott Cott. Charles could put them up in a caravan out in the gardens at Highgrove. I wonder how many hours it would have taken for Megs to bolt under those conditions. But they got the Royal go-ahead and she got to wear a $75,000 gown in their engagement photos.
Forget the popcorn . . . I need a stiff drink, or a bottle's worth. Let's see what this weekend brings, eh?
I wonder which salad dressing MM prefers and if she keeps a bottle of it in her bedside table.
I haven't figured out how to edit comments, so I have to keep adding postscripts . . .I meant to say re. 'Harry keeps throwing his dummy out of his pram' is unintentionally hilarious for a number of reasons. The word 'dummy' has so many meanings, and they are all applicable:
1. pacifier, foo-foo (British)
2. Slang for 'not bright person'
3. A manikin, doll, made of various materials. Sometimes used in ventriloquism; the favored toy of many little girls.
Harry is a dummy in more ways than one. He's MM's puppet for sure, and he got into this predicament by being an idiot. Also when we are chez Sussex, in Baby Archie's fantasy vegan painted nursery and the sentence "Pass me the dummy, would you?" is uttered . . who or what is meant?
1. Archie's foo-foo
2. Archie
3. Archie's daddy?
See? So many contextual layers . . .
I know it sounds far-fetched, and you would not need so much of a circus for an out-of-marriage son in this era, unless this son .... Anyway, I think our fallacy is to focus most hypothesis on MM - probably Harry is an accomplice if not the instigator.
This said, MM is still big danger. History is full of women who placed or tried to place their husbands on a throne (e.g. the Duchess of Maine and the Cellamare Conspirancy) ("la Reine des abeilles", Elle!). But also their sons (Isabella of France, for ex.). So MM could also try to get to the throne through Archifitial, should Harry be totally hopeless for her political ambition.
Meghan's PR people have so many magazines in their employ, a cursory glance without knowing any of the backstory would lead one to believe that America's most popular actress has become the latter-day Grace Kelly. Nothing could be further from the truth. 'Suits' performed well for its network, I guess--USA Network, wasn't it?--a cut-rate basic cable network that gave Suits variously 12-17 episodes per season for the seven years Rachel Meghan was on it. I don't get cable, but if I had, I would not have watched 'Suits', which seemed like a rip-off of LA Law to me, been there, done that. On the day they announced their engagement, I can guarantee that at least 91.8% of Americans said, "Huh? Who is she? No idea." The other 8.2% includes anyone that might have seen her opening Suitcase 24 on 'Deal or No Deal', and I'm pretty sure most of those wouldn't have remembered her name.
(Figure was chosen completely randomly, but I think expecting even 10% of the U.S. population to have ever heard of her is over-inflated.)
I got up in the wee hours that morning to watch the wedding, and apart from the strange dearth of family on the bride's side, and the bizarre raise the roof political sermon from Bishop Curry, it seemed like a nice day. I interpreted Harry's visible nerves as happy nerves. After all, didn't he say to his bride at the altar 'You look amazing'? Poor sap, I thought he was sincere. Also, I wondered why her hair looked so bad. When they got into the car to go to the reception at Frogmore House and he drove off into the sunset just like James Bond, I thought 'aw, they could be any young couple on a date . . look, he opened her door and all.
More fool me. We was all duped with a capital D.
My point is, Americans do not love Meghan Markle and the Brits certainly don't. It was a Brit who hollered 'Charlatan Duchess!' at her. 'Charlatan' is not a word we toss around here much in conversation, but it certainly fits.
No matter what happens, Meg always has the greatest love of all: Herself.
BTW, I like your Duchess of Maine comparison....LOL. I was thinking more Catherine de' Medici (even though she was the queen of France, before her husbands death).
Which leads me back to Nutty's post, I have never seen any evidence that she is a Christian (don't care about break downs, Catholics, Baptist, COE). And going to church is not what I'm talking about....just a Christian. If she was, she would not have cut off her family, especially her dad. So why have a christening if you do not intend to fulfill the commitment?
