Harry’s Last Dance: Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Slog Through Their Final Event As Royals But Are Not Allowed To March In With The Queen


It was not, ever, going to be a particularly happy circumstance, yesterday’s Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, at which Meghan Markle was simultaneously being reintroduced to the larger Royal Family and, also, serving her valediction to it in service to the Queen. But the event worked out in a curious way, and gave us all a good solid glimpse of them in their last full complement, doing proper duty under significant intramural pressures. The reported sticking point was, surprisingly, not the service but the procession into the church, according to the court gossip and a few of the lead coursing hounds of press on the royal beat.

The problem was this: The courtiers mandated with fashioning the architecture of the service — and the Queen and Charles, who would have signed off on it — apparently left Harry and Meghan out of the traditional inner-family procession into the church behind the Queen. Put another way, they — Harry and Meghan Markle, as outgoing royals — were to be seated with other minor royals such as Prince Edward and Sophie of Wessex in advance of the Queen’s annual processional arrival with Charles, Camilla, William and Kate.

The programs for the service were printed announcing this architecture. Last year, of course, Harry and Meghan had been in the thick of it, marching in with the Queen. This year, no.

Naturally, given their two-month-long fight to retain any shred of royalty that they could make stick to them, the structure of the program didn’t sit well with Harry or Ms. Markle, who aired their displeasure to the point that an adjustment had to be made. It seems but a detail, participation in that procession, but, reportedly, it was not. Wholly unclear is to whom, of the Sussex couple, did being left out of the procession mean so much. Did it matter more to Harry, given his rapprochement luncheon with his grandmother? The procession was, after all, composed of Harry’s immediate family. Or was Ms. Markle the likelier to have her Hollywood Emmys-seating antennae rubbed the wrong way by the step-down in status? Either way, it would be interesting to know that, but we’re not likely to experience it any time soon.

In the larger sense, however, the event and the soon-to-be un-royal couple’s response to it gives us fair room to ask what, exactly, the Sussexes want or hope to accomplish with such strivings for the minor trappings of royalty. If they are going to keep doing this — keep dogging the details so closely and microscopically — As a royal Harry doesn’t have much left to prove. He is and will foreseeably remain sixth in line to the throne. His grandmother, who is very much still running the show, thank you, has reassured him that he is always welcome back, and in fact, that is the express purpose of the 12-month “review period” built into the Megxit agreement with Buckingham Palace.

In a delightfully kingly moment, William reportedly stooped in to the rescue, declined his and Kate’s participation in the procession, and, like his brother, was seated before the Queen and Charles entered. The pleasantly surprising move was, reportedly, enough to mollify the protests. As it worked out, William and Kate were seated in the front row with the monarch anyway, and Harry and Meghan were in the second. On the way out, Harry and Meghan Markle got to march with the Queen before the 2000 other guests were allowed to exit — pictured above — so that there was at least one bit of the royal fabric of the event draped over them.

And: As pictured above, not a single one of them looked particularly happy about it. But then again, they weren’t supposed to be.

Although it is certain that no one involved — not a single courtier nor royal — would have wanted this reported disagreement over protocol aired in a wider circle, its shape and result does tonally and conceptually dovetail with each move the Sussexes have made since their early January Instagram drop proclaiming their independence.

In the larger sense, yesterday’s event and the soon-to-be un-royal couple’s response to its build-up gives us fair room to ask what, exactly, the Sussexes want or hope to accomplish with such strivings for the minor trappings of royalty. If they are going to keep doing this — keep dogging the details so closely and microscopically — it’s not going to be a good “look” for them, to put it in Meghan Markle’s lifestyle-blogger lingo. As a royal, Harry has literally nothing left to prove. He is and will foreseeably remain sixth in line to the throne. In fact, he remains a royal. His grandmother — still very much still running the show, thank you — has reassured the prince that he is always welcome back, and, in writing, that is the purpose and intent of the 12-month “review period” built into the Megxit agreement with Buckingham Palace. He’s got everything he wanted.

The ongoing question for Harry will be whether, starting now, in the actual doing of this life change, he actually wants it.

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