Harry did not react well when his fiancé was treated badly by the royal family
Harry fully expected his family - especially William, Kate and Charles - to welcome Meghan with open arms. He knows that his family comprises a lot of snobs, but he expected them to love Meghan because he loved Meghan.
He was completely blind-sided when the response to Meghan was so cold. He naively thought that Kate and Meghan would be hanging out like teenaged girls, going shopping, meeting for pumpkin lattes, and doing yoga in the basement at Kensington Palace.
This was the biggest shock of all to Harry. The fact that Kate was so unwelcoming to Meghan. Kate tried to make it up by taking Meghan to the tennis open at Wimbledon. And they had a joint press conference with Harry and Meghan. But she did not like Meghan fundamentally. She looked down her English rose nose at Meghan. Meghan was an outsider and Kate felt her turf was threatened by this outsider. It was an immediate disaster.
Harry has always loved Kate. They were very close and the affection was very genuine. He saw Kate as his sister, for real, and he expected Kate to be a sister to his wife. At no time did he ever question that this indeed would have been the situation. He was really taken by surprise by Kate. He felt betrayed by Kate for how Kate treated Meghan.
Harry also felt betrayed by William. Maybe most of all by William. William is his brother and Harry would die for William. He thought William felt the same way. William does not and this was a tough lesson for Harry. William loves Harry but he is not going to die for Harry and he is not going to put Harry above the monarchy or above Catherine. William realized that Kate did not take to Meghan and Kate felt that she was going to be upstaged by this Hollywood actress. So the hisses and fangs came out and William sided with Kate.
But William had his own biases against Meghan. Not just racial ones. But he had those too. He thought Meghan was too strong. She is such a great public speaker, for example, and that kind of personality can inspire great admiration from others. William as the future king wants to be the one who is most admired. He does not want anyone outshining him. Meghan threatened to outshine even him - for example when they appeared as a foursome. All anyone is interested in is hearing what Meghan has to say.
Why is it like that? Well, it's the fact that she is different. She is an outsider. She is part African American. She is dynamic. She is intelligent. She is an amazing public speaker. She dresses well. Etcetera. People wanted to hear what she had to say. She was interesting and novel in a way that William and Kate could not be. This was very unsettling for William so he joined with Kate against Meghan.
There was also the natural competition between William and Harry that just got out of control when Harry showed up with Meghan. Harry has always had to play second fiddle to William and this has never sat well with Harry. Harry wants to be a star too. He does not want to dim his light so that William can be mediocrely interesting. Harry wants to go for it for himself. William needs Harry to keep dim lights on at all times. So this was part of the psychology of why William got spooked. He felt that Harry's choice of wife was a deliberate attempt to upstage him and Kate.
Was it?
It is possible that Harry was strategic about his pick of wife. He clearly loves Meghan but as a member of the royal family, he knew she would be a controversial pick and so he could have passed her over for someone less controversial. On a subconscious level, he wanted to shake things up. He wanted to say something to his family by picking Meghan. And they got the message and they reacted badly.
As for his father Charles, he loves his son. Charles loves Harry. I know he has a funny way of showing it these days. But he loves his two boys. He was not crazy about Harry marrying Meghan, though. He would have preferred if he had just had a fling. They would have just passed it off like they did with Harry's rehab stint. They equated Meghan's humanity with something comparable to Harry taking illicit drugs. The mere fact that this woman had a parent who is considered to be "black" was degenerate to his way of thinking. Like taking drugs. Royal people like his son do not marry girls with degenerate bloodlines. It does not matter how the individual looks or what they have achieved. A black parent in the bloodline automatically made Meghan a degenerate in his eyes. And it's not that Charles doesn't like "black" people. It is just not for marriage. Only for entertainment. His wife Camilla probably seconded that motion.
Harry did not expect this. He knew that Meghan would have been controversial but he did not think it was that bad. Right? Then, there were the courtiers who, picking up on the sentiment of the rest of the royal family towards Meghan (there was one that even wore a racist brooch to meet the Duchess) just went to town trying to set her up to fail.
Once Harry saw the handwriting on the wall, he lost face in front of his wife because he had not prepared her for any of this. He had believed, naively, that even though his family are a bunch of snobs, they would love Meghan and make an exception for her because he loved her. He thought he could give her "entrance." Once he saw that would not be the case, that he was not enough to give her entrance, he reacted violently. Not in a physical sense necessarily, but in an emotional sense. In part, it is because by rejecting his pick of wife, they had told Harry that he did not have nearly as much clout in the family as he thought he had. He felt humiliated in front of his wife. And so now he is in a position where he feels he has to prove himself to her.
He had that press conference where he told the world "she is the woman that I chose!" Which, you know what? Kudos to him. The situation had fallen apart to the extent that there is where they were. And so he publicly let them know his position. And then, they had to leave because the situation had become untenable.
Had he prepared himself and Meghan differently, and let her know the truth about his family, this might have been avoided. It is a question of being forewarned. Forewarned is forearmed. He should have used his military skills with preparing for this. Things would have gone differently, I suspect.
But all's well that ends well. They are just fine in Montecito. Now they have to focus on taking care of their growing family, and to the extent possible, mending the relationship with both their families.
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