Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be visiting the UK in September. Photo / AP
OPINION:
Sometimes there are coincidences that are just too deliciously ironic for words.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the official Twitter account of the royal family took a break from posting their usual roster of photos of Princess Anne Doing Things (my all-time favourite came last week of her inspecting a sewer) to mark Victory in Japan day.
“War has ended” - King George VI, 1945.
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) August 15, 2022
This #VJDay marks 77 years since Victory in Japan and the end of the Second World War globally.
Today we remember and pay tribute to the British and Commonwealth forces who gave their lives for freedom.
📸 - @RCT pic.twitter.com/6klGwdGZCV
Here was the royal family observing a day all about peace at the same time it was revealed that the two people who have caused no end of strife for the House of Windsor are about to hit the UK with gale-force gusto and, perhaps, a Netflix crew in tow.
Because also on Tuesday morning, it was announced that royal agitators par excellence, Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are set to return to the UK next month for a series of charity events.
On September 5 they will be in Manchester where Meghan will address the opening ceremony of the One Young World Summit before they zip across to Germany for the Invictus Games 2023 One Year To Go event on September 6 in Dusseldorf.
They will then head back to Blighty for Harry to give a speech at the WellChild Awards in London on September 8. So much caring! So many frequent flyer points!
(According to the Daily Mail's Richard Eden it is "thought unlikely" that they will bring their son Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 1.)
But timing, oh she can be a cruel mistress, and the timing of the Montecito Two's British return could not be more fraught or already have the makings of a PR nightmare.
See, on September 5, when Meghan is striding onto a stage in Manchester to give a speech that will no doubt be full of dramatic pauses, the Conservative Party will be holding their leadership vote to choose the country's next Prime Minister, before, the next day Boris Johnson will formally resign and return the keys to 10 Downing Street.
(It's not going to be a question of if there are red wine stains on the walls of the official residence but how much Burgundy has sunk into the silk water paper.)
Not only will this ensure that the Sussexes high-wattage return will be unceremoniously shunted down the ladder into second or third place on the day, this also sets the stage for a potentially very awkward situation with the Queen.
The Palace has already confirmed that the sovereign will interrupt her summer holiday in Balmoral to return to London for the change in leadership and, as is usual, will meet with not only the new PM but outgoing Johnson as well.
And that of course means that the Sussexes and the Queen – you know, the woman who heads up the institution which has been the target of their narky salvos – will be in the same place, at the same time.
Insert some particularly dramatic music here.
The million dollar question, or should that be the $140 million question here, is, will Her Majesty make the time to see them?
The Sussexes will likely stay at their UK base, Frogmore Cottage during their sortie, a property for which they renewed the lease in May. The Queen, meanwhile, will likely be just up the road at Windsor Castle.
Thus in fair Windsor we lay our scene: The monarch perched on her favourite, threadbare Colefax and Fowler-covered sofa having a hot china teacup of Horlicks while just over a kilometre away, Harry and Meghan will be busy scribbling in their gratitude journals.
So will they or won't they meet?
The last time the Sussexes and the Top Lady, as the Princess of Wales called her, came face-to-face was briefly during her Platinum Jubilee Celebrations in early June when they introduced their namesake daughter Lilibet to the Queen.
(The Sun reported the same month that Her Majesty had "banned" the couple from bringing a photographer with them for the happy moment.)
Prior to that, there was their quickie visit in April when they popped in on their way to The Hague for the Invictus Games. According to biographer Tom Bower's recent release Revenge, Harry had "asked the Queen if he could visit her in Windsor on his way to the Netherlands. "To secure her agreement, Harry appeared to give the impression that the meeting would offer an 'olive branch' to 'clear the air'," Bower wrote.
However, whatever intra-familial progress might have been made was dashed when less than a week later Harry decided to tell US TV host Hoda Kotb that he had visited to ensure Her Majesty was "protected" and had the "right people around her".
The question is, come that first week in September, will we see Her Majesty make time to see her grandson and granddaughter-in-law? Or could she deliver the snub to end all snubs?
If the situation comes to pass that both the Queen and the Netflix dabblers find themselves only minutes' drive away from one another and the nonagenarian does not make any effort to see them, then it will be nothing short of abjectly humiliating for the duo.
If the Duke and Duchess do fly 8500km around the globe only to be cold-shouldered by Her Majesty, it would be a stinging PR blow; a blow that is unlikely to impress their Netflix paymasters. After all, disaffected, self-exiled former HRHs who the amiable, widely-loved Queen won't see make for a much harder sell to audiences.
Really what this upcoming week in September boils down to is it will be a litmus test of how things stand between the former Army captain and his grandmother. Will we be looking at hands-across-the-aisle, peacemaking Queen offering finger sandwiches and unerring familial love or will Her Majesty instead bluntly reject the lippy Sussexes?
So far the Palace has remained tight-lipped, with the Duke and Duchess' visit coming during a "busy week" for the monarch, according to The Telegraph, with one royal source telling the paper that there are "lots of moving parts".
The elephant in the room in all this mess is Harry's memoir, which may come out only weeks after their British trip, with October previously having been mooted as a possible release date. Will any of Harry's family be even remotely willing to spend time with him if they are about to face several hundred pages of score-settling and sour kvetching?
Another factor in all of this is that guess who will also be happily living on the Windsor estate by September? That's right, none other than William and Kate, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their three children who will be moving into the four-bedroom Adelaide Cottage in the coming weeks.
Interestingly, within hours of the Sussexes' return landing on social media, the Telegraph was already reporting that the now California-based couple "have no plans to see the Cambridges". That's that then.
However, the Queen is another matter entirely. Will we be seeing a sympathetic grandmother? A rightfully peeved CEO? A monarch itching to put the Tower back into service?
What it comes down to is, Her Majesty has the power to help make the Sussexes' trip either something of a successful return to the British spotlight (which could pave the way for more time on UK soil) or a bit of a bust characterised by mortifying regal rejection.
You don't need to have a crystal ball to be able to work out which option Netflix producers must surely be hoping and praying for, assuming they will be along for the ride.
And you know who probably won't be wasting a second worrying about all of this? Princess Anne. Because while there are sewers left to inspect, lighthouses to visit (always a favourite of hers) and recycling centres the length and breadth of the UK to examine, she has work to jolly well get on with. (There's a lesson in that for all of us.)
Black Label Barbeque is a finalist in the Monteith's Wild Food Challenge today.