Relationships between Members of the British Royal Family


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I'm not sure of course, but I'll share personally... I share an August 4th birth date with Meghan, Obama, The Queen Mother, Abigail Spencer (actress), and Richard Belzer (actor, retired from on Law and Order, SVU).

In my younger days, I made a cousin cry.

Happened when we had different viewpoints on a shared situation (whether she had rights to borrow a car without asking first. Car belonged to & was insured by my father for the use of my three brothers and myself. All of us lived at different places in the same college town), and I asserted myself when she crossed boundaries. I would say that there were two valid sides to the situation, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) still feel I was not wrong in my viewpoint. Her valid point would be that when I got pissed off, my tone was truly sharp. I could most definitely have been kinder in the way I let my thoughts be known. To my knowledge, she's the only person I've made cry. 30 years later, after 7 yrs of the silent treatment from said cousin, I have her blocked on Facebook. We were clearly never a compatible pair, but I'll admit it's embarassing to admit I have such a poor family relationship.

The stress of a wedding into a Royal family in a country one is not native to matched with someone newly a mother to a third child seems like the ideal scenario for similar emotions/snippiness to arise.

I surely hope and feel likely Kate and Meghan are more compatible than my cousin and I. In favor of this is Kate's solid, healthy, family-oriented emotional intelligence. Jury's out on Meghan. I'd expect she's truly independent and a genuine driven free spirit, who might rather go it alone than buy in long term to compromises she just doesn't care for. Again, my source is my own personality. I constantly fight myself to put up with situations not of my choosing, a major challenge for me. I get very fixed, solid and strong - like a bulldozer. For me- if forced to deal with something I don't like or stymied long term, it's a question of when -not if- I'm gonna fold, cut my losses and walk away.

Meghan's relations with William may be tougher, though. He might not view the interactions between Meghan and his wife kindly, and I'd expect his wife would have some significant emotional support from him.

That cousin I mentioned? She is also born under the sign of Cancer.
Just sayin'.

Fire and Water can really be tough together.
For me, anyway.
What I will say without going too off topic is that just because two people share Aug 4 as a day, it doesn't mean their personalities are the same. Astrology is complicated, the year and certainly even time of the day changes things. She also has significant air in her chart. ;)

As for the story about Kate crying, no one has even said that Meghan was even there at the fitting, which isn't unlikely. Given that about half of the children in that bridal party were living in a different continent and didn't make their way to London until about 3 days before the wedding, so I'd be very careful about putting that on Meghan. And really, what kind of different opinion can one have about a 3 year old's measurements?

As for William and Meghan's relationship, they seem to be fine and friendly towards each other whenever we've seen them. It's not like it's small kids that live in the same household situation, they all go their separate ways to their own homes.

In terms of being independent and long term compromises, I don't see how they are mutually exclusive? I get that people like to use Meghan's rather small family compared to Kate, but that's hardly a sign of Meghan not caring for compromises to keep the peace. What it seems to me is that while Meghan is independent, she does have long term relationships. She's extremely close to her mother and has friendships that spanned decades. That's not someone who doesn't care to make compromises for the sake of a relationship. EVERYONE makes compromises, just depends on where they draw the line.
 
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^^^ Agreed. Meghan's family is her mother and her close girlfriends who have been by her side for years. Not everyone is bless with a nice family. Sometimes you have to create your own and that is what she did.

I am not surprised that international media has questioned the UK's attacks. It was getting ridiculous. It is typical nonsense. These people are family. Will they always get along? Of course not. Is it the malicious crap the press trying to peddle? Hardly.

Today Kate talked about Baby Sussex on her walkabout. It was a nice counter to the stories out. Sadly this is just the beginning. I am sure many more stories about them all are to drop because they sell and that is all these rags care about -- clicks.

Anyways, I won't be surprised if we get an engagement soon with the four of them.
 
:previous: Well, when it comes to Fake News, I think the paps have it cornered in the UK.

Question: What made Catherine cry? Was Charlotte's dress too big or too small or, could it be that these flower girl dresses marked her baby girl's growth from toddler to pre-school and suddenly she is oh so very grown up and making her preferences known and taking charge!

Question: Does moving to Frogmore mean a declaration of war between William and Harry and toss in their wives for fun? Didn't William and Catherine essentially spend the first three to four years raising their children in the wilds of Wales and then Amner Hall? In that case, it is hardly surprising that H & M should follow suit and make the same choice and move into a rural home provided by HM?

