From where I sit, there was a tipping point on the Prince Andrew/Mountbatten Windsor situation this month which was years in the making. The Windsors misread the public mood, King Charles dithered and Prince William raged from his tenth vacation of the year. The tipping point on Andrew involved a decades-long cover-up, years of lies and abuse, and one of Andrew’s victims speaking from beyond the grave. The situation is simply not comparable to anything involving the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who were bullied and abused by the institution and press, so much so that they simply… left the country almost six full years ago. If Prince Harry’s September trip to the UK was any indication, the British public still loves him and supports him. Andrew, meanwhile, was heckled and called a “nonce” at his mother’s 2022 funeral. My point? It’s bizarre to see so many Sussex supporters and haters alike use the Andrew situation to talk about Harry and Meghan. The Daily Mail’s Maurren Callahan basically had a psychotic episode about the Sussexes in her column published after the Andrew Mountbatten Windsor announcement.
It is now a question of when. Not if. The bombshell announcement out of Buckingham Palace that Andrew has been stripped of his status as a prince immediately, that he will henceforth be known as ‘Mr. Mountbatten Windsor’, and that he has been forced to surrender the lease to Royal Lodge leaves no doubt in my mind: Harry and Meghan are next. The sun begins to set over Montecito — permanently.
And Prince William, as we posited earlier this week, emerges as the apparent force behind these most welcome reforms — despite the official statement having come from the King. This is William’s monarchy now. In that light, Andrew feels more like a pawn removed by William to clear the way for his real target: Harry.
If the late Queen’s favorite son can be coldly ejected and stripped of his birthright — if William can have convinced the infamously conflict-averse Charles to renounce his own brother — well, Harry’s days as prince and Duke of Sussex are surely numbered. As for Meghan? Like Fergie, she would just be collateral damage. An afterthought. Flotsam in search of a shore – perhaps QVC’s Pennsylvania headquarters and where she might shill As Ever overstock on deep discount.
To know that Meghan and Harry may now be consigned to the dustbin of Royal history, perseverating over the remains of the day from the cheap seats, is perhaps the most tantalizing and satisfying finale of the modern age. Sayonara, Sussexes!
Kate, though silent, is doubtless among William’s prime motives in dispatching first with his uncle, and perhaps next his brother. It was Harry who reprinted Kate’s private text messages with Meghan in Spare. It was Harry and Meghan’s cheerleader, their glorified biographer Omid Scobie, who named Kate and Charles as the so-called ‘royal racists.’ If William is just getting started, he surely knows the world is cheering him on, that any further attacks from his brother and sister-in-law, those epic dramatists, would be laughed off and dismissed.
A former royal aide at Kensington Palace, William and Kate’s London residence, told the Daily Mail that ‘now that they’re picking away at the edges [of the family]’ — that would be Andrew — ‘a bigger unravelling is coming.’
That bigger unravelling is, to my mind, Harry and Meghan’s royal titles, status and honors.
‘The role William has — to try to forge something sustainable — is now in stark relief. And no, Charles isn’t up to that job,’ the former aide continued. ‘Once Andrew stops being the convenient cover, then where will people look next?’
So… those quotes from a former royal aide are… not about Harry and Meghan, right? “A bigger unravelling is coming” – for the monarchy itself, because this Andrew situation was and is a larger reflection of the monarchy’s corruption and abuses. “Once Andrew stops being the convenient cover, then where will people look next?” Literally, they’ll look to the remaining royals, none of whom are ready for primetime. They’ll look at a dying king, his unhinged, illiterate, workshy heir, and a collection of senior citizens who stagger through their busywork. If and when William “takes away Harry and Meghan’s titles,” it won’t actually mean a thing to Harry and Meghan. They live in California. They own a beautiful mansion. They are free from all of this bullsh-t. Let me say this as well: once the Sussexes stop being the convenient cover, then where will people look next?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.
