Meghan’s Hyacinth Bucket-like fussing about poor little Archie not being allowed to be a prince is a stark contrast to the instructions left by the duke that he wanted no fuss and no state funeral. It took the doublespeak of the Grabdication, where ‘finding freedom’ from public scrutiny means sneaking off to the entertainment capital of the world (via Commonwealth Canada – crafty!), and inking a multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix to show up the sterling qualities of the man which lay behind the momentary self-pitying outbursts – ‘I’m just a bloody amoeba!’ – and the grating quasi-racist greetings. Born in exile on a kitchen table and a refugee at the age of 18 months, there were no open arms of Oprah waiting to welcome him to a strange land; manipulated by his wily uncle Mountbatten into a dynastic marriage he gave up his career, his religion and his name in order to devote his life to walking two steps behind his wife. Somehow, they made it work beautifully.
Part of the reason we feel respect for the queen, no matter what our political beliefs, is that she never wanted the position which a trick of fate landed her with – but having accepted the role, proceeded to fulfil it much more admirably than any monarch raised with the job in mind. We can easily believe the stories of how much she is said to have enjoyed her brief civilian life as a navy wife in Malta, looking after her two young children and her dashing husband, until the sceptre of Damocles which hung over her head dropped irretrievably into her hand.
We can only imagine how much sorrow she must now feel. But it will remain purely in our imaginations, because the queen will never complain, knowing as she does that if the under-examined life is not worth living, equally the over-examined life becomes half a life, once the world has finished picking the bones of it on primetime TV.
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