So I'm going to preface this by saying that, although I consider myself British, I am not a monarchist.
I didn't watch the royal wedding (any of them). I don't collect decorative plates of Kate and Will. Frankly, I'm on the fence about the whole feudal appendage. That said, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's interview with Oprah Winfrey bothered me.
Not because I saw it as an attack on the sanctity of the crown - I hope it opens up an intelligent and rational debate on whether or not Britain should have a royal family at all.
No, what alarmed me was how much the interview seemed to expose what Americans (in particular) don't get about the royal family.
I'm going to say this nice and clearly: the British royal family are not 'celebrities.'
The Queen and her descendants are not 'famous'. They're not 'stars'. The Queen is our head of state, the sovereign of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Commonwealth.
During her interview with Oprah, Meghan herself admitted she made the mistake of thinking the royals were on par with celebrities:
" I grew up in LA, you see celebrities all the time [...] it’s very easy, especially as an American, to go: 'These are famous people.' This is a completely different ball game."
Credit: PA Images The monarchy isn't something you can just cancel either. The last time someone tried to cancel a British monarch, it led to the combined deaths of approximately 3.6% of the population in a little tiff we refer to as The English Civil War.
Indeed, only certain select royals are allowed to have a Twitter account. Royals are forbidden from commenting on politics or taking any partisan stance – something which could be seen as an illegal overstepping of their prerogatives. This is why the Queen's uncle, King Edward VIII, was forced to abdicate by parliamentary vote.
Edward VIII wanted to marry Wallis Simpson, an American woman he loved, and remain king. However, Simpson was a divorcee, and the king marrying her would have contradicted his role as head of the Church of England.
But this interview wasn't concerned with British politics, British culture, British class, or even Britain's very real racial inequalities. It wasn't concerned with our history either, with the role (just or unjust) of our monarchs or the mechanics of our constitutional democracy.
It wasn't for ordinary British people. It was for American fans of Harry and Meghan who wanted to peek behind the curtain, treated much like an extra episode of The Crown.
Americans wanted Harry and Megan to spill the (English) tea on the royals. That's pretty odd, considering that Americans made their feelings about royalty fairly explicit when the Sons of Liberty dumped a large amount of the stuff into the Boston Harbor.
This is not to say that I'm against Harry and Meghan leaving their roles as royals; they are both perfectly within their rights to do so.
But Meghan seemed surprised at having to participate in royal traditions, like curtseying before the Queen while out of sight of the cameras.
As she told Oprah:
"Harry and I were in the car and he says: 'OK, well my grandmother is there. You're going to meet her. Do you know how to curtsey?'
"I thought, genuinely, that's what happens outside. That was part of the fanfare. I didn’t think that’s what happens inside.
"I go: ‘But it's your grandmother.' He goes: 'It’s the Queen!'"
Oprah and Meghan, as Americans, appear shocked by this. But most Brits implicitly get that the Queen is head of state first and grandmom/grandmom-in-law second.
She doesn't stop being the Queen behind closed doors, and Meghan doesn't stop being her subject in private life. The Queen, indeed any monarch, is legally required to ensure that their duty to the realm and the crown stays more important than their personal lives and family ties.
Credit: PA Images It sounds like Game of Thrones, but all this is real and binding. There exists something called the Orders of Precedence, which literally denote the hierarchies of nobility.
Thus, per Reader's Digest, the Queen's husband Prince Philip is required by protocol to walk behind her at all times. In group settings, the Queen is first to sit and first to rise. Always.
Some of these codes of conduct are enshrined in law. For instance, the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 states that royal descendants must seek the monarch's approval before they propose.
Unlike celebrities, royals don't have the luxury of doing things off the cuff either. Harry himself even stated in the interview, that when preparing to announce that he and Meghan wished to retire from public life, Prince Charles, "asked me to put it in writing and I put all the specifics in there."
I think a lot of the interview seemed to reveal a general American ignorance about what the royal family is for. Indeed, many Americans seem quite shocked that hooking up with a prince doesn't lead, in the real world, to a happily ever after.
Credit: PA Images Instead, it brings with it a lot of hard work and close media scrutiny, as it should do. After all, marrying Harry grants Meghan power and influence that mere wealth and exposure cannot, irrespective of her desire or preparedness for it.
Indeed, as Meghan herself admitted:
"I think, as Americans especially, what you do know about the royals is what you read in fairytales.
"It's easy to have an image that is so far from reality, and that’s what was so tricky over those past few years, when the perception and the reality are two different things, and you’re being judged on the perception, but you’re living the reality of it."
That's the thing: the exposure, the etiquette, the titles, the bowing and scraping and curtseying, even remembering the fifth verse of the national anthem – that is the role of a sovereign under a reigning monarch.
It's not something you do. It's something you are, all the time.
Credit: PA Images When Meghan married Harry, that's what she became: a sovereign. It wasn't a promotion from minor celebrity to major celebrity. It was a career change to a different, more arduous, job altogether.
Yet across the pond, the royals are thought of as a posher version of the Kardashians, with all the beef and drama that entails. On social media, Americans are weighing into an issue about which they seem to know and appreciate little.
American Twitter users think they can cancel the monarch. But here's the deal; monarchs aren't canceled. They're overthrown or are forced to abdicate. A social media firestorm isn't the same as a revolution.
This interview could end up eroding the British monarchy. You might think that a good thing. You might think it a bad thing. You might not know either way. But there will be real consequences for our society and political system.
Credit: PA Images Perhaps this is just a consequence of us exporting and commodifying our own hard-won political system. If that's the case, it's us Brits who are to blame. After all, no one worships the royals with quite as much nauseating intensity as we do.
So maybe I'm not up in arms about Americans obsess over the royals. Maybe I'm just getting grumpy because I feel Americans are obsessing over them the wrong way.
If Meghan Markle really did misjudge what it means to join the nobility, it's only because she believed the lies about it that we sold to her.
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