{"id":39636,"date":"2021-11-08T17:01:15","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T17:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=39636"},"modified":"2021-11-10T15:55:26","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T15:55:26","slug":"london-calling-why-meghan-markle-matters","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/london-calling-why-meghan-markle-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"LONDON CALLING: WHY MEGHAN MARKLE MATTERS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Photo by Max Mumby\/Indigo\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I know I have been here in London for a month now because I have begun to dream about Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles.\u00a0 Although tethered by what destiny has dealt them, they were untethered by my having dreamt about them separately.\u00a0 It felt like a favor I was doing them actually, this American who loves London so much even though I have never been fixated on this family of royals full of tabloid-fodder foibles.\u00a0 London is a place where I am actually a republican, a homonymic confession that can sound rather horrifying to my liberal American ears.\u00a0 And yet is my subconscious being subsumed by this culture here, one that fixates on its royals fumbling about in their designer genes that\u00a0 just don\u2019t seem to fit the century in which they now find themselves?\u00a0 They and the country have gone from the Six Wives of Henry VIII<\/em> to a kind of Housewives of Buckingham Palace<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 It has become a reality show that needs a better producer.\u00a0 I wish Andy Cohen would come over and whip them into shape then sit around with them all in a semicircle and just let them hash it all out.<\/p>\n

Oh, the dreams?\u00a0 Each was a kind of \u201cbuddy picture\u201d since I was just hanging out with them.\u00a0 Charles and I talked about the climate –\u00a0 a subject that seems to help him weather the burden of having, you know, subjects.\u00a0 We also talked about his vintage Aston Martin which was a gift from his mum when he was 21 to make him feel – to push him to feel, one presumes – as cool and manly as James Bond who famously drove one.\u00a0\u00a0 He and the car were in the news recently over here.\u00a0 I guess that\u2019s why I dreamt of him.\u00a0 Prince Charles told the BBC\u2019s Justin Rowlatt that he had converted the little sports car to running on \u201csurplus English white wine and whey from the cheese process \u2026 It smells delicious as you\u2019re driving along \u2026 Why do you think I\u2019ve done [climate activism] for all these years? Because I\u2019ve minded about \u2014 and always have done \u2014 the next generations.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been doing this really to make sure my children, your grandchildren and everybody else\u2019s have some future.\u201d\u00a0 I let him prattle on a bit in the same manner in my dream in that hangdog hauteur of his – one hand in a cashmere coat pocket, the other holding a gin and tonic –\u00a0 as we walked about the grounds at Highgrove\u00a0 until I interrupted him and suggested he lay off the gin since it was making his face blossom even in the autumn which is itself a signal of climate change: blossoms that bloom out of season.\u00a0 He chuckled in his chinless way – well, reined in a chuckle\u00a0 – but then chugged the gin and tonic in defiance of anyone other than his mum deigning to demand anything of him.\u00a0 I also told him he shouldn\u2019t drink and drive that cheesy little car of his.\u00a0 \u201cI have those who drive me,\u201d I was reminded.\u00a0 \u201cI think you could be a bit more driven actually,\u201d I told him.\u00a0\u00a0 He more than chuckled at that and I swear I saw a chin emerge he was so surprisingly amused by my little dig.\u00a0\u00a0 He seemed enlarged by the needed laughter caused him at his own expense, not diminished by it.<\/p>\n

In the other dream, I was walking the corgis with his mum whom the doctors have advised, in fact, to lay off her nightly dry martini as she watches her late-night television shows.\u00a0 What did we discuss?\u00a0 Charles.\u00a0 But I promised her I\u2019d keep it off-the-record.\u00a0 \u201cOh, you can go deep background,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cBut blind quote me in such a way that I can\u2019t be identified.\u201d\u00a0 A corgi defecated on the grass at that point and, taking a monarch\u2019s handkerchief (I saw her initials stitched upon it) from her macintosh (no cashmere for her),\u00a0 she picked it up herself.\u00a0 She carefully folded the monogrammed fabric about the feces then handed it all to me.\u00a0 \u201cWhat am I supposed to do with this?\u201d I asked her.\u00a0 She smiled and said, \u201cNow you understand my country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The irony in those dreams is that I\u2019d never have a chance to talk to either of them in such nonchalant buddy-buddy ways.\u00a0 But there is a chance – an outside one, but still a possibility – that I could actually have a conversation with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.\u00a0 Maybe that is why I haven\u2019t dreamt of them and why the royals seem so put off by them now: Harry and Meghan are no longer the stuff of dreams but of possibility.<\/p>\n