This is all just nasty, vile stuff, trying to take the gilt off the gingerbread and making William, Harry, Catherine and Meghan look bad and sound worse. The only way to beat it is to refuse to become part of the narrative.

The best way to handle this press is to ignore it. The press wants to be engaged by the Fab Four because it will just prolong the store, but W&K and H&M won't do so. Eventually it will die down, and the press will find another angle. It is all drivel.
 
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In my younger days, I made a cousin cry.

Happened when we had different viewpoints on a shared situation (whether she had rights to borrow a car without asking first. Car belonged to & was insured by my father for the use of my three brothers and myself. All of us lived at different places in the same college town), and I asserted myself when she crossed boundaries. I would say that there were two valid sides to the situation, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) still feel I was not wrong in my viewpoint. Her valid point would be that when I got pissed off, my tone was truly sharp. I could most definitely have been kinder in the way I let my thoughts be known. To my knowledge, she's the only person I've made cry. 30 years later, after 7 yrs of the silent treatment from said cousin, I have her blocked on Facebook. We were clearly never a compatible pair, but I'll admit it's embarassing to admit I have such a poor family relationship.

The stress of a wedding into a Royal family in a country one is not native to matched with someone newly a mother to a third child seems like the ideal scenario for similar emotions/snippiness to arise.

I surely hope and feel likely Kate and Meghan are more compatible than my cousin and I. In favor of this is Kate's solid, healthy, family-oriented emotional intelligence. Jury's out on Meghan. I'd expect she's truly independent and a genuine driven free spirit, who might rather go it alone than buy in long term to compromises she just doesn't care for. Again, my source is my own personality. I constantly fight myself to put up with situations not of my choosing, a major challenge for me. I get very fixed, solid and strong - like a bulldozer. For me- if forced to deal with something I don't like or stymied long term, it's a question of when -not if- I'm gonna fold, cut my losses and walk away.

I really find this very interesting because I've always wondered if people who have that type of more forward, outspoken personality are aware of the way other people perceive them or the way that they make other people with different personality types feel. I'm the type that is not so outspoken, not so forward, doesn't handle conflict or confrontation well, and easily has my feelings hurt. I'm the type that easily feels attacked or berated and takes things to heart and the type that shrinks into myself when I feel like someone has jumped down my throat or been critical of me. Nothing really right or wrong, good or bad in either personality type, just different types. And the more forward types that I've encountered don't seem to ever be aware of how they're impacting those around them.

Now, that's really all to say that in all of the interviews and engagements and occasions I've seen and read with Meghan, she very much strikes me as the very blunt and very forward type. That's fine because that's just who she is but I do see where that type of personality can cause serious conflict and resentment if she's dealing with people whose personality is more like my own. I really think that's why we see people gravitate to one duchess or the other, because they recognize their own personality in one or the other.

I really can't say, as none of us can, what the behind the scenes relationship is like between Meghan and Catherine or between Meghan and any of the royals. However, if there's any truth at all to the rumors of tears at the dress fitting and those tears being a result of Meghan's interactions with Catherine, I suspect it might have something to do with an offhand comment about Charlotte's behavior or standing still combined with the stress of a royal wedding, all of the drama occurring around that wedding and with the bride's family, and being a newly postpartum mother. I very much doubt that Catherine and Meghan truly "hate" each other but I have no doubt at all that they are very, very different people with personalities that are a night and day difference and that really doesn't always make for an easy, comfortable dynamic.
 
Well, and who’s to say Meghan was the source of the tears, assuming Kate actually was crying? I have children a similar age distance as Charlotte and Louis, and in those first, incredibly hormonal months after the baby was born, the toddler’s acting out could sometimes stress or embarrass me to the point of tears, no other adults’ comments required to push me over the edge.
 
Well, and who’s to say Meghan was the source of the tears, assuming Kate actually was crying? I have children a similar age distance as Charlotte and Louis, and in those first, incredibly hormonal months after the baby was born, the toddler’s acting out could sometimes stress or embarrass me to the point of tears, no other adults’ comments required to push me over the edge.

That's entirely possible. I remember feeling exactly that way when our third child was born and we had a four and five year old at the same time. I'm simply saying that if, and that's a big if, it had anything to do with Meghan I can easily imagine that it was a comment she would have considered offhand but other personality types might have taken to heart and felt attacked or criticized.
 
