When Prince Harry began introducing his new girlfriend Meghan Markle to his closest friends in 2017, not everyone was sympathetic to the American actress.
After all, Harry’s friends tend to be rural sports enthusiasts with an earthy sense of humor, while Meghan is a politically correct Californian who practices yoga when she’s not drinking green smoothies or nibbling on avocado on toast.
However, one of the Prince’s oldest friends was determined to remain close and in 2019 agreed to take on the responsibility of becoming godfather to Prince Archie, the Sussexes’ first child.
The 7th Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, will marry Olivia Henson tomorrow
That friend is Hugh Grosvenor, 33, the seventh Duke of Westminster and one of the richest men in Britain.
Hugh, who was among the guests at St George’s Chapel in Windsor when the Sussexes married, will walk down the aisle tomorrow in a ceremony of such grandeur it is being described as a “royal wedding” in itself.
So the absence of Harry, Meghan and Hugh’s godson Archie from Chester Cathedral may seem surprising.
Citing an inside source, America’s People magazine reports that Prince Harry received an invitation but declined after realizing “the challenges of his attendance.”
This followed a claim in the New York Post that, according to an anonymous source, “Harry received a ‘save the date’ card a few months ago, but called Hugh and told him it would be too awkward if he and Meghan Markle attended.” , so he apologized and Hugh understood.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the Armed Forces Complex in Abuja, Nigeria, last month
I’m told the true sequence of events was considerably more confusing than that. We may never know. But the absence of Harry and Meghan at the wedding says it all.
Other members of the Royal Family are expected to be there, and Harry’s older brother, Prince William, will be the usher. Are relations between Harry and his brother so bad that they can’t even attend the same event?
Space would hardly have been a problem. With room for 500 guests at the cathedral, it would have been easy enough to place the Sussexes away from the family members they have publicly attacked.
It won’t be the first wedding of a close friend that Harry has missed. There was disappointment when, last summer, the Sussexes did not attend Jack Mann’s exchange of vows with osteopath Isabella Clark in Suffolk.
Among the guests that day was Harry’s friend Thomas van Straubenzee, who is the godfather of his niece, Princess Charlotte.
On the night of his own wedding in 2018, Harry stood shoulder to shoulder with Mann and his other close friends in the famous ‘band of brothers’ photograph at Windsor Castle. It was later suggested that Mann, whom Harry met at Sandhurst, where they were both commissioned into the Royal and Blue division of the Royal Cavalry, was not simply one of the ushers but was, in fact, the “real” godfather of the The prince.
And that, by implication, the eldest brother, Prince William, was nothing more than a character in St. George’s Chapel.
Anyone who doubts the depth of Harry’s rift with some of his oldest and once closest friends need look no further than the new Clarkson’s Farm series on Amazon Prime, in which columnist and host Jeremy Clarkson tries to run his 1,000-acre Diddly Squat Farm in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.
Clarkson was condemned by Harry last year after writing in a newspaper article that he hated the Duchess of Sussex “on a cellular level.”
Although Clarkson – former host of Top Gear and The Grand Tour – apologized, Harry’s spokesperson was withering in his complaint, stating: “What remains to be addressed is his (Clarkson’s) long-standing pattern of writing articles that spread rhetoric.” of hate, dangerous conspiracy theories and misogyny.’
However, who should appear on a recent episode of Clarkson’s Farm… but another of Harry’s oldest friends?
Hugh van Cutsem, described simply as ‘Hugh’ on screen, is seen stalking deer with Clarkson in the Cotswolds countryside, an appearance that would have been unthinkable if he were still around Harry.
Hugh, whose late father was one of King Charles’s oldest friends, has known the royal princes all his life. With his wife, Rose, he was among those who did their part to make Me-ghan feel at home when she first moved from California to the UK in 2017, inviting the new couple to dinner at their home in West London.
The van Cutsems were also among the guests at the Sussexes’ wedding the following year. However, things look quite different now.
Harry appeared to confirm the extent of the rift with the family in his best-selling memoir, Spare, and revealed that both Hugh’s mother, Emilie, and one of his four children had contacted him to express their fury following the The Sussexes’ 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, during which Meghan made the explosive claim that the Royal Family was racist.
Harry’s older brother, Prince William, will be the usher at tomorrow’s wedding. Richard Eden asks if relations between Harry and his brother are now so bad that they can’t even attend the same event
“Several close companions and beloved figures in my life, including one of Hugh and Emilie’s children, Emilie herself and even Tiggy (Pettifer, her former nanny), had berated me about Oprah,” the Duke wrote.
How sad that Harry’s growing distance from some of his friends seems to mirror Meghan’s distant relationship with members of her own family.
Harry never even met his father-in-law, Thomas Markle, and it was notable how few of Meghan’s relatives were invited to their wedding.
No matter how many new friends Harry makes in California, there may come a time when he regrets losing touch with his old friends. Tomorrow’s wedding would have been the perfect opportunity to fix some things.
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