The members of The Firm – as the royal family is known by its corporate-like courtiers – have become rather tiresome to me in their performative, perfumed* pedestrianism even as they dutifully are put on their pedestal, the ultimate plinth of white privilege.\u00a0 And it is that privilege, that whiteness, that plinth, that dutiful dullness that Harry and Meghan are rejecting – not exactly the royalty of the family.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been able to keep their titles while perfecting the performativity.\u00a0 Perhaps it is their being better performers that irks the others so.\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s just their having the gall to settle in America, specifically Santa Barbara, California.\u00a0 At least they could have chosen Canada which is still considered a colony.\u00a0 \u201cHave you been to Santa Barbara?\u201d\u00a0 I was asked by Suzanne Noble, an entrepreneurial expat American writer and app developer who has lived in London now for over 30 years.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI recently visited there when I flew back for the 90th birthday of an uncle who lives in Beverly Hills.\u00a0 Hung out with some famous people and partied at the Alisal guest ranch in Santa Barbara.\u00a0 You know the type of place: where the bourgeois bring their children to wear little cowboy hats and boots. I can understand Harry\u2019s wanting to move there for the weather alone,\u201d she said, circling back to that subject.\u00a0 \u201cI am certain that Meghan has been confronted with the racism for which some of the extended members of the Royal Family are rather infamous.\u00a0 But what did\u00a0 Meghan think she was marrying into?\u00a0 The Royal Family is an institution based on its whiteness. It is inherently racist if not functionally so.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why the marriage was welcomed into the institution is another question entirely.\u00a0 Is this – the falling out – the result that was wished for from the start?\u00a0\u00a0 It is a \u2018Harry\u2019 situation, to use another homonym, and always has been according to the conspiratorial whisperers who theorize that his own genes aren\u2019t as designed as his brother\u2019s and this was a way to ease him away from The Firm.\u00a0 His love for Meghan and their refusal to be cowed by the culture that could welcome a Camilla but not a Meghan was the prince and the duchess just falling into the trap set for them.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t call the courtiers corporate-like lightly for there is a corporate jujitsu maneuver when such c-suite suits don\u2019t want to fire the person they want to leave but instead make that person\u2019s life so miserable that the person quits instead. If such whispers about such machinations are to be believed then this is a plot twist worthy of Hilary Mantel if she had read some Jackie Collins as a respite from her research into her Booker Prize-winning historical novels\u00a0 – Wolf Hall<\/em>, Bring Up the Bodies<\/em>, and The Mirror and the Light<\/em> – which are about the earlier Royal Family told through the narrative of Thomas Cromwell\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

