JOHN MACLEOD: King must put throne first and reject the return of Harry and Meghan

Daily Mail​

6 hours ago

The first rule of monarchy is not glitter, ceremonial nor influence. It is survival.
At the height of the Great War, with thrones tottering on all sides, King George V, our first great constitutional monarch, moved decisively to secure his own.
At his command, all his British relatives repudiated German honours, titles and surnames. His own ruling house, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, became Windsor.
He recast the honours system creating the Order of the British Empire for all, regardless of class, who had rendered noted public service.
And on 18 September 1917, at Ibrox Stadium – no less - George personally presented the very first British Empire Medal. To Lizzie Robinson, 21, swamped in khaki overalls. A Cardonald munitions worker, toiling seven days a week, she had not missed a shift in two years.
On another front, George V was truly ruthless. After the fall of Tsar Nicholas II – his first cousin – the Lloyd George government was poised to offer him and his family asylum in Britain.
Setting any private sentiment aside, George lobbied fiercely to block it, knowing that the presence of this toppled despot would infuriate millions in Britain.
In fairness, the logistics of rescuing the Romanovs would have been extremely difficult: they were duly murdered by the Bolsheviks in July 1918.
George's two elder sons were long close. The Duchess of York, as she then was, simply adored the charismatic Prince of Wales. But, as the country reeled from the shock of the Abdication, in December 1936, Elizabeth and the diffident, anxious Bertie genuinely feared for their tenuous throne.
George VI, too, dug deep. Within weeks he had ordered no calls from his exiled brother were to be put through. Forbade any of the family from attending the Duke of Windsor's wedding.
Flatly – and, probably, unlawfully – he denied the sometime Wallis Simpson the rank and dignity of Her Royal Highness. Come the fall of France, the Windsors were extricated from the Continent only with the greatest difficulty – and packed off to Government House in the Bahamas: they could do little mischief there.
Eight decades later, and none of her offspring was dearer to the late Queen than Andrew. They often rode together, sipped tea together; her face lit up when he entered the room.
But when the Duke of York enmired himself in disgrace, Elizabeth II did not hesitate. Andrew was stripped of his duties, of his patronages, of his honours.
Plans for a sparkling 60th-birthday celebration were canned. The Duke was even cut from the published photographs of his daughter's wedding.
And, months later, stripped of royal rank itself. She adored him still – but Elizabeth let the Queen rule her in this, not the woman.
In recent weeks there has been a curious groundswell of opinion, in many quarters, that the King must now make peace with his own second son and that the Prince and Princess of Wales should be big enough to lump it.
By curious coincidence, snaps of initial peace-talks appeared on the same day that William, Kate and their delightful elder children appeared so enchantingly at Wimbledon.
Soon after, and by no less curious coincidence, the Duke of Sussex reprised – and not for the first time – his late mother's landmine walk in Angola, on the same day as the Queen Consort's birthday.
Let me be honest. I often wish, rather desperately, that Harry and Meghan would finally catch a break. Hit some winning streak that would keep them in style and comfort and, above all, keep them quiet.
But I can think of no more crazed or appalling idea than that they should be welcomed home to this country, to the bosom of the Royal Family, to the renewed expense of the privy and indeed the public purse and – the very idea is fantastic and absurd – to renewed royal duties.
Our King is a singularly gracious, cultured, thoughtful man. In public life long before the most senior Members of Parliament. As we saw in Rome, Germany and elsewhere, he is a far more confident and accomplished speaker than his mother.
His heartache amidst ongoing estrangement from his younger son – though it is not of Charles's doing – is incalculable.
Yet such a restoration of Sussex fortune – which, one suspects, in their current extremity really boils down to money – is unthinkable.
The damage they have wrought since Megxit is vast and irretrievable. Before all the world, they besmirched their kin, the Crown and indeed this country with baseless charges of the rankest racism – this from a man who once mocked an Army comrade and was even snapped, smugly, in Nazi uniform.
This falsehood grievously damaged the Commonwealth, especially in the Caribbean. They slammed this land, the Palace and their family, courtesy of Oprah Winfrey, as Prince Philip lay dying.
They have time and again been caught out in falsehood. They made the Queen's final years a misery. They have smeared the Prince and Princess of Wales in the cruellest and most personal terms, wallow in ceaseless self-pity and seem incapable of keeping a trust or telling the truth.
And for none of this has there been a word of regret, contrition, or apology.
That the Spotify deal has gone, that the Netflix package founders by the bows, that their docuseries (save for the first, the cruellest and most dishonest) have had but derisory ratings and that the sideline in jams, pink plonk and edible flowers is a Stateside joke scarcely surprises.
They have no talent; no appetite for the hard yards of dedicated work. She can afford the finest clothes but, inexplicably, does not wear them well.
And none of this, on cool reflection, surprises: in eighteen months, Meghan proved incapable of even the less than exacting duties of a royal Duchess.
That is before we start on all the broken confidences, the ruthlessly discarded friends – from Piers Morgan to Jessica Mulroney – the traumatised former staff and, surely, the nadir: that twerking video.
This apparently went down a storm in trailer-trash America but, this side of the pond, and as was once said of another, we saw only a woman unfit to be a royal Princess in this or any age.
She is what she always was – a cool, beaming adventuress, her hand always in creepy Mission Control grip of his, as if they were welded by SuperGlue.
The greater shame, and certainly the duller brain, are his. They are now figures of conspicuous failure – the thing most feared in Hollywood circles, as if it were contagious – and, worse, figures of ridicule.
To tap in 'harry meghan' on YouTube is to unleash a tsunami of mockery, derision and scorn and steepled-fingers analyses.
And for this ignominy the Duke and Duchess of Sussex threw away the greatest platform for public service that there is.
There can be no return to that role, or to this land. And, as his forebears grasped before, Charles III must let the King rule him in this – and not the man.