So here is what I am thinking. We all want something to happen with them now, but it's not going to happen now, and here's why:
1) the whole MM thing is still very new. They are still newlyweds, they are new parents. She is an American who (amazingly) became a Royal...very recently. It's still all so new, and people are watching it closely, and are interested in them because it's all so new and different. BIRACIAL! ACTRESS! AMERICAN! DIVORCEE! WILD CHILD PRINCE MARRIES!! (sort of) BIRACIAL BABY!!!
But this level of interest in the Sussexes can't be sustained. Especially as the Cambridge children get older and more visible, and Charles ascends the throne, and William gets closer to kingship. When those things happen (really, quite soon) there will be new things to watch with interest related to the BRF, and the Sussex duo will fall out of public view.
2) Meghan is already past-her-prime looks wise. I mean, she is still a very attractive woman, enough to make mag covers. But she's almost 40. I don't see a solidly middle-aged woman holding the same kind of fascination for the press as younger "sexy" Meghan does. So as she ages and turns into Doria we are going to see her less and less. (He will age badly too - but men are less judged on their looks) For example, the Countess of Wessex is quite popular, but we never see her public outings plastered all over the mags, because she is a middle-aged mom, and looks it. Diana died before she became a frumpy 50 year old (as we all become eventually). She remains forever glamorous in our memories, but if she had lived, she too would have faded from public view, because middle-aged and older women (who aren't the Queen) just don't hold much interest as tabloid fodder.
So if Harry doesn't kick her to the curb before the above, the BRF is going to wait it out, and let age and public boredom do their merciless work to drive these two into the memory dump of the BRF. Then, when William is King (maybe even under Charles) they will get booted from the payroll and it will make nary a wave, because they will be has-beens by then, just two, of many, peripheral royals who go on the financial chopping block.
That is what I think is the "plan" unless some earth shattering scandal breaks.
It's been quite a year, hasn't it? There's been so much incident and drama and feuds and lies and bad outfits, it seems like they've been parading in front of our eyes for at least three years already.
If this were a normal marriage, like the Wessexes, I'd say your points are all very valid. I remember when Sophie and Ed got married. Their nuptials were very modest compared to the big splashout Ed's brothers and nephews received, but they did get a carriage ride with photos. At the time, her resemblance to the late (at that time, very recently late) Diana was commented upon. Like Meghan, she was a bride in her mid-30s who'd had, and continued to have, a career (until she got in trouble for using her Royal connections to benefit her PR firm) . . I think the Queen was angry at her for a while, but Sophie made amends by becoming an exemplary daughter-in-law and unostentatious, hard-working royal representative, along with her husband. She's 54 now, and I think the dowdiness of her looks is mostly down to her matronly clothing choices . . she's still attractive but doesn't do much to play it up.
There's a photo of her and Kate from Trooping the Colour in 2017 (ie, those good old pre-Smarkle days) that shows the two women having a laugh when Sophie lost her balance getting into the carriage, and Kate put her hands out to catch her. They genuinely like each other. How refreshing! Sophie's low profile has a bit to do with her age but more to do with her station in the Royal Family. The fourth child of the Queen was never of much interest to the public, being the third spare, as it were, and even when they were newlyweds and she a more glamorous PR maven, the Wessexes didn't generate any excitement. Their wedding day was the pinnacle. I think, though, that Prince Edward may be in the best position of all the Royals . . . most of the benefits with very few of the pressures of being closer to the Crown. They seem like a down-to-earth (as much as royals can be) couple who genuinely love each other . . at the time of their wedding, I wondered whether it wasn't a show marriage, since rumors had dogged the theatrically-inclined Edward for years about his sexuality. 20 years on, the Wessexes are solid.
I have often wondered what Diana would look like and be like today, had she lived. She was living life pretty hard in the fast lane in the last couple of years of her life, dating Muslim playboys, and I thought she was starting to look a bit hard; the hair was too blonde, too much sun, more pronounced makeup. I did like the post-divorce clothes much better. For all Diana is venerated as a fashion plate, many of the 1980s outfits were horrid. It doesn't seem possible that she would have faded away into obscurity into her 50s, whether or not she was married to Dodi Fayed or anybody else. The mystique of Jackie Kennedy Onassis continued to her death, and I think Diana would have been the same.