Well at least there are some journalists & papers that still have integrity. That is an excellent article. Suzanne Moore certainly did summarize it well.

“I say imaginary because I don’t know the truth and nor, clearly, do the people writing this ludicrous stuff. They don’t know so much that even in their own speculation they have to put the words “rift”, “tension” and “feud” in quotation marks”.
 
They put the words "rift" and "tensions" in quotation marks to avoid a lawsuit. I am glad some press is starting to push back on this garbage.
 
I, for one, refuse to believe that either of these women are so immature and tactless that they would get into a state of enmity.
Kate is, or can be, a lifeline for Meghan when she is unsure of something or of how to proceed in a new situation.
And Meghan will be the one person who understands Kate’s situation, the person she can let off steam with. I’ve two sisters in law, and I treasure my relationships with them.
 
The rise of the Internet & social media means these stories whizz around the world in seconds. It was awful before but much worse now as they fuel online hate. We know that they're all exaggerated and/or twisted or downright lies because eventually the truth emerges. One example is a persistent story before Kate & William were married that Carole Middleton had made a social faux pas when meeting the Queen. The Daily Mail repeated it over & over for years until the palace announced just before the wedding that the Queen had invited the Middletons to Windsor & it would be their first meeting. There are scores of similar examples, all designed to denigrate their targets, who are usually female.

I'd like to see William & Harry take a tough line now & say they aren't tolerating it & will take legal action against news media. I think the old royal motto of "never complain, never explain" is unfit for this digital age. It should change to "facts not fiction" before the youngest family members start being vilified online, fuelled by a toxic press.
 
The problem is if they comment on every story that isn't true they are exposed when there is some truth to any not so positive stories. In some ways the royals "never explain never complain" mantra works as it plays the media off each other, they are exposed when they write contrasting stories about the same events/people etc meaning if stories that may be true for all we know get treated as 'made up' by the public. This whole saga with Meghan and Kate shows that - before the wedding they were 'besties' with Kate helping Meghan out etc now they "feuding". In many ways the royals are better letting the media make fools of themselves.
 
I agree they shouldn't comment on every story but I think they could take action when a paper publishes sustained or persistent lies as a blatant campaign to malign, which is what we're seeing now. The alternative is to let the tabloids continue, which demonises the target women & whips up online hate against them. I can't envisage this improving without some intervention.
 
Suzanne Moore of the Guardian on 'alleged cat-fights' between Kate and Meghan.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...te-middleton-feud-cliche-archaic-royal-family




Suzanne Moore is not saying that the claims in the Telegraph's article are false. On the contrary, she is suggesting they might well be true (personally, I think they are). Her point in the article is only that, even if the claims are true, they shouldn't matter.


The Fail won't let this go. Now it's claiming similarities of Kate and Meghan to Wallis Simpson and the Queen Mother

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/...eur-recalls-Duchess-Windsor-Queen-Mother.html


When the press is comparing Kate to the Queen Mother and Meghan to Wallis, it is clear who is winning the PR battle. It looks that the perception of some posters here that Kate was looking "weak" and coming out badly from that alleged feud was a little premature.
 
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This is the sort of thing that was being reported right through the 1980s about Charles and Diana - the tabloids kept saying there were problems while the more 'respectable' papers either outright denied it or said there was no proof.

Then in 1992 what the tabloids had been saying all along was proven to be correct.

Whether there is any truth to these stories I don't know but I am not going to dismiss them out of hand for the simple reason that they have been right many times in the past (and yes they have been wrong as well).

The tabloid press employ many reporters who are on the royal beat and are regulars at royal events. We know, from the past, that there are many staff in the royal households who supplement their pay by 'leaking' stories to the press. The lower level staff don't have to sign any form of non-disclosure agreement, especially if they aren't expected to come into contact with the family but they are still in the palaces so hear things etc.

Simply refusing to believe the possibility of any of these stories because they don't suit a person's imagined image of a perfect couple is the same as the person who prefers to believe all the negative stories and never any of the positive ones.

Personally I prefer to keep an open mind, believing that there is 'no smoke without fire' but how much of a fire there really is we may never know.
 
I'm so sick and tired of these stories. They are first and foremost extremely sexist. What these tabloids are doing now is gutter reporting.