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(Photo by Simon Dawson – WPA Pool\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2009must admit, I love Meghan Markle,\u201d Mantel told Susannah Butter of the Evening Standard<\/em> on a break during rehearsals for the West End version of The Light and the Mirror<\/em>, which she and Ben Miles, the actor portraying Cromwell, have adapted from that third book in her Cromwell trilogy and which is currently running at the Gielgud Theatre on the West End.\u00a0 \u201cShe cheered me up no end,\u201d Mantel continued.\u00a0 \u201cI just love to see her shining face.\u00a0 I love what she wears.** \u00a0I was so sorry she left because I thought that took some of the jollity out of life.\u00a0 \u2026 I have nothing but respect for people trying to behave well within roles they didn\u2019t choose. But there is a huge difference between being a celebrity and being a royal and I think that probably the older generation at the palace was aghast that Meghan couldn\u2019t see that \u2014 and why should she? I feel the monarchy is a burden that each one gladly assumes, but it is a trap for them.\u00a0 The Prince of Wales takes his role every bit as seriously as the Queen does. There\u2019s a spiritual input there. But I don\u2019t know if the young generation feels that same sense of duty. It would be really interesting to hear what William thinks is the world of the monarchy \u2014 but what is the platform for him to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the platforms was his recent Earthshot Prize event – a kind of Oscars for climate activism – which he created through his charity, the Royal Foundation.\u00a0 His plans are to name five winners each of the years that remain this decade.\u00a0 Among the winners this year were the Republic of Costa Rica, which picked up the \u201cprotect and restore nature\u201d award for its policies to restore ecosystems that has resulted in a boom to the country\u2019s ecotourism business, and Milan, which won the \u201cfood waste hubs\u201d award for being the first major city to implement a policy to recover food from local supermarkets and restaurants in order to redistribute it to the needy.\u00a0 Prince William is not only truly the offspring of Charles\u00a0 in his concern for the environment but also has smartly taken up this mantel passed on to him from his father – not just waiting around for a crown to be passed on – because it is a cause dear to the heart and minds of the younger generation, hearts and minds that have to be won over to his side if the royalty is to survive further into the 21st century along with the planet itself.<\/p>\n

It is also a political platform that ignores the niggling subject of the class structure on which the English society is based.\u00a0\u00a0 The climate is an overarching cause that affects us all.\u00a0 In that sense, it is classy of them to have found it as a focus for themselves yet, at the same time, slyly classless.\u00a0\u00a0 I am sure the courtiers – no matter how sincere Charles and William are – game planned it out for them and road tested it as if it were a sports car winding its way around Highgrove with surplus white wine in its tank in order to solve the surplus of white-whining that Charles was doing attempting to find some purpose in his life instead of just being damned by duty.\u00a0\u00a0 The Royal Family may have a rather large carbon footprint which puts a lot of this in a context that can be generously described as ironic in a world where irony goes to die, but as a public image campaign there is a front-footedness to it that I grudgingly admire, as I do these two men who are attempting to navigate with modernity and even mindfulness their way to the outmoded throne that awaits them.<\/p>\n

But there is nothing grudging about my admiration for Harry and Meghan. A London friend, who does hold a royalist grudge against them refers to them as the H&M of the Royal Family, referencing the down-market emporium with its knockoffs from runaways, its facsimiles of the real thing.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAnd I am not talking about the one even in Oxford Circus. I\u2019m talking abut the one in Islington.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 But Islington is cool and hip and exactly where I\u2019d want to live in London if I ever lived here.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, I am sitting here in Islington in a cafe right now writing this column on my way to a dinner party over on Lonsdale Square given by writer and social critic Candace Allen, an African American who moved to London in the 1990s.\u00a0 She is the ex-wife of conductor Sir Simon Rattle and has some experience piloting herself with both the grit and the grace it takes to survive the insular titled enclaves here that cling to the whiteness of their pearls in the 21st century as much as clutching the pearls themselves, an enclave of shared Royal Boxes and the do-I-curtsy-or-not moments when introduced to the Queen.\u00a0 A curt polite respectful nod sufficed in Candace\u2019s case so she could continue to live with herself if no longer, like Meghan, in such a suffocating world for an American who happens also to be a Black woman whose innate dignity cannot be denied her.<\/p>\n

As I wait to head over to Candace\u2019s dinner, I google Meghan\u2019s name to see what is the latest bit of badly-spun news about her as it is covered here in the tabloids and am shaking my head as I read the attacks on her for having the audacity to write a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – and on Royal stationary, no less, the horror of it, can one imagine – in support of family leave in America.\u00a0 In The Telegraph<\/em> there is this headline, MEGHAN ISN\u2019T MICHELLE OBAMA – SHE SHOULD BUTT OUT OF POLITICS, over a column by Zoe Strimpel.\u00a0 Notice the headline writer didn\u2019t compare her to Hillary Clinton or Jill Biden.\u00a0 The columnist in her first sentence invokes the name of Marie Antoinette, making it clear – sort of<\/em> – that she is not calling for the chopping off of Meghan\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