When Harry and Meghan first married, I thought that Diana would have been pleased with her new daughter-in-law, seeing as Di was always enamored of American celebrities. I no longer think she would have been happy with Meghan, being able to see right through her, since she shared some of the same tendencies . . (BPD, media savvyness). For all of Diana's flaws, she did connect with people in a genuine way and could be extremely generous and perceptive about people. She had emotional intelligence, which sometimes worked against her, but mostly for her. Meghan has no EI, and frankly, zero good points that I can see. Zero. She adds nothing of value to the world except some profit to her merching buddies. I think had Diana still been here to advise Harry, he would not be in the spot where he is now, because he never would have been so susceptible to S'MeGain. There is no substance at all with MM because I doubt that she has a soul. Far from being good for Harry, she's the worst possible thing that could have happened to him, and she's taking him down the drain with her.
I don't believe she will be part of this family long enough for her to fade into obscurity within it; at the outset I gave the marriage 3-5 years; I'm revising to perhaps not even two. They may not officially divorce that quickly, but if rumors are true, a year into the marriage and allegedly new parents, they are not even living together any longer. Just putting on the sham show for the cameras. Shame on Harry for enabling her.
After leaving the Family, she will be notorious, like Monica Lewinsky but worse. I'd love it if the world would forget about her entirely, but as long as she draws breath, she's going to churn spin and make sure she's in the news, even for negative reasons. A narc will take negative attention over none.
And I’ve been writing often lately about how Meghan seems to have been modelling some of her PR after Beyoncé’s example. We could be getting set for a major gossip moment happening in two weeks. In addition to a blockbuster movie.
NOT.
Is anyone still convinced that Smegs is mothering the child she gave birth to out of her own body seven weeks ago? Or that she's got a new dog, too? I wouldn't trust this woman to water my houseplants. Especially since they can't keep a nanny, who's minding Artifichie while his parents are doing photo opportunities in London . . 25 miles away from where the baby supposedly is living in a renovation site? I guess he's minding himself. At seven weeks he should be able to cope by himself for three or four hours. Even if he is a 'very hungry baby' who's keeping them up all night . . .
Pish. The 'up all night with the baby' story was to explain away the symptoms of his/her drug use, I'm pretty sure.
I also think the nanny thing was put out there to be intentionally misleading. Was the source the Harkles or Geidt or someone else entirely? Hard to know.
Being utterly shameless and not having any problem with rejection allows her to do this again and again.
The Royals really don't know what to do. Stern disapproval has always been their main weapon, but it means nothing to Meghan.
Charles could have bought the Harkles a lovely home of their own and paid for everything, avoiding the public relations own-goal of the overspending on Frogmore. (Possibly more than an own-goal, if it turns out that money was not actually spent on renovations, which is there is no evidence it has been.)
And Charles apparently knows there's a problem, which is why he folded Meghan's spending on clothes into an overall figure, instead of breaking it out as he has done with Kate's spending in previous years.
Charles just celebrated his 50th anniversary of being named Prince of Wales. That's the kind of thing that means a lot to Royals, and not so much to anybody else.
Nevertheless, could he have been putting off taking action until that is over?
A British pal of mine has a friend who has met both Charles and Andrew. He reports that Andrew was a real D-bag, while Charles was very pleasant and interested in what people were saying. Charles gets a lot of grief, but I don't think he gets credit for doing anything right. Charles was a favorite as a little boy among the staff at BP . . being so lonesome he would chat them up and learned their names, and always had beautiful manners, it is said. Andrew was NOT popular with the staff . . and servants are astute.
