The Queen, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex in July 2018. Photo / Getty Images
COMMENT:
It's a good week for the milliners of London. After 12 months of nary a garden party, royal race meeting or aristo wedding of any significant size, there is finally a glimmer of hope on the horizon for the men and women who peddle wildly expensive chapeaus to toffs: Trooping the Colour is back!
Over the weekend, the Sunday Times confirmed the annual military parade will take place again in 2021 after the event was shelved in 2020. (A dramatically scaled-down version was held at Windsor Castle, the first time during the Queen's 68-year reign the event has been held outside London.)
For those of you who don't have a dog-eared copy of Debrett's to hand, Trooping the Colour (TtC) which dates back to 1748, serves as the sovereign's official birthday celebration and usually involves 200 horses, 1400 soldiers, 400 musicians and the vast, vast extended Windsor clan watching the whole hoopla unfold from the Buckingham Palace balcony.
What makes the 2021 announcement such big news, aside from the huge injection the British hat industry is about to enjoy, is that none other than Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are "expected" to be a part of the big day, making this TtC the first public reunion of the royal family since Megxit.
Oh boy. Let's pause here to process just how gargantuan this moment is going to be.
Trooping the Colour is perhaps the most significant event in the royal calendar, which usually sees 40-odd members of Her Majesty's family assemble for a spot of genteel waving prompting a lot of "who the hell is that?" head-scratching.
Even the biggest royalphiles among us would struggle to pick Estella Taylor and Zenouska Mowatt out of a crowd (They are the granddaughters of the Duke and Duchess of Kent and Princess Alexandra respectively.)
It was barely nine months ago that Harry and Meghan - alongside William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - appeared together at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, the last time the foursome were seen in public, an outing that could be best described as profoundly, publicly awkward.
Meghan's perfect smile could have been welded on; Kate managed to look like a storm cloud in burgundy Catherine Walker; Harry's was a sullen, angry mien; while William was a study in glum forbearance.
After years of reports claiming that the four were locked in some sort of feud, here was technicolour, irrefutable proof of just how Arctic things had gotten between them.
The service was the Sussexes' final official duty and nearly immediately afterwards they flew out of London and set about getting on with a new life of podcasting and Zooming from their greige living room while racking up a new-found fortune.
While initially the couple had said they would be splitting their time between North America and their official UK home, Frogmore Cottage, the pandemic put paid to that, meaning 2020 saw them stuck firmly Stateside, thus putting off the inevitable moment the renegade duo had to return to the royal fold.
Here's the thing: while Harry and Meghan are no longer official working members of the royal family, TtC is considered both an official and a family event simultaneously, therefore there is no question that they would be included on the guest list.
Now, the countdown is on to what must surely rank as one of the most closely watched homecomings in history.
On a personal level, everyone from the Queen down would surely be thrilled to have Harry, Meghan and perhaps even Archie back, however on a regal level, their re-entry into the rarefied royal ecosystem could pose a serious headache for the palace.
Most glaringly, when Harry and Meghan take their place on the balcony, they will be the centre of attention, with thousands of lenses and cameras trained on the couple as they appear feet, if not inches, away from the Cambridges, Prince Charles and the Queen for the first time in over 12 months.
Their every gesture, glance, and word will be scrutinised by the press and social media, and they will be the total focus of the breathless press attention.
The Queen, who? Charles, what?
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall could probably stand there sipping a cheeky G&T and Sophie, Countess of Wessex could break out into the merengue and I doubt anyone would pay them a jot of attention.
There will be Harry and Meghan and Everyone Else.
Her Majesty, who turns 95 this year, will largely be eclipsed in the ensuing media melee, her diminutive figure both literally and figuratively overshadowed by the return of her Sussex grandson and granddaughter-in-law to the bosom of the royal family.
Likewise, William and Kate's every interaction, nod and utterance will be analysed and dissected with Nasa-worthy levels of focus and seriousness, also detracting from the purpose of the day.
And thus we arrive at the bigger issue here, which is what the appearance of Harry and Meghan on the palace balcony will represent. The resumption of TtC this year is meant to be a symbolic moment for the Queen and the royal family - a powerful sign they are getting "back to business", as the Times has put it. (Dorgis, assemble!)
A senior royal aide has said: "The current plan is for the Queen's birthday parade to go ahead in London as normal, with the acceptance that it may need to be adapted or scaled back depending on what guidelines are in force at the time. But the aspiration and the ultimate desire is to make it happen." (Maybe the horses will have to wear masks?)
However, seeing Harry and Meghan, newly arrived with a Californian glow in the midst of the Windsors, will only serve as a reminder of the seismic events of Megxit that shook the palace in 2020, that is, a reminder of just how painful and turbulent a chapter the royal family has just endured and not entirely left behind.
The Queen and her courtiers might desperately want to get on with the waving and knighting and ambassadorial presentations that are part and parcel of being monarch, but the very presence of the Sussexes will serve as a painful rejoinder that Her Majesty just can't sweep the events of recent royal history under a priceless silk rug.
(And all of this before we even try to tackle the very thorny question of what the hell they should do with Prince Andrew. He might have stepped back from official duties but he is still one of the Queen's children and still holds honorary military roles, including honorary Colonel of the prestigious Grenadier Guards, so should he – and will he – be there on the balcony to?)
This weekend it was revealed that both Her Majesty and husband Prince Philip have received their first Covid jab, a sign there's light at the end of the tunnel for the beleaguered UK as it battles through another horrifying wave of infections. While there might be the briefest flicker of hope on the pandemic front, the nonagenarian monarch's family woes seem far from over.
- Daniela Elser is a royal expert and writer with more than 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
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