Disenchanted royals deserve clean break

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/01/2020 (1811 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Let them go. Let them go. Can’t hold them back anymore.

Paraphrasing a song from a cartoon movie might seem a slightly impertinent manner in which to weigh in on the plight of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but there’s also something fitting about a reference to a story about a princess who just wants to be herself in a frozen realm of her own choosing.

Prince Harry and his spouse, Meghan Markle, announced rather abruptly last week that they intend to step back from their roles as “senior” members of the Royal Family and work toward financial self-sufficiency. The declaration apparently took the rest of the Windsor clan by surprise.

It also sent the royals-obsessed British media into a full-blown tizzy, setting the tabloids, broadsheets and broadcast outlets into a mad-dash scramble for tidbits of news and speculation to put the couple’s near-unprecedented decision to quit royal life into context.

“MEG’S MUGGED US ORF!” blared The Sun’s front page, while the slightly less strident Daily Mail doubled up its headlines with “Countdown to Chaos” and “Meghan Flees to Canada.” The Daily Mirror finger-wagged “They didn’t even tell the Queen” and, of course, it didn’t take long for many outlets to invoke the inevitable newly invented term: “Meghxit.”

At the heart of the kerfuffle is a clear indication that Prince Harry (sixth in the line of succession to the Crown) and Ms. Markle are fed up with the obligations, constant media scrutiny and personal-space invasions that are intrinsic to the experience of 21st-century British royalty.

There are also long-simmering rumours of ill will between Prince Charles’ two sons and their respective spouses. Some have also advanced the theory that Ms. Markle, an American who had enjoyed mid-level celebrity as a television actress but clearly had no idea what she was signing onto by marrying her way into the royal fishbowl, has had her fill of the toxic and often racist taunts of the British tabloids and is the prime motivator behind the couple’s planned curtailment of official duties.

Whatever the case, they want out. And it isn’t merely a proposal they’d like to discuss with Her Royal Majesty; for all intents and purposes, it’s a unilaterally decided done deal, and what’s left is for the rest of the Windsors to get used to it and for Prince Harry — who has remained in the U.K. while Ms. Markle returns to Canada to be with their young son, Archie, who remained here after their recent West Coast visit — to sit down with the Queen to hammer out the uncomfortable details.

The Queen should, in keeping with the aforementioned Frozen anthem’s earnest entreaty, let them go. She’d be unwise to think she can hold them back.

But in gaining their release, the disaffected duke and duchess should make a clean break of it, rather than clinging to half-measures that will allow them to continue to draw on the purses of taxpayers in Britain and the wider Commonwealth (there is one suggestion circulating that if the couple decides to relocate to Canada, the citizenry here could be on the hook for millions to pay for the royals’ security detail).

There should be no continuing stipend for a part-time commitment to occasional royal appearances; no more access to the drawing rooms and bedchambers of Windsor-held regal accommodations. Full financial self-sufficiency should be an obligation rather than an aspiration.

Let them go, indeed. But completely on their own non-royal dime.