28 November 2017 - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Engagement

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Titles
 

Amy Davidson Sorkin (The New Yorker, 27/11/2017)

 

One of the more compact outlines of the contradictions and the culture of the British Royal Family, and of Meghan Markle’s place in it, comes in a brief Telegraph article on what Markle’s title will likely be when she marries Prince Harry—their engagement announcement came from Clarence House, on Monday morning—next spring. Upon his marriage, the Queen will most likely make the Prince a duke (this is somehow a promotion) and Markle a duchess. The Telegraph judged that the most eligible dukedom for him would be Sussex. “They’re quite limited in the titles that are available,” Charles Kidd, the editor of Debrett’s Peerage & Baronetage, said in a statement that the Telegraph cited. “I think the others are highly unlikely. Clarence hasn’t been used for a long time and it’s been sort of tainted by bad luck.” In this case, “bad luck” means that one Duke of Clarence was executed by his brother as a traitor (Shakespeare wrote about that, depicting him as being drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine) and that another, Prince Albert Victor, a grandson of Queen Victoria, was caught up in a scandal involving a gay-prostitution ring, and died of influenza soon after becoming engaged to Princess Mary of Teck. (She married his brother, instead, and is Harry’s great-great-grandmother.) The Telegraph also noted that Albert Victor was suspected of being Jack the Ripper, but, apparently, there’s nothing to that—he was off on raucous royal tours when several of the murders took place
 

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Monarchy
 

Don't get too excited for Meghan Markle. The British monarchy is oppressive 
Jean Hannah Edelstein (The Guardian, 27/11/2017)
 

It’s great to be married, if that’s a thing that you want to do, and it looks like Meghan Markle is very keen on being engaged to Prince Harry. As a British citizen, I’m happy for her, and them. But as an American citizen, I can’t help but think that we may be overlooking a crucial fact in our excitement: that the British royal family and its attendant institutions are anachronistic and bonkers.

Now, America is currently being run by a despot who would love to style himself and his offspring (well, the offspring who he likes) as some kind of divinely ordained ruling family. So it might be easy to forget that America basically exists because some British colonialists decided that they weren’t into being ruled by some guy because he had some distinguished ancestors and money and jewelled hats. 

Read on...

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Headlines