If Kate and Meghan aren't the best of friends, who cares?! These are two women joined together by their husbands but that doesn't mean you have to become besties. This narrative is again, sexist. You can respect and like someone, but it doesn't have to be friendship.

In this century, there is no place anymore for these type of stories.
 
Kate is not winning the PR war. If she were, her statement at Leicester about Harry and Meghan's baby would have ended this. Now the tabloids feel embolden. It's out to make Meghan look like a diva and Kate can't control her staff; the latter is not a good look for a future queen. St George's Chapel , Smell-gate, looks like a coordinated attack between KP and Windsor staff. They need to do a mole hunt to find out who is doing this. This mess is tainting future events this month: the Diplomatic reception, Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, Christmas at Sandringham. The focus will be on Kate and Meghan - who shows up where, body language, the whole shebang. They need to squash this.
 
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Kate is not winning the PR war. If she were, her statement at Leicester about Harry and Meghan's baby would have ended this. Now the tabloids feel embolden. It's out to make Meghan look like a diva and Kate can't control her staff; the latter is not a good look for a future queen. St George's Chapel , Smell-gate, looks like a coordinated attack between KP and Windsor staff. They need to do a mole hunt to find out who is doing this. This mess is tainting future events this month: the Diplomatic reception, Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, Christmas at Sandringham. The focus will be on Kate and Meghan - who shows up where, body language, the whole shebang. They need to squash this.

There is no PR "war". The only ones interested in all this are the tabloid writers and those that read the tabloid's words. Most likely, all of this is considered by KP staff and any other palace staff as pure drivel and suitable for bird cage liners.

The Diplomatic Reception and the Christmas family holidays will go on like they always do and once again, the tabloids (as Charlotte nicely tells them) "are not coming".

I think you give the tabloids way too much credibility, Madame Verseau. ;)
 
Kate is not winning the PR war. If she were, her statement at Leicester about Harry and Meghan's baby would have ended this. Now the tabloids feel embolden. It's out to make Meghan look like a diva and Kate can't control her staff; the latter is not a good look for a future queen. St George's Chapel , Smell-gate, looks like a coordinated attack between KP and Windsor staff. They need to do a mole hunt to find out who is doing this. This mess is tainting future events this month: the Diplomatic reception, Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, Christmas at Sandringham. The focus will be on Kate and Meghan - who shows up where, body language, the whole shebang. They need to squash this.

Oh please can we stop this over-the-top drama for a second ? "Coordinated attack" ? what is that ? A blitzkrieg against Meghan ? Cmon.

If you bother to take a look at some headlines of the 80's and the 90's it was exactly the same ! Princess "Pushy" Michael vs Diana, then Diana vs Sarah, then Diana and Sarah vs Anne etc ...

Now all these stories are exacerbated by the social medias (hello clickbaits) and escaped the random royal section of some British tabloîds for the headlines of « Entertainment weekly », because with Meghan and her status it’s just too good to play the « Princess Diary III, the revenge of the in-laws » American style.

It’s part of the job, and let’s say it’s just peanuts compared to the good’ol days of the « War of the Wales », still mourned by some « so called » journalists (and yes i’m talking to you Richard Kay).

People just need to calm down a bit …

PS : the Windsor smell story is just HILARIOUS !
 
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Kate is not winning the PR war. If she were, her statement at Leicester about Harry and Meghan's baby would have ended this. Now the tabloids feel embolden. It's out to make Meghan look like a diva and Kate can't control her staff; the latter is not a good look for a future queen. St George's Chapel , Smell-gate, looks like a coordinated attack between KP and Windsor staff. They need to do a mole hunt to find out who is doing this. This mess is tainting future events this month: the Diplomatic reception, Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, Christmas at Sandringham. The focus will be on Kate and Meghan - who shows up where, body language, the whole shebang. They need to squash this.

I have to say, that's very american way of looking at the whole situation. But it's the BRF, they have their own way of dealing with stuff like that and I hope they won't do things differently this time. Explaining or trying to deny things would only backfire. They just have to ignore them until the press will find something else to write about.

Or the rumours are true, in which case there are fun times ahead of us.
 
This is the sort of thing that was being reported right through the 1980s about Charles and Diana - the tabloids kept saying there were problems while the more 'respectable' papers either outright denied it or said there was no proof.

Then in 1992 what the tabloids had been saying all along was proven to be correct.

