Harry and Meghan face coronation dilemma amid never-ending royal drama

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle confirmed this past weekend that they received an invitation from King Charles III to attend his upcoming coronation but they are staying mum on whether they’ll attend.

No surprise there — either that they were invited or that they’re not ready to say whether they’ll go.

“I can confirm the duke has recently received email correspondence from his majesty’s office regarding the coronation,” a statement from the couple’s spokesperson read. “An immediate decision on whether the duke and duchess will attend will not be disclosed by us at this time.”

It turns out that the “will they or won’t they” of the coronation drama has left Britain “in a state of apprehension” that it has not seen “for some time,” British author and historian Alexander Larman jokingly wrote in The Spectator. He also said: “It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Harry and Meghan might be enjoying the power over the royal family.”

Perhaps the California-based couple hopes to wring some concessions from Charles, if the new king wants a show of family unity on his big day May 6: The apology Harry said he expected or the guarantee of royal titles for their children, Archie and Lilibet. Whatever Harry and Meghan are looking for, Larman opined that their “irritatingly childish behavior continues to attract column inches, and their decision either way will inevitably be front page news.”

On the other hand, it’s pretty evident that the Sussexes are confronting a pretty difficult situation with the coronation invite, both in terms of their personal relationships with Harry’s family and in the future of their public image. That means they need to carefully consider the pros and cons of traveling to the U.K., as Newsweek royal correspondent Jack Royston reported.

One of Harry and Meghan’s biggest supporters on social media, academic and author Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, tweeted that it would show “a level of maturity” if the couple attended the May 6 event — maturity that “Charles and (Prince) William are sorely lacking.” She said the Sussesex could survive “one day” — “They’ve survived worst” — and their attendance would show how they “consistently rise above the pettiness, envy and self-destruction the royal family embodies.”

Optimists say that Harry and Meghan could take a big step towards helping to bring about a family reconciliation and improve Harry’s chances of repairing his damaged relationship with his father and brother. Royston said more pointedly, “If Harry is not there to support his father at his coronation, a once in a lifetime moment that represents the culmination of 70 years spent waiting to do the job he was born for, then what else could possibly bring the royal family back together?”

“The decision to go would symbolize a flicker of hope, no matter how small, that one day royal relations may be different,” Royston added.

Someone more jaded about royal issues, biographer Ingrid Seward,  told Newsweek that the Sussexes can’t afford not to attend, suggesting that their fame and global influence depends on their ties to the monarchy.  “I’ve always had the impression that they would come to the coronation,” Seward told Newsweek, “because they need the royal star dust.”

When it comes to cons, Harry and Meghan can’t escape the possibility that they’d be booed at the coronation, as they were in June, when they attended a service at St Paul’s Cathedral, during Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebration. Since then, the couple have become even more unpopular with the British public, Royston reported.

After the queen’s death, and after they aired their grievances about royal life in their Netflix documentary series and in Harry’s memoir “Spare,” they were accused of being privileged “whingers.” Harry also faced stinging ridicule on both sides of the Atlantic for his revelations about his frostbitten penis. Polling by YouGov in January showed that only 24% of Brits felt positive about Harry, compared to 68% who felt negatively about him, giving him a net approval rating of -44, Royston reported.

This marks a drop of 18 points from -26 in YouGov polling conducted in mid May, 2022, two weeks before the Jubilee, Royston also said. Meghan, meanwhile, was only liked by 22% of Britons in the January YouGov poll, and disliked by 68%, giving her a net rating of -46.

If Harry and Meghan attend the coronation, they also have to expect that the U.K. media will be watching them and other royal family members pretty carefully, analyzing every facial expression and gesture for signs of hostility, distress or humiliation. The media, long hostile to the Sussexes, would be especially happy to report on icy stares coming from William and his wife, Kate Middleton. As Royston wrote, Harry made his once-close older brother one of the main antagonists in “Spare” and suggested that Kate’s postpartum mood swings made her unreasonably demanding about the bridesmaids’ dresses ahead of his and Meghan’s 2018 wedding.

The U.K. media also would jump on any sign that Charles relegated them to a second-tier royal status in the ceremony. perhaps as punishment for Harry portraying Queen Camilla “as a schemer,” Royston said. In “Spare,” Harry accused his stepmother of planting negative stories about him in the tabloids to rehabilitate her public image after she was labeled the other woman in Charles and Diana’s failed marriage.

Another major consideration for Harry and Meghan is security, Royston said. He said they could be holding out until they are given assurances that they will be offered Metropolitan Police bodyguards during their U.K. stay, especially since their “pariah status” in the U.K. brings greater risk to their physical safety.  Their security risk probably has grown since Harry’s book “Spare” coolly revealed that he killed 25 Taliban while fighting in Afghanistan and didn’t see them as people but as “chess pieces removed from the board,” Royston added.