Recent years have seen the emergence of an unfortunate trend for both Britons and Americans when meeting strangers or acquaintances, in that we know exactly what the conversation is going to be about immediately after the initial pleasantries are concluded. For our American cousins, it’ll be something along the lines of ‘So – Donald Trump?’ and for us Britons, ‘Brexit?’, and more recently ‘What do you think about Meghan Markle?’.
To forestall any such questions for me of this kind, and to perhaps give another perspective, I shall be outlining my own position today.
To begin with, I’ll admit to being a moderate monarchist. Of course, I completely understand those who say that it looks a rather silly institution to modern eyes, but I shall say one or two words in its defence.
As part of the whole fabric of the nation, once a week the Prime Minister has to meet with Her Majesty and explain his government’s activities. Now, to those people who find Donald Trump odious, or worry about Marine Le Pen taking control in Paris – to borrow slightly from Stephen Fry, imagine if Trump had had to make an ascent on Capitol Hill every week to talk to Uncle Sam, or Le Pen to Marianne. A humbling task for a politician with lofty ideas about their person.
Since there is also no codified constitution, Britain is also spared the endless arguing that persists in the United States. I’m very partial to the ideas that led to spawning of America, just not how they were executed – and those who quote the US Constitution aren’t often able to contextualise it. Could George Washington have imagined the destructive potential of an AR-15 semi-automatic? I wouldn’t imagine so, since in his day trained soldiers were lucky to get off three rounds a minute; the idea of a weapon that can do at least a hundred times that number probably never even entered the great man’s dreams. Written rules, of course, can be twisted to mean anything – and intelligent men though the Founding Fathers were, they could not see the future, and their efforts did nothing to prevent the traumas and difficulties that were to come. Indeed, they may even have made them worse.
What is and is not constitutionally legal continues to pose questions for Americans, and is likely to do so for as long as the country relies on a document written in the 18th century. To give you some context, a former US Army friend told me he had quarrelled with an old comrade about whether storming the Capitol was constitutional, and who had the right of it. Naturally, the matter was deeply personal to both men as career soldiers, since American military personnel swear to defend the Constitution of the United States. This simply could not have happened in Britain, since British soldiers swear their own oaths to Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family (hence the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Air Force, etc).
That does not mean that the Royals can call upon the military and order ‘Occupy Parliament at once!’, but it does mean that our own people are spared from poring over documents written centuries ago and trying to awkwardly apply them to the modern world. There are benefits to writing down exactly what your country should be, but it does seem to get in the way of common sense sometimes.
Some of Meghan’s complaints came from the fact that she felt her freedom was being restricted. I can see her point – marrying into the Royal Family comes with a whole host of duties and responsibilities, and as she has recently admitted, for these she was ill-prepared. I have some sympathy for those who claim that she was a Hollywood B-list actress hoping that royal status would vitalise her career; it’s not a hard sell.
But knowing American culture, I spare some sympathy for Meghan herself on finding out that her career was over before it had really begun, and that her individual choices would always be secondary to royal duty. The notion of the American Dream seems to be a driving force in the USA: that no matter how lowly your birth, you can rise to the top, and do everything your own way (this, incidentally, is why I loved America, and fully understand Christopher Hitchens when he spoke of ‘the pull from the American planet’).
Britain, however, is a different place – particularly areas of the country and culture which remain dominated by tradition. Class culture is far more deeply ingrained, and social mobility arguably more difficult. People are not raised in or endowed with a can-do spirit, but instead with rules and in social rigidity. Meghan, as a self-made celebrity from a country whose name is a byword for freedom, would naturally react with horror at the fact that she is subject to stifling rules that would often seem archaic.
Yet while I certainly believe her when she claimed not to have known much about the Royal Family and the life therein, I do wonder why she didn’t think to try and find out before. The reasons behind the collapse of Diana and Charles’ marriage are hardly state secrets, and one might have thought that Meghan would have detected in Diana’s issues some forewarning. And while I’m happy to accept that not being taught to curtsy is a valid objection, not having been taught the National Anthem is a weaker complaint. “I had to Google it,” she said to Oprah. Well, obviously – what was she expecting? For a wizened, stern but kindly piano teacher with whom Megan would embark on a singing journey of start-badly-gradually-improving, culminating with a solo rendition from the balcony of Buckingham Palace? (Actually, suspecting the size of her ego, I’d not be surprised).
In short, she didn’t know what she was getting into, but could have found out. She also displayed her ignorance when she expressed outrage that her son will not be considered a prince; this is, in fact, nothing to do with the boy’s skin colour, as she seemed to think, but everything to do with a change in royal protocol by George V. With William and his own children, Harry is decidedly low in the royal pecking order himself now, and his children will be even further down the line. Red hair or dark skin have nothing to do with it.
The Royal Family are apparently taking her allegations of racism very seriously, as they should. They should investigate Prince Andrew while they’re at it, and put that sorry episode to bed once and for all as well. But I can’t agree that Britain’s society is inherently racist – a viewpoint I’ve covered elsewhere on these pages. If it was, and if the public were so set against Meghan because of her skin tone, the hordes of people who came out to see their wedding would have been hurling bricks and stones instead of cheering.
It isn’t, in my view, anything to do with race, and if there are some moronic and vile comments online from a few disgusting individuals who really are prejudiced, I still fail to see how they can be considered representative of the entire country.
No, dislike of Meghan is simply because she came to the country expecting to put her own spin on a national institution – this is akin to wanting to doodle on the American Constitution, or perhaps thinking it would look better with glitter.
I’m a fair-minded sort of chap, so I shall conclude by stating that I think that the Royals will endure – but I also hope that Meghan and Harry enjoy their televized privacy; I know I would if I was paid $7 million for an interview.