The Duchess of Sussex wrote the letter more as a mom to her children, Archie and Lilibet, than as a member of the Royal Family.\u00a0 Here is some of what she wrote that has incensed the press here:<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past 20 months,\u00a0the\u00a0pandemic has exposed long-existing fault lines in our communities. At an alarming rate, millions of women dropped out of the workforce, staying home with their kids as schools and daycares were closed, and looking after loved ones full-time.\u00a0The working mom or parent is facing the conflict of being present or being paid. The sacrifice of either comes at a great cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many, this sacrifice goes back further than\u00a0the past 20 months;\u00a0it\u2019s 20 or 30 years, even longer\u2014decades of giving time, body, and endless energy not just in the pursuit of the American dream, but\u00a0simply the dream of stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up on the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzler\u2014it may have cost less back then (to be honest, I can\u2019t remember)\u2014but what I do remember was the feeling: I knew how hard my parents worked to afford this because even at five bucks, eating out was something special, and I felt lucky. And as a Girl Scout, when my troop would go to dinner for a big celebration, it was back to that same salad bar or The Old Spaghetti Factory\u2014because that\u2019s what those families could afford\u00a0to do too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started working (at the local frozen yogurt shop) at the age of 13. I waited tables, babysat, and piecemealed jobs together to cover\u00a0odds and ends. I worked\u00a0all my\u00a0life and saved when and where I could\u2014but even that was a luxury\u2014because\u00a0usually it was about making ends meet and having enough to pay my rent and put gas in my car.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect many of your constituents have their own version of that story. Perhaps you do too.\u00a0People in our country work incredibly hard, and yet the ask is soft: for a level playing field to\u00a0achieve their version\u00a0of a common dream\u2014what is fair, and equal, and right.\u00a0Many of our economic systems are past their expiration date, and as you well know, too many Americans are forced to shortchange themselves when it comes to what matters to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn June, my husband and I welcomed our second child. Like\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0parents, we were overjoyed. Like\u00a0many<\/em>\u00a0parents, we were overwhelmed. Like\u00a0fewer<\/em>\u00a0parents, we weren\u2019t confronted with the harsh reality of either spending those first few critical months with our baby or going back to work.\u00a0We knew we could take her home, and in that\u00a0vital (and sacred)\u00a0stage, devote any and everything to our kids and to our family.\u00a0\u00a0We knew that by doing so we wouldn\u2019t have to make impossible choices about childcare, work, and medical care that so many have to make every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

But to so many in England for a Duchess to write\u00a0 such a letter and take such a political stand simply \u201cis not done\u201d – except, as I\u2019ve stated above, when it is about climate change.\u00a0 The difference here is that Meghan, in her role as Duchess of Sussex and the wife of Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, pointedly and with a sense of purpose invoked class in order to help those who have not been as fortunate as she has been to rise above their station, as the British would look on it.\u00a0 Not only do they expect one to stay in one\u2019s lane, they expect one to remain in one\u2019s station in life.\u00a0 I guess they find\u00a0 some sort of order in that, the class structure inculcated within this culture.\u00a0\u00a0 Raising oneself up by one\u2019s bootstraps is admired in America but is not really here in England.\u00a0 Here one is just mocked as an arriviste.<\/p>\n

