Meghan Markle has become one of the ‘great comic creations of our age’ | Royal | News

As a child, one of my earliest memories is of my mother getting angry with me because I refused to stand at the end of a movie — Born Free, appropriately, so I would have been seven — when they were playing the National Anthem, as was the custom in theaters until 1974.

I was already a rebel – and I found the monarchy, with its element of enthusiastic bowing, scraping and fawning involved, particularly hard to swallow. I became more and more of a republican.

When I was 14, we got the day off from school to attend Princess Anne’s wedding. Instead, I went shoplifting.

With the hiring of Diana Spencer to the Firm, I, like most of the nation, was enchanted by this blushing teenager who had no “side”, who was the only girl in her family to refuse to “come out” as a debutante and who worked as a cleaning lady and nanny, despite coming from a wealthy and aristocratic family.

But the Windsors were too mired in privilege to appreciate the rare gift that gave her faded fol-de-roles a makeover and treated her badly.

As Diana turned rebellious, revealing the steel beneath the satin we had first seen when she had the vow to “obey” removed from her wedding ceremony, through to her death and beyond, I now had two ways of hating the monarchy; through the prism of class warfare and feminism. Jackpot!

It was, ironically, nostalgia for the Diana Effect that paved the way for Meghan Markle in her bid to be Princess of Hearts Mark II; her outward warmth and informality seemed to echo our lost Princess. But an effect is all it was – a special effect, from a professional actress who liked to boast that she could cry on cue from one or both eyes.

She was fooling us as surely as she was fooling the befuddled prince when she wore his mother’s favorite perfume on an early date. It worked, though; even I was left gaga, writing nonsense like “Meghan Markle has never been cheesily waiting for some prince to rescue her. In fact, it seems far more likely that she will be the one to rescue the prince.” CRINGE! as the young people say – but thankfully, the ‘ick’ wasn’t far behind.

How do I hate Meghan? Let me count the ways. The hypocrisy; lecturing the rest of us about climate change and using private jets as taxis. The calculated cruelty in the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen’s final days, bringing to mind bored children tormenting a dying lion, tied up and defanged.

The pretense of “serving” while seeking attention on a global scale – yes, self-serving. Because of this, I found myself a monarchist for the first time.

It’s not that I particularly like the King; if Diana could be brought back to life and installed in his place, I’d be leading the charge. But this is the real world, and because of their behavior, I find myself siding with the institution this unsavory couple seeks to overthrow. Or should that be “sought”?

When I coined the phrase “the Grabication,” I thought Meghan would eventually settle for a few bracelets and some voiceover work. I had no idea that what this shadowy pair were really after was the destruction of the House of Windsor, ostensibly on the grounds of racism, but really because it was the only chance two mediocre people would have to feel powerful.

But with her most prestigious – and lucrative – businesses behind her, and Meghan reduced to worrying about making jam, that Sovereign Grant – standing at £86.3m for the third year running – must seem like something worth taking the risk of getting your hands dirty with.

Meghan has not been seen in this country since the Queen’s funeral in 2022; two years of provocation and attention-seeking while nothing short of a seismic cultural shift was promised.

What’s next for this second-rate strumpet with delusions of adequacy? No longer really royalty, but abandoned by her former showbiz clique – from Oprah to the Beckhams – and shunned by the new stars (Taylor Swift and her selfies with the Waleses), she is now little more than an amplified and deadened reality TV star, famous for being infamous.

The world has moved on; in a bitter twist of fate that no one foresaw, the Great Beast that was the House of Windsor is now a wounded lion, with the King and our beloved Princess of Wales seriously ill.

Meghan, once the couture-clad figurehead of the Victimhood Olympics, is revealed as the world’s biggest crier; now it’s the Sussexes who look like the aggressors, which is a delightful irony, and they’ll need extreme agility to deal with it.

When Meghan arrived, she seemed so modern; now she seems like a relic from another era, a rich, bored housewife whose only status comes from a good marriage.

It’s a small thing, but for me The Handbag summed it up: out for lunch in Montecito this week, wearing an outfit that cost more than £60,000, Meghan carried a Dior bag emblazoned with “DSSOS” – Duchess of Sussex.

It would have been vulgar behavior from a footballer’s wife — flaunting the fact that her only conquest is marrying a rich man — but from a woman who talks endlessly about feminism, it was a spectacular own goal.

So, yes, there are some things I can’t forgive this horrible woman for – but probably the worst thing is her finally turning me into a monarchist.