I think there was a surrogacy arrangement that fell through. Perhaps with the Lady in Brown at the CD service. There really was no reason for a random member of the public to be just standing there, as though posed and lying in wait, if she was not involved in this. Perhaps she initially agreed, only to have second thoughts, and reached out to someone in the Palace. Maybe there was no IVF involved at all . . maybe the Harkles were trying to convince a pregnant single mother to give them her baby, and she had a change of heart. We all know by this point, I think, that MM is truly scary and vindictive when thwarted. Perhaps this expectant mother, whoever she is, became frightened by Megniacal's intimidation and harassment and engaged a lawyer who contacted the family . . .and they really do know all. That's why all the brittle artificial smiles, insincere congratulations, bleak signboard announcement, unsigned birth certificate, et al . . plus the 'private' christening, lack of actual pictures, just arty, staged IG images that could be of any baby or complete CGI.
I somehow think everything FTS with their clandestine plan just prior to Commonwealth Day. I think that *someone* had a baby, and my money's increasingly on this baby not having either Sussex's DNA. The IG photos are absolute crap . . those don't have to be of a real baby. In any case, the 'baby' pictured cowering behind Harry's giant hand looks nothing at all like the child we were presented with on May 8. He was a cute little tyke, if distressingly still for a live baby. Perhaps the Sussexes were allowed access to 'Archie' for an hour to stage a photo call while the Palace tried to figure out what to do. They don't seem to have had success figuring anything out, and it's just getting worse seeing as she's been allowed to announce a faux christening in the Queen's own chapel.
BP needed to shut this down back in March, or whenever they found out definitively that they'd been had. They have been had somehow . . it's just so hard to figure out the details. If this child is of either of their bodies, they are very uninvested in him. To all appearances, Archie is Home Alone.
Best case: that this little boy is being taken care of by his real mother and will grow up unaware that he was used as a stage prop in a very sick melodrama.
No matter what may have happened behind the scenes . . even if Harry fathered a child with another woman, or is implicated in drug running or some other crime . . .I can think of nothing that would justify this level of cover-up from the entire Royal family. Why not just admit that Harry c*cked up royally and let him twist on his own? Even though they love him and obviously want to keep him in the fold, this level of destruction shouldn't be permitted by anyone, not even a blood member.
* Yeap, Catherine de Medici but also some contemporary ones presently in royal houses around the world...
The Queen has absented herself, and yet allowed the story to be disseminated to the world press that the seventh in line for her crown will be baptized into the Anglican Church this weekend in her private chapel. How is that not fraud? She can't pretend she doesn't know about any of it.
That's what I mean when I say that Meghan is almost there. She's almost at the age when celebrities (of all stripes) are forgotten in favor of the bright young things coming up.
As of today she is still a somewhat bright, young(ish) thing. If the palace moved on her now, unless they had photographic proof of something atrocious, MM would win and the BRF would lose. Especially in the American press, it would be portrayed as blatant racism.
I think that the strategy is to buckle down longer term and try to contain her until 1 of 2 things happen: 1) the Sussexes fall in line or 2) the world moves on and they can be quietly shuffled off to the dustbin of forgotten royals.
@Hikari, I hadn't considered Jackie O. She did have a certain cache even in her older years, but she knew how to cultivate allure and she was a piece of our (the U.S.) lost Camelot. I don't think Meghan can claim either!
No, Meghan cannot claim the allure of a Jackie O., though she obviously believes she can. We all know how deluded Meg is. Delusion on this grandiose of a scale is symptomatic of a profound mental disorder.
In answer to your wondering if Diana would have faded into the background and become in any way 'forgotten' as she became a middle-aged woman, the Jackie O. thing was for her. Had she persisted in marrying a Muslim man, she would have found her freedoms and her photo opportunities severely curtailed, perhaps, but Dodi was very into celebrity culture and, I'm sure his father would agree . . was a bad Muslim, therefore. He dated Brooke Shields once upon a time and other Hollywood actresses before taking up with Diana. It's likely that had they married and both lived up to this point, that Di would have aged out of Dodi's interest in her after about 5 years . . but I doubt the world at large would have lost interest in her once she was no longer in her 30s. Her wattage was too powerful. She would have been 57 years old today (the same age as Lord Geidt, incidentally--I had the Queen's bulldog pegged for a man as old as Charles . . wrong!) . .I think a 57 year old Diana would have still been glamorous. Fergie is two years older, and we can see that she is not aging well at all . . but Fergie was a frumptastic mess even in her 20s. Despite her beautiful hair and her jolly personality, she never did know how to dress and still doesn't. She looked like the Madwoman of Chaillot at a Mardi Gras parade during her recent TOTC appearance. Fergie and Helena Bonham Carter seem to share a 'Halloween All Year!' dressing aesthetic.
