Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan began a new life on Sunday as somewhat ordinary people with financial worries and security concerns after being stripped of their royal titles and public funding by the Queen.
The settlement announced by Buckingham Palace saw the 93-year-old monarch assume her painfully familiar role of managing a family crisis that threatened the very foundations of one of Britain’s oldest institutions.
The “Megxit” mess began when the young couple gave up their font-line family duties and announced plans to chart a “progressive new role” in North America on January 8.
They did so without winning Queen Elizabeth II’s permission or seemingly knowing how it was all going to work out.
The couple lost their right to be called “his and her royal highness” much as Harry’s late mother Princess Diana did when she divorced Prince Charles in another family drama that upset the Queen in 1996. They further agreed to repay £2.4 million of taxpayer’s money spent on renovating their Frogmore Cottage home near Windsor Castle.