Every headline and story about Peter Phillips’ second wife Harriet Sperling has been overwhelmingly positive. It appears as if the British media is actually totally fine with a member of the British royal family marrying a single mother and a divorcee… just so long as the divorcee is white. It also seems like there’s no drama with a divorced woman wearing a very white wedding gown, borrowed tiara and a veil for her second wedding. But I was told that those choices were tacky and frowned upon by QEII? It certainly appears as if there are blatant double-standards when it comes to Black American women, I guess. Well, it’s not all shady hypocrisy from the left-behinds and their media handlers. Some of the coverage of Harriet is also pretty shady about how Harriet is the perfect royal married-in, and the kind of woman who is the future of the monarchy. From the Sun’s “How divorced single mum and NHS nurse who’s Britain’s newest royal is a blueprint for the new-look ‘firm’ of the future.” Oh no – poor Princess Kate is not going to be happy about any of this.
She grafted for years on a NHS nurse’s modest wage, but Harriet Sperling has now made history as the first single mum to join our modern-looking blended Royal Family. And after she married the late Queen’s eldest grandson, Peter Phillips, in a gorgeous Cotswolds wedding at the weekend, the paediatric specialist is a welcome addition to the Firm. But divorced Harriet’s lavish new lifestyle is in stark contrast to her cash-strapped past of parenting daughter Georgina, now 14 — when she admitted “resources were scarce and the future was uncertain”.
Just 50 years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a royal to even consider marrying anyone other than a pure blue-blooded member of the aristocracy with an impeccable moral compass and background. Even when the then Prince Charles announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, intense scrutiny over her dating history led her uncle to make a public statement that she was in fact “a bona fide virgin”.
Divorce and marrying a divorcee were strictly forbidden for centuries — King Edward VIII famously had to abdicate in order to wed American Wallis Simpson. Today, however, following decades of scandal plaguing the House of Windsor, they have been left with no choice but to relax their stiff attitudes to reflect modern times and show a more relatable image. Merging their two families together, newlyweds Harriet and Peter represent a grounded and down-to-earth blueprint for the future of the monarchy.
With a refreshing lack of fanfare, Harriet, 45, was accompanied to All Saints Church in Kemble, Gloucs, on Saturday afternoon by her lookalike daughter.
Royal historian Tessa Dunlop told The Sun that the pair are well suited: “Down-to-earth is perhaps the most fitting word that springs to mind when it comes to the latest royal love match,” she revealed.“The tone of their wedding weekend felt gloriously modest and incontrovertibly English. Harriet walked down the aisle and into the hearts of royal fans.”
“Here is a woman who, as a divorcee and single parent, speaks to modern, blended Britain, and likewise as a middle-aged nurse puts the public-sector worker into the royals’ famed life of service. Harriet is the real deal — with her quiet Christian faith and NHS work ethic, she provides the blueprint for a modern, unshowy monarchy. The warm friendship that exists between Peter’s two teenage daughters and their new stepsister Georgina is further evidence of a new contemporary model for Britain’s most famous family. That Peter has never sought the limelight and does not sport a title suggests this regular royal love match is destined to last. Harriet’s mother-in-law, Princess Anne, is known as the hardest-working royal, although now there is an intensive-care children’s nurse in the family, Anne might find she has competition for that title.”
[Peter] has long been the peacekeeper between warring princes William and Harry. When their mother, Diana died, Peter comforted his cousins at Balmoral in Scotland. While he had hoped the siblings might be persuaded to set aside their differences for the day to both attend his wedding, Palace staff urged Peter to keep the guest list small to avoid a clash.
Since Princess Anne refused titles for her children, the newlyweds will never be expected to perform royal duties. Instead, after a weekend in the spotlight, they will retreat to their countryside estate to begin their low-key married life.
“Here is a woman who, as a divorcee and single parent, speaks to modern, blended Britain…” I mean, there was another divorcee who married into the family and probably spoke to the racially diverse modern Britain and would have helped drag the monarchy into a modern era, but y’all greeted Meghan with a wall of racist and sexist abuse to the point where the only way to survive was to leave the UK. But whatever. I like how the Sun confirms that the Palace convinced Peter to not invite the Sussexes too – I already assumed that, but there it is in black-and-white, so to speak. The palace wanted an all-white wedding, if you get my drift. And after lavishing praise on Peter and Harriet for being the ideals for a modern monarchy, the Sun ended this piece with the reminder that Peter and Harriet are not actually working royals. Perfection!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