When one is also a woman of color, one is reminded both outright with coded language that such women are only princesses in the eyes of Disney animators.\u00a0 Color-blind casting should be kept at The National Theatre. Regarding the Royal Family, the British public is an audience it seems instead of a citizenry.\u00a0\u00a0 Netflix, to its credit, realized with its massive success with The Crown<\/em> that the British are not alone in this; rest of us are an audience enthralled by this ur-family full of folderol and fee-fi-fo-fumbling about, of pageantry mixed with any household\u2019s harried mom and distant dad replete with sibling rivalry and riven with the petty slights and heartbreaking tragedies that limn the human condition.\u00a0 The Crown<\/em> was created by the estimable Peter Morgan, a writer who also scripted The Queen<\/em> which starred Helen Mirren on the stage and onscreen.\u00a0\u00a0 The real Royal Family should call Morgan in for some rewrites of itself.\u00a0 Or maybe a better idea would be to call in Zadie Smith who, in fact, is making her playwriting debut in November at the Kiln Theatre with a modern-day adaptation of Chaucer\u2019s The Wife of Bath<\/em> reset in the 21st century and titled The Wife of Willesden <\/em>which refocuses the story on a Black woman and the many narratives within her.<\/p>\n

I get to Candace\u2019s a bit early for her dinner party so we can discuss all of this for this column.\u00a0 She has often been a commentator on the BBC, among other media outlets, on just such matters – from royalty to race, from politics to performances, from class to the classics.\u00a0\u00a0 A novelist and essayist, she was a political activist in her time at Harvard University in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and was instrumental in the establishment of Harvard\u2019s African and African-American Studies Department now headed by Henry Louis Gates.\u00a0 \u201cFor a couple of years I was doing commentary on the BBC\u2019s World Service,\u201d she tells me as we sit at her kitchen table. \u201cOnce it was for one of the Royal Jubilees and it was pouring down rain.\u00a0 During the show I was asked to comment on it all and I said, \u2018Look, as the descendent of enslaved people, I think that status by the accident of birth is crazy.\u00a0 I respect the woman – the Queen – because she works<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Now at that point her lack of education was not very known, but she has worked very hard to catch up and to make herself comfortable with world leaders. I\u00a0 said back then that I know this – I was speaking of the Jubilee and the parties being thrown –\u00a0 gives a lot of people a lot of pleasure and I don\u2019t have any problem with people having a good time.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not a terribly talented or intelligent family – let alone attractive.\u00a0 But they were never going to recognize these little brown children born to Harry and Meghan.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pauses and sighs at having to discuss race yet again within yet another context.\u00a0 And yet Meghan\u2019s forcing the topic regarding the Royal Family for the first time since Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz is an important part of her own historical importance.\u00a0 Charlotte, who some historians purport to have been a Black woman (she certainly appears to be one in the portraits painted of her, especially those by Sir Allan Ramsay),\u00a0 was the wife of King George III\u00a0 and thus Queen from 1761 until her death in 1818.\u00a0\u00a0 There is even another theory that the first Black queen of England was Phillipa of Hainault from 1328 – 1369.\u00a0 But it has been centuries since race has entered the royal discussion.\u00a0 It\u2019s about time we circled back to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I understand where Meghan comes from – not only socially but professionally,\u201d Candace continues.\u00a0 \u201cHer mother lives close to my sister in Los Angeles in side-by-side neighborhoods.\u00a0 My sister is a dean at USC.\u00a0 Doria, Meghan\u2019s mother, got her Masters in Social Work from USC. I was an assistant director for years on movie sets,\u201d she says, alluding to her own historical importance as the first African American woman to become a member of the DGA.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMeghan was just \u2018the girl\u2019 on that show Suits<\/em>.\u00a0 Through her drive, her talent, her beauty, yes, but also her work ethic, she rose through the ranks of that series to be somebody.\u00a0 And she had her causes before she became a Duchess.\u00a0\u00a0 I mean, menstrual rights, for goodness sakes.\u00a0 Not easy stuff.\u00a0 She was trying to get menstrual products to kids in Africa.\u00a0 That\u2019s not glamorous.\u00a0 She went to Northwestern.\u00a0 This is an intelligent woman who fell in love with her prince who is not nearly as bright.\u00a0 And she saved him, this broken kid.\u00a0 She saved him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, she is a product of Hollywood as well.\u00a0 And Instagram.\u00a0 But she is not a fool.