With British royalty, business always comes first
Despite the family drama, Harry and Meghan's story is also about labor disputes and what happens when a glamorous foreigner joins a dark family business, which is now in crisis.
When Meghan, Prince Harry's wife, referred to the British royal family as "the signature" in her dramatic interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday, she conjured up an institution that is both business and fantasy. It is now a business in crisis, after the couple accused royals of having racist and cruel attitudes.
Buckingham Palace responded Tuesday that "the whole family is saddened to learn how challenging the past few years have been for Harry and Meghan." According to the official statement, the accusations of racism are "worrying" and "although some memories may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be discussed by the family in private."
Of course, the story of Harry and Meghan is a traumatic personal drama: of parents and children, brothers and wives, fighting over slights, real or imagined. Yet it is also a work story: the struggles of a glamorous, independent foreigner joining an established, rigid, and sometimes disconcerting family business.
This term is usually associated with Prince Philip, the consort of Queen Elizabeth II, who popularized its use. However, it dates back to distant times, to the queen's father, King George VI, who reportedly once declared: “We are not a family. We are a firm ”.
It is a firm that goes far beyond royalty, as it encompasses an army of private secretaries, communication consultants, company ladies, butlers and housekeepers, chauffeurs, lackeys, domestic employees, gardeners and all the others people who run the palaces, and the lives, of the royalty that live in them.
There are more than 400 employees at Buckingham Palace alone, handling everything from a vast catering business to the queen's dozens of banquets, garden parties and state dinners, to a public relations apparatus. corporate-like, whose members often come from the world of journalism or politics.
"It's very difficult to tell the difference between family and machinery," said Penny Junor, royal historian and author of The Firm: The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor. Family members, she pointed out, use private secretaries for such personal tasks as inviting their parents or children to dinner.
"This is not a family capable of communicating among its members," Junor explained. "Of course, they are not able to take care of each other."
When explaining their reasons for leaving, Harry and Meghan, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, used to mention this bureaucracy and not their close relatives. Members of the palace communication staff did not defend Meghan from the defamatory press reports, they said. Her advisers told her that she should not go out to eat with her friends because she was overexposed, even though she had only left Kensington Palace twice in four months.
Henry described a kind of deep state of royalty that permeates all aspects of daily life and imprisons even family members, such as princes Charles and William, who seem to be at ease within its confines.
"My father and brother are trapped," he told Winfrey. "They can not go out. And I feel enormous compassion for that. "
Days before the interview, the power of the palace bureaucracy became apparent when the London Times reported that Meghan had intimidated members of her staff, brought lesser aides to tears, as well as fired two personal assistants. . A spokesperson for Meghan dismissed the allegations as an attempt to "tarnish her reputation."
The London Times said a former communications secretary for the couple, Jason Knauf, raised concerns about the mistreatment in an email he sent to Prince William's private secretary, Simon Case. Case referred the matter to the palace's human resources department, which did not act on it. Now, Case became a top political adviser to the prime minister because he is the cabinet secretary, one of the most powerful administrative positions in the British government.
The Times report exposes a little-known aspect of Buckingham Palace because it depicts it as a workplace, rather than the celebrated world-famous tourist destination. Like any other employer, the palace publishes job offers: it is currently looking for a digital learning consultant, a position whose salary ranges from 30,000 to 41,660 pounds per year.
“You are part of something special,” the online ad read. "That's what it feels like to work for the Royal House."
One of the added benefits of working at the palace is free lunch. The top royal advisers are especially coveted positions, often attracting people from the ranks of the military or foreign service. Some are attached to the palace and then return to their professional careers.
Harry and Meghan's last private secretary was Fiona Mcilwham, who became the youngest British ambassador in history when she was appointed to Albania. Another former communications secretary, Sara Latham, was a White House aide and later worked for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016.
But Harry and Meghan did not have a good relationship with their staff, according to several people with ties to the palace, and that was complicated by the fact that they initially shared staff and accommodation at Kensington Palace with William and his wife, Kate. .
Even after the siblings split up their staff, relations with attendees were turbulent, often due to Meghan's unflattering news coverage. The couple gave their staff short notice when she announced in January 2020 that she planned to retire from her duties and leave the UK, leaving those employees out of work.
Tensions flared not only between the couple's staff, but also with the other royal houses of the family, at Buckingham Palace, where the Queen's staff are located, and at Clarence House, the residence of Prince Charles.
Relations with the press are at the center of the conflict between the couple and the family. Despite his own difficult personal history, Prince Charles has cultivated better relations with the British tabloid press than Harry and Meghan, who have cut off the tabloids and filed privacy lawsuits against several of them.
Enrique, who blames voracious press coverage for the death of his mother, Diana, in a car accident in Paris in 1997, spoke of an "invisible contract" between the family and the tabloids. "If, as a family member, you are willing to drink, dine and offer full access to these reporters," he said, "then the press will be more benevolent to you."
He commented that his father and other family members were terrified that the tabloid press would turn against them. The survival of the monarchy, he claimed, depends on maintaining a certain image with the British people, which is spread through the widely circulated tabloids. Like the White House, the palace provides access to a rotation of royal reporters, who document the queen's meetings and ceremonies.
"There is a level of fear control that has existed for generations," Enrique said. "I repeat, for generations."
Historians agree that the relationship between the royal family and the tabloid press dates back to the 1920s. Most of the time, the transaction has been mutually beneficial: the royal family has gained exposure for its activities, which has helped to justify your security financed with public funds and other expenses. The tabloid press, meanwhile, has a constant parade of princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, to sell newspapers.
With the arrival of Rupert Murdoch in the 1970s, press coverage of royalty became more invasive and relentless. Enrique's lawsuit against Murdoch-owned newspaper The Sun alleges that his cell phone was tapped. On her side, Meghan recently won a lawsuit against The Mail on Sunday for unauthorized publication of a private letter that she had sent to her father, Thomas Markle, from whom she is estranged from her.
The couple's interview caused a major media drop on Tuesday, when Piers Morgan, the co-host of "Good Morning Britain" on ITV News, abruptly resigned. Morgan, a strident critic of the couple, said he "did not believe a word" of the interview, including Meghan's confession of having considered suicide, prompting more than 41,000 complaints to the British communications regulator.
"The monarchy cannot survive without the media, but how do they run the media?" Said Edward Owens, historian and author of The Family Firm. Monarchy, Mass Media and the British Public, 1932-53.
Harry and Meghan, Owens said, are the latest in a long line of royals whose personal anguish has been described as the cost of fulfilling their royal duty. That sacrifice, he said, was an inevitable part of what George VI wanted to say about being part of the firm. And it served as a justification to the public of the benefits of the job.
"The firm suggests that family ties take a backseat," Owens said. "The duty and business of the royal family come first."