Meghan was attractive as recently as 3 years ago, or whenever she was pictured visiting the African children. There's no evidence of the cray-cray in that picture. She's getting more Joan Crawford by the day, at least as JC as a tiny woman without much of a figure can get. I think all the scheming and plotting to bag herself a Royal has taken its toll, along with the drug use and heavy partying and perhaps eating disorder/exercise bulimia. She was a chubby kid and now she's a stick. Except when she's pretending to be 10 months pregnant, of course. Close-ups on her skin are pretty appalling. She's placed to afford the very best in skincare now, and her face, under the spackle, looks like a piece of old shoe leather. Too much yachting without sunscreen, perhaps.
In my opinion, neither scenario you propose will be happening . .
1. The Sussexes will never fall in line. There is potential for Harry to be redeemed, but he must be separated from her, for good. She is never going to stop, until she is stopped. Sociopaths are like that.
2. This furor may die down from its current levels . . I'm sure it will, because this level of tension and uproar and uncertainty cannot be sustained long-term. Things will have to come to a head, though. Some revelation that will end MM's tenure with the family. The question being, will the RF wait until she's completely run them into the ground, or will it be sooner?
The 'containment' strategy is doomed to fail. Were she a sane person, she could be reasoned with. Consequences would have meaning for her. I do not believe either condition is true about Meghan. That's why she's dangerous. Insane folks are unpredictable, resistant to logic . . and they can be violent. Word is that MM threw a cup of tea at her now-departed assistant, Melissa Toubti.
Sane people do not throw scalding hot beverages at employees, no matter the provocation. Smarkle is not a sane person.
Apart from here, and some of the other anti-Smeg bloggers and vloggers and tweeters I enjoy, I have ceased clicking on any published stories about Smeagol, lest I somehow assist her in her PR campaign. The only way to deal with a wildfire or a virus is to starve it out. Deprive it of the food/oxygen it needs to live, and for her, that is media exposure. If the world boycotted any and all stories about the Sussex Travesty, she'd go away very soon . .she'd just wither away.
What on earth are these two playing at? No announcement of the birth, Arty farty photographs showing a snippet of the child.... a private christening and now this! If they wished to remain private, all they had to do was take a leaf out of William and Catherine’s book ... one public official photo and that was it... their subjects would be satisfied.
I highly suspect there is method behind Sparkless’s madness. By creating this furore, she has people talking about her, she has publicity... she is famous. I know that Harried holds a special hatred for the press. In the past he has swallowed it down and plastered on a grin in public .... as he should. I think she is exploiting that hatred. She knows what she is doing.
Ultimately, the subjects of the BRF are furious, we have had enough. Meghan has turned Harry into a shadow of his former self. They demand privacy and then expect us to continue paying for their security and for their home and for their upkeep.
Enough is enough! The senior Royals really need to step up now and do something before Meghan brings down the monarchy single handed.
That is interesting. Not doubting your friend, as such, but this portrait of Andy as nice, civil and friendly to everyone contradicts the general public perception of Andrew. Perhaps when away from his family, he did better? The bit I quoted about whipping the horses in a fit of pique over not getting his way about something was cited from Marion 'Crawfie' Crawford's memoir, 'The Little Princesses'. Ms. Crawford was still on good terms with the family at the point she references, the mid-1960s, and still on the fringes of Palace life though the Queen had obviously no more need of a governess.
Ironically, HM and Philip came under fire for sheltering Andrew from the public eye and keeping him 'private' until he was 18 months old. People assumed that there was something wrong with the baby, in that he wasn't seen on the BP balcony until he was nearly two. 10 years after Anne, Their RHs had decided that they'd allowed too much exposure of Charles and his sister and took the opposite tack with their third child. What goes around, comes around . . .