\u00a0 I know that her mother was saying, \u2018You know, you don\u2019t have to do this. There are other ways to do it and live your life.\u2019 People get upset that she knows Serena and she knows Oprah.\u00a0 She not only knows Black people but she knows Black people who have worked fucking hard.\u00a0 Yes, they are way up there in society.\u00a0 And, yes, they spend money.\u00a0 But they worked hard to get where they are.\u00a0 They are not these \u2018pure blood\u2019 Sloane Ranger children who just stumble out drunk from Daphne\u2019s or whatever bougie place they go now.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeghan\u2019s\u00a0 gorgeous and she knows how to talk to people and there\u2019s no weirdness.\u00a0 I think that she thought that she would be able to win over the Royal Family.\u00a0 But she didn\u2019t.\u00a0 They looked at her and thought, no doubt, don\u2019t you freaking \u2018colored colonial\u2019 presume to think you know what\u2019s going on with us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked for the Obama campaign.\u00a0 I was part of the principals of the Democrats for Obama in London.\u00a0\u00a0 I even wrote a 10,000 word article for a German quarterly magazine trying to explain the challenges that Obama presented.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe that white people were really going to let him through.\u00a0 And then they did.\u00a0\u00a0 I went, well, damn – and let my guard down.\u00a0 The \u2018dinosaurs\u2019\u00a0 – these are not some sweet creatures, these are ferocious beasts from hell\u00a0 who are trying to take all us down – emerged\u00a0 to retain white power.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure a lot of the courtiers in the Royal Family are motivated by this same white \u2026 ah \u2026 anxiety<\/em> isn\u2019t quite the right term.\u00a0 They just feel they have to win and they\u2019ve got to win no matter what.\u00a0 They\u2019re somehow managing the Andrew saga with all its criminality and sleaze.\u00a0 But Harry and this Black woman who have charisma and empathy have them confounded.\u00a0 William, bless his heart, is not a bad guy but he believes because he\u2019s going to be king that that means something even though he can\u2019t do anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a great Nigerian woman who goes toe-to-toe with Piers Morgan whenever anything about all this flares up over here.\u00a0 Her name is Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu.\u00a0 After the Oprah interview, she said, \u2018The royal family is an institution rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and racism. The legacy is right there. So one is not now surprised that a comment would have been made by several members of the Royal Family about how dark Archie\u2019s skin is.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that Meghan and Harry are over there.\u00a0 I hate the word \u2018journey\u2019 and the term \u2018living your best life.\u2019\u00a0 But they got out of Dodge and they are going to be all right.\u00a0\u00a0 I mean, Harry\u2019s saying that it was a hideous way to grow up and I\u2019m not going to do that to my children.\u00a0 And everybody\u2019s going, \u2018How dare you say that?\u2019 after his father already has bemoaned being sent off to that boarding school.\u00a0 William has alluded to it all, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the Queen got older there were all kinds of undercurrents about what kind of mother she was even before The Crown\u2019<\/em>s depiction of that side of her.\u00a0 And what kind of mother did she have? \u00a0<\/em>Does the word \u2018dysfunctional\u2019 come to mind?\u00a0 Maybe they need some Al-Anon meetings in those castles of theirs.\u00a0\u00a0 They need Al-Anon for days.\u00a0 I\u2019d throw in some ACA meetings, too. Other royal families around Europe contain highly educated and talented people. Queen Margrethe of Denmark\u00a0 is a set designer and costume designer for theatre and films.\u00a0 Princess Akiko of Japan got a doctoral degree from Oxford and has gone on to be a postdoctoral fellow and been a guest professor at universities.\u00a0\u00a0 But here, people prefer to be thick.\u00a0 They\u2019re dullards.\u00a0 They drink.\u00a0 They hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer, <\/em>the new film about Princess Diana starring Kristen Stewart<\/a>, who is so brilliant in it, takes place over a Christmas holiday during which the Royal Family as the staticky background to the story does a lot of drinking and a lot of hunting. \u00a0Even if the real Royal Family does just that over this coming Christmas holiday, I hope Harry and Meghan and Archie and Lilibet are welcomed back over here to celebrate it all with the Queen who is now 95 years old.\u00a0 After a recent hospital stay, she was advised not to attend the Climate Change Conference in Scotland, which she was so looking forward to attending.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s nice when all families are together for Christmas, even this one.\u00a0 Come visit your grandmother, Harry, then go back home to California with your wife and children where you feel you finally belong.<\/p>\n

