The Queen invited Harry and Meghan to her Platinum Jubilee. But where will she put them?
Elizabeth II, surprisingly, invited the Sussexes to the celebrations next June for her seventy years on her throne. An olive branch which, however, already poses a problem: Harry and Meghan, no longer working royals, would no longer have the right to appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace ...
A gesture of relaxation was needed to break the wall that has been created between the Dukes of Sussex and the rest of the royal family. And who better than the queen could decide to do it? Surprisingly, Elizabeth II invited Harry and Meghan Markle to the celebrations of her Platinum Jubilee, the seventy years of reign that will occur in 2022 and whose celebrations will culminate in the events scheduled from 2 to 5 June.
A real olive branch that could unlock a situation that has been stalled for some time.
At this point, however, a great doubt arises, as the British newspaper Daily Mail pointed out: will there be room for the young rebellious couple on the crowded balcony of Buckingham Palace?
The Platinum Jubilee celebrations will include Trooping the color, the iconic and never-ending military parade celebrating Elizabeth's birthday at the Horse Guards Parade in St James's Park. This parade will be followed by royal greetings to the crowd from the Buckingham Palace balcony as RAF planes whiz through the sky above the historic building.
It is in that moment that it will be better understood whether the rapprochement between the Dukes of Sussex and the Royal Family is effective or just a facade. No longer active members of the Royal Family, Harry and Meghan are theoretically no longer entitled to appear with the Queen in ceremonies, and therefore also on the balcony. There is a very clear precedent: that of Andrea, excluded after the Epstein scandal by the inflexible Carlo and replaced by the Earl of Wessex, Edward, Elizabeth's fourth child, and his wife Sophia.
To see Harry and Meghan on that balcony next June would therefore need a "waiver" from the Queen, a gesture that breaks the protocol and perhaps helps to heal the fracture. Another potentially critical aspect concerns the royal parade in carriages along the avenues of St James's Park. Always according to protocol, the Sussexes would have the last carriage, at the end of the procession. Would Meghan accept such a return to court? Would you, who before leaving London complained of always being in the third row in public appearances, would you accept being the last wheel of the wagon?
