As welcome-back-to-Britain gestures go, the lord chamberlain’s letter, sent on behalf of King Charles on Monday to remind Harry, Meghan and everyone watching that they’re still “private citizens”, was so perfect as to restore me to monarchism. After six years in the wilderness, what greater comfort for Prince Harry than to find himself, once again, in the familiar waters of this country’s passive aggression, being attacked by his father via the merciless phrase “fully respected”, and provoking from the prince a coded up-yours in the form of his publicly stated “surprise”.
Well, it’s up there with better cheese, bread and the NHS, isn’t it?! Even the most Eurocentric American can’t match us for this kind of subtextual bare-knuckle fight. Before we get into what else the returnees may be enjoying this month, let’s fully excavate the letter’s encrypted hostility. First, the king’s repeated use of the words “personal” and “private” – as in “the charitable work of the Duke and Duchess is a personal matter for them both and undertaken in their private capacity” – is so intense, so heavy handed, as to go beyond merely calling his younger son a civilian and come perilously close to the ultimate insult, “middle class”.
