When you go, will you send back a letter from America? Lochaber no more. Sutherland no more. Lewis no more. Frogmore no more.
The famous Proclaimers song is given an added piquancy now that we learn the King booted Harry and Meghan out of Frogmore Cottage 24 hours after Spare was published.
Really, could anything be more splendid? How cheering that the King responded so compellingly to Harry’s 400 pages of petulance, not to mention trashing his family and the entire British nation on American chat-show sofas.
In his best-selling autobiography, he even invaded his father’s privacy by revealing that the 74-year-old monarch travels everywhere with his teddy bear, failed to get teenage Harry a therapist and was sometimes distant. Boo hoo!
So many secrets spilled, so much wounding treachery. I like to imagine Charles was muttering ‘I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart!’ as he signed the eviction notice with a fine quill and then firmly pressed his cipher into the hot wax.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are reportedly upset about this ‘cruel eviction’
Down came the guillotine, up went my admiration, three cheers for the King. If Charles carries on being so bold I might have to review my opinion that he and Camilla will inadvertently oversee the end of the monarchy; two darling old boobies ushering in a new age of royal irrelevance.
All the King has to do now is banish Prince Andrew to an ordure-scented bothy on the wilder fringes of the Balmoral estate and my confidence in him will be (almost) restored.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are reportedly upset about this ‘cruel eviction’ — oh my aching sides — although they are hardly roaming the prairies in a covered wagon, worrying about finding fresh water before nightfall.
Harry’s only got low-grade A-levels in Art and Geography and a tenuous grasp on reality, but even he must understand that every action has a consequence — even royal ones. And if he didn’t, he does now.
What quiet joy to see the karma train rattling down the track towards Montecito. On behalf of us all, I want to say thank you Your Majesty for giving this spoilt manbaby and his Lady Macbeth of a wife the kick up the backside that they so richly deserve.
For let us not forget that the selfish Sussexes were filming their Oprah interview when Prince Philip became ill; they freighted the Queen’s last year with worry; they painted the Royal Family with a racist hue that was undeserved; and the bruises from their various ‘truth’ bombs and emotional punches are still being felt today.
The biggest joke of all is that Harry and Meghan clearly still thought they had a right to Frogmore Cottage. That it was somehow still theirs. And that it was perfectly acceptable for it to sit empty for 50 weeks of the year and be readily available when they flew in for Wimbledon, or the Graham Norton Show, or the Coronation — in that order of importance, obviously. Although the chances of them turning up for the latter surely get more remote by the day?
Even if it is rubbish to suggest — as some of their more demented supporters do — that the annexing of Frogmore means that there is now no safe space for the Sussexes in the UK.
The biggest joke of all is that Harry and Meghan clearly still thought they had a right to Frogmore Cottage. That it was somehow still theirs. And that it was perfectly acceptable for it to sit empty for 50 weeks of the year and be readily available when they flew in for Wimbledon, or the Graham Norton Show, or the Coronation — in that order of importance, obviously
Ahem. There is the small matter of Windsor Castle, for a start. A fortification that has been keeping royals safe for centuries. And Buckingham Palace is guarded by the British Army around the clock; this might come as a shock to some, but those men in the furry hats are real soldiers, not toy ones.
The King owns many palaces, castles and more than 50 cottages — there is no shortage of spare wings or space or beds for visitors, no matter how ungrateful or unwelcome.
Harry and Meghan appear to hate the monarchy and everything it stands for, but that doesn’t stop them wanting all the perks including grace-and-favour accommodations and, indeed, to be treated like royalty at all times. They like to appear fashionably embarrassed by their privilege, but just watch them yowl like scalded corgis should anyone try to take those privileges away.
This week the couple were out in California, snapped by the paparazzi as they entered San Vicente Bungalows, a private members’ club which boasts the motto ‘privacy is the new luxury’.
Meghan wasn’t carrying her Stop Looking At Us placard, which was a shame. But she was wearing thousands of pounds worth of high-end fashion, while Harry looked rich and relaxed; together they practically pulsated with an intense, cultivated glamour. This is the life they wanted; the vegan leather trousers and the celebrity status, rubbing shoulders with AAA-list stars at an ultra-exclusive Hollywood hotspot.
And to get this new life, they had to say goodbye to their old life, and all the nice things it afforded.
Surely one day soon they will realise that they can’t have both. And that some letters from America are more poisonous than most.