Easily Overshadowed

How Harry and Meghan’s Existence Exposes The Windsors’ Mediocrity

When Prince Harry fell in love with the accomplished American actor and humanitarian Meghan Markle, they can’t have been remotely prepared for the racist backlash they would face (particularly the biracial Meghan), both in the British media and from social media trolls.

But there is no law that says Harry and Meghan must remain in unpaid service to the Windsor family, just because Harry was born into that service. So Harry duly packed up his new family. And they got the hell outta Dodge.

Now, five thousand miles away, stripped of military honours and HRH titles, the Sussexes live as private citizens. Earning their own money, not reliant on Harry’s father’s generosity or on the British taxpayer, they are now able to live their lives as freely as many of the rest of us – they can choose whom they see and when, what work they do, what press they do or don’t speak to. They can also enjoy concerts (without chalking it up as a ‘royal engagement’, i.e. work, as the rest of Harry’s family does).

The British establishment, aided by an army of paid twitter bots and royalist trolls, constantly remind the public that Harry and Meghan are irrelevant, non-working royals. The public, we are told, have no interest in them now that they are outside the family.

And yet.

Before every major British royal event, fevered speculation breaks out in the tabloids and online that Harry and Meghan “may be planning” to overshadow the British royals. Leading up to Britain’s King Charles’ coronation, the question on every reporter’s lips was “will they release a new photo of Prince Archie?”. In one sense, it was a fair question, as the British coronation was scheduled for Archie’s birthday (a vitriolic decision by the British king that will never be forgiven by millions of Sussex fans).

But the idea that one photo of a child prince sixth in line to the throne could overshadow the entire coronation ought to be ludicrous. £100 million was spent on Charles’ coronation (adjusting for inflation, that’s five times the cost of the late Queen’s coronation).

Gold carriages, new thrones, billions of dollars worth of jewels – and of course, television coverage of royal family members costumed and jewelled – ought surely to be enough to eclipse anything Harry and Meghan could do or say. How could one photo of one little boy overshadow all the photos of the Wales’ children, plus all the photos of the other royals, plus all the pageantry, the horses, the tiaras, the ermine..?

But the idea isn’t ludicrous. For all the millions thrown at propping up the fantasy of the British monarchy, we’ve all, to greater and lesser degrees, seen that the emperor has no clothes.

This year, Harry was accused of overshadowing his older brother’s summit in Singapore by making a video for US Navy Seals veterans. The British press (and, reportedly, William) were apoplectic with rage at Harry’s timing – yet the timing was surely dictated by Veterans’ Day, not by the Windsors’ diaries.

Again, the question that springs to mind is: “How can one video by a prince fifth in line to the throne (and supposedly irrelevant) overshadow the heir to the throne? Overshadow the heir’s videos, messages and glowing write-ups in the British press?”

The answer – if we are honest – is that the British royal family are very easily overshadowed. And not just by Harry and Meghan. The tabloids would rather print photos and stories about minor British celebrities. Or take a ‘deep dive’ into Netflix series The Crown.

What Harry and Meghan do – without trying – is overshadow nearly everyone.

Such is their star power, that tabloids will pay for photos taken from behind of them walking down the street on holiday. Such is their hold on the British public that, when Harry and Meghan aren’t visible, tabloids run endless stories about what they may do next. In one famous example, a tabloid ran a story that merely counted the days since Meghan had last been seen.

Even when the Windsors do manage to get coverage for their ‘engagements’, their own self-professed fans will quickly tire of talking about them and turn their attention, once more, to the Sussexes.

Social media trolls will start comparing the Waleses to the Sussexes, for example, in ever more vitriolic terms. Before long, they have dropped all mention of the heirs in favour of misogynistic hashtags attacking the Duchess of Sussex.

The British royal family, increasingly desperate for attention, devise ever more ludicrous (and often tasteless or misguided) gimmicks to ensure newspaper coverage. So William puts on waders to go oyster counting in New York – while the rivers in his own country choke with sewage and he says nothing. His wife dresses up in camouflage and plays war, while images of dead children come out of Israel and Gaza.

All the while knowing they could be knocked from the pages of the tabloids at any moment.

If, say, Harry and Meghan, the ‘irrelevant’ royals, decide to merely watch someone else perform.