After weeks of deliberation, Prince Harry decided to accept his father's King Charles' invitation to his Coronation, while Meghan Markle respectfully declined.
While, for many reasons, this feels like the right decision for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, one royal author believes it further shines a light on how dire the couple's relationship with the rest of the family is these days—and on the duchess in particular as a symbol, if not a principal cause, of the growing rift.
"What it [Meghan's absence] says is that the real row, or the main source of the row, the source of all the disagreements is Meghan," Tom Quinn, author of Gilded Youth: An Intimate History of Growing Up in the Royal Family, told Express.
"Charles will be pleased that Harry is there. 50 percent of him will be pleased and the other 50 percent will be thinking [that] the whole world will notice that Meghan hasn't turned up."
Elsewhere, it has also been reported that Charles is "disappointed" that Meghan won't be there on a more personal level, since he won't get to see her or the Sussex children.
But for Quinn, Meghan may be the reason Harry left the royal fold.
"Lovely though she is in many ways, she so disliked all the stuffy rules of the Royal Family that she, kind of, she hasn't driven Harry away from the family, she dragged him away," he said.
"He's gone willingly because he's no longer, he doesn't feel, you know, he just exists as the spare. He has an independent existence as a critic of the Royal Family."
He added that if Meghan had gone to the Coronation, it would have "looked more like they could, at least, be at this major event without any problem."
While I see Quinn's point, it's also worth noting that the duchess' presence at the Queen's Jubilee last year only served to further remind royal fans of the rift, rather than giving the impression it was healed.
Royal commentator Afua Hagan has previously hypothesized that Meghan isn't attending the event in order to protect herself from unnecessary scrutiny, while royal expert Jennie Bond called the Sussexes' RSVP decision "the best compromise."
Last but not least, while meeting Meghan might have served as a catalyst for Harry leaving his royal duties behind, the duke has expressed on more than one occasion that he always felt a little different and on the sidelines when it came to his place in the family.
He has also called out the term "Megxit," which he reportedly believes gives the mistaken impression that Meghan made the decision to leave the Royal Family alone, rather than them having decided together that it was what was best for them as a family.