Oh.\u00a0 One more thing.\u00a0 The most important one.\u00a0 I just realized I haven\u2019t mentioned Kate.\u00a0 She\u2019s literally a footnote here.\u00a0 And that, after I have written all of these words, is finally the real problem that The Firm and its courtiers were having with Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.\u00a0 She was making Kate a footnote.<\/p>\n

Perfumes reportedly preferred by Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of Cambridge, and the Duchess of Sussex.<\/p>\n

It has always been presumed that the Queen chose White Rose by Floris for her wedding day. Thus, the floral scent has a sentimental hold on her and she wears it to this day.\u00a0 Floris does in fact, hold a Royal Warrant, so there is that hint as well that it is favored.\u00a0 Others insist, however, that she has come to prefer Guerlain\u2019s L\u2019Heure Bleue which dates back to 1912, which was the second year of King George V\u2019s reign. The perfume was designed to represent the dusk, or in the words of Jacques Guerlain himself, \u201cthe hour when one finally finds oneself in renewed harmony with the world and the light.\u201d<\/p>\n

(2) Clarence House confirmed that Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, chose for her own wedding day White Gardenia Petals by Illuminum London. Alas, it no longer seems to be in production so if you are having a difficult time finding a bottle, there is a rumor that she has a fondness for\u00a0 Dior\u2019s Dune.<\/p>\n

(3) Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is reported to have had a special one-time-only perfume created for her wedding day.\u00a0 It is said that Floris London was the perfumer commissioned – that Royal Warrant again – to create a scent inspired by its Beramotto di Positano perfume.\u00a0 It was never made available for purchase however.\u00a0 Before she became a duchess and was doing the press round for her role in Suits, <\/em>she was quote as saying, \u201cI alternate between a few scents. I love Oribe C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur Eau de Parfum and both the Wild Bluebell and Wood Sage & Sea Salt Colognes by Jo Malone.\u201d<\/p>\n

** Meghan wore Giorgio Armani for the Oprah interview.\u00a0 For a chat with Gloria Steinem, she chose Anine Bing.\u00a0 She is friends with Victoria Beckham – she and her husband David attended Meghan\u2019s marriage to Harry – and can often be seen in her designs.\u00a0 On that wedding day, her wedding dress was designed by Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy and later that day donned a gown by Stella McCartney.\u00a0 Personally, I love her in anything by Carolina Herrera. I\u2019m prejudiced, however, because I adore Herrera as a person, not just a designer.\u00a0 My favorite look for her is one of her favorites as well: just a simple rather gender-fluid white shirt – especially the Husband Shirt designed by another of her friends, Misha Nonoo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29575,"featured_media":39641,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,16],"yoast_head":"\nLONDON CALLING: WHY MEGHAN MARKLE MATTERS - Grazia USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/london-calling-why-meghan-markle-matters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LONDON CALLING: WHY MEGHAN MARKLE MATTERS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I know I have been here in London for a month now because I have begun to dream about Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles.\u00a0 Although tethered by what destiny has dealt them, they were untethered by my having dreamt about them separately.\u00a0 It felt like a favor I was doing them actually, this American who...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/london-calling-why-meghan-markle-matters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Grazia USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-10T15:55:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/11\/Meghan-featured.png?fit=1280%2C720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"26 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/london-calling-why-meghan-markle-matters\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/london-calling-why-meghan-markle-matters\/\",\"name\":\"LONDON CALLING: WHY MEGHAN MARKLE MATTERS - 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