Back in the fall, the Sunday Times reported that Princes William and Harry were looking into separating their households, now that Harry is married and expecting a child and he and Meghan Markle will be moving away from Kensington Palace. All of which is understandable. These are two individuals with different responsibilities, now grown. Will’s family is five strong now, Harry’s is about to be three and probably more. Already their staff is dealing with almost seven royals, soon to be eight. As their children get older there will be more work. So this was likely an eventuality. The problem was the timing. The story came out just as all the rumours were exploding about whether or not Kate and Meghan get along, with courtiers and the UK tabloids fomenting a frenzy for weeks, and so what was always a rational, strategically expedient move was seen as the result of a family fracture.
This weekend the Sunday Times updated their original story, reporting that the separation of households will happen soon, “within weeks”, presumably ahead of the birth of Harry and Meghan’s child.
"When William becomes the Prince of Wales, he will take on a lot of extra responsibility, including the Duchy of Cornwall," a source told the Sunday Times. "Harry and Meghan have none of that, and seem ambitious about forging their own paths."
Again, all of that sounds reasonable. Will is preparing to be king one day. Harry, god willing, will never be king. Their roles and duties are not the same. But of course the Sunday Times had to throw this in there:
The division of their shared household after 10 years reflects their increasingly different responsibilities. It is thought courtiers hope a formal separation of their staff may help ease the reported tensions between the brothers and their wives.
Here’s what my issue with all of this has been since the beginning – if the division of households has been led by the brothers to streamline their individual commitments, why the continuing narrative that the wives have anything to do with it? Charles and Andrew function separately and their formal royal relationship is pretty much the same as William and Harry’s. It was always going to be this way as soon as Harry met someone and started his only family. Or did we expect him to bunk out at Will and Kate’s forever?
Once again, the timing for this isn’t great either, a week after Meghan’s friends defended her in PEOPLE and her dad decided to shove himself back into the spotlight. Even though this move was first reported months ago, many of the headlines in the UK tabloids are suggesting that it’s a brand new development, conveniently on the heels of the drama last week. What’s buried in the Sunday Times story is that William and Harry were working on all of this from before the wedding, long before all the recent rumours surfaced. Which means that a year ago, already William and Harry were talking about this separation behind the gates. And their plans, unfortunately, didn’t match up with ours.
What we expected, probably, was a Fab Four situation. That Will and Kate and Harry and Meghan would be best friends and all hang out together, all the time. This was the fairytale. Does it work that way in non-royal families? Sometimes, sure. But it’s also common for siblings and their spouses to not be squad-ing together all the time. Whenever a fairytale doesn’t materialise, however, we have to find a bitch to blame for it.