Whether there is any truth to these stories I don't know but I am not going to dismiss them out of hand for the simple reason that they have been right many times in the past (and yes they have been wrong as well).

The tabloid press employ many reporters who are on the royal beat and are regulars at royal events. We know, from the past, that there are many staff in the royal households who supplement their pay by 'leaking' stories to the press. The lower level staff don't have to sign any form of non-disclosure agreement, especially if they aren't expected to come into contact with the family but they are still in the palaces so hear things etc.

Simply refusing to believe the possibility of any of these stories because they don't suit a person's imagined image of a perfect couple is the same as the person who prefers to believe all the negative stories and never any of the positive ones.

Personally I prefer to keep an open mind, believing that there is 'no smoke without fire' but how much of a fire there really is we may never know.


If there are staff that supplement their pay by ‘leaking’ stories’, their morals are low, so fabricating stories isn’t beneath them.

A few weeks ago, UK press said Catherine was guiding Meghan, now it’s that they’re enemies. Some reporters on the royal beat appear not to be able to keep their fabrications straight. Being regulars at royal events is meaningless if stories are made up by someone with no morals & only wants to make money.

First it was reported in the Telegraph that the Cambridges & Sussexes shared a love of scented candles at their respective weddings. Now a tabloid story is quoting sources that Meghan supposedly wanted to use air fresheners, no mention of shared love of candles with the Cambridges. I guess now that sources have new bills to pay, reporters have forgotten what was written before, or they think everyone is stupid & won’t remember.

Personally I believe if the source is rubbish & it reads like rubbish, it’s rubbish! :sick:
 
So far as the accuracy of all the negative press goes, some of it is clearly trolling for reactions, such as the whole Wallis vs. the Queen Mother narrative, but aside from that, like Iluvbertie I'm getting some deja vu circa 1982+ vibes. Some of the rumors are oddly specific. None of us have any idea what relationships really are, or how much truth there is to any of these rumours, and it may be years before we find out if any of it at all was valid, but I'm in wait and see mode.
 
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I am not giving the tabloids credibility because they don't back up anything they say; nor do they put their sources on the record by naming them. The reporting is rampant and if a lie is repeated often enough it is taken as truth.
 
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A couple of folks have mentioned the true stories that were being leaked in the early 90s...and yes, there are always some true stories that leak out of the palace. As much as we (and the BRF) like to think they keep tight control and their staff would never blab, staff have always blabbed. As long as there have been newspapers, there have been nuggets of actual complaints from disgruntled royal employees making their way into print. And for all that time there have also been as many or more fabrications in print. And there have been instances where the truth was misunderstood and mangled by the time it got out. And there have been plenty of times where the fact leaked said more about the staff member doing the whispering and job satisfaction within the palace than about the royal in question.

Over time, the truth rises to the surface and those are the reports we recall most vividly. But chances are we’re hearing as much or more nonsense as we are truth. And in the case of the Kate and Meghan “feud,” the details read too much like standard, trumped up, catfight narratives that people like to make up any time women are involved. They just sound more like a bad made for TV movie than the way people act in real life.

And the one confirmed fact that so much of this new outpouring hinges on—the move from KP to Frogmore estate—is hardly the huge, “we must put great distance between us” move that these stories seem to treat it as. They’ll be less than an hour’s drive apart. For a family that jaunts off to Norfolk here and Scotland there, that’s hardly a major distance. These four could conceivably all be having Sunday dinners together at Clarence House quite easily even after the move to Frogmore.

Frankly, the stories that are circulating are insulting to everyone involved: Kate, Meghan, and both of their husbands, for that matter. These are four people who have at least shown us that in public they know how to be gracious and careful. I would never expect them to always be best friends behind closed doors, I don’t expect that they are perfect or without their disagreements, but there seems to be so little to support the idea that they’re driving each other crazy.
 
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Over time, the truth rises to the surface and those are the reports we recall most vividly. But chances are we’re hearing as much or more nonsense as we are truth. And in the case of the Kate and Meghan “feud,” the details read too much like standard, trumped up, catfight narratives that people like to make up any time women are involved. They just sound more like a bad made for TV movie than the way people act in real life.

Yes, this was certainly true in the '80's and '90's, and I would assume it's true now; we just have no way of knowing how much if any of the current tittle tattle has any validity.

I do believe that there may be something underlying some of the stories making the rounds: the wedