Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made headlines with the launch of their new website, sussex.com, and a royal expert believes the late queen would not have been happy with the recent development. According to the royal expert, the late queen would have felt “hurt and angry” about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's new website. The sussex.com website, which launched earlier this week, prominently displays their titles as Duke and Duchess of Sussex and features the royal coat of arms. This has caused concern in royal circles, as there are fears that Harry and Meghan could use the site, with their titles and crest, for commercial purposes.
In 2020, when Prince Harry and Meghan shocked the world with their decision to step back from royal life, the late queen and other royal officials agreed that the couple should not use the word “royal” in their new brand image nor capitalize on their HRH credentials. . Although the new website does not include the word “royal”, Ingrid Seward, biographer and editor of Majesty Magazine, believes that the Sussexes have found a way to circumvent the Queen's command, despite her fondness for them.
According to Seward, the late queen saw the potential in Harry and Meghan as a couple working for the Commonwealth, which was her father's legacy and had become hers. She saw Meghan's mixed-race heritage, youth, style and intelligence as assets to the monarchy. However, the Queen was disappointed when her hopes of Harry and Meghan supporting the monarchy were not realised. In 2020, instead of showing solidarity, the couple expressed their desire to take a step back. This is where the Queen's determination comes into play.
With her husband's support, the Queen has made it clear that Harry and Meghan cannot have it both ways, being partially in and partially out of the monarchy. She informed them that they could not exploit their royal connections for personal financial gain. As a result, she banned them from using the website name sussexroyal.com and from using their HRH titles.
The royal expert believes the late queen would have been hurt and angry at the latest developments. She sees the use of the slightly different name sussex.com with a link to Sussex Royal as a way of circumventing the Queen's instructions. It's disheartening to see the half-truths they now seem to rely on to achieve their goals, especially considering the potential they once had.
The launch of the new website comes at a time when the current monarch, King Charles, and Harry's father, is undergoing treatment for cancer. When news of the king's condition was revealed, Harry rushed back to the United Kingdom and had a brief 30-minute meeting with his father. However, the father-son relationship has been strained due to Harry's criticism of his father in his Netflix series and in his controversial memoir, “Spare.”
Ingrid Seward says the new website will likely add to King Charles' unease. She believes that the ideals promoted by Harry, through his polished American PR team, do not perfectly match her father's values. Despite the challenges, King Charles is expected to overcome the situation, as he always does. But it is undoubtedly an additional upheaval in a period when he feels fragile. He has temporarily postponed his public duties but continues to work on state papers behind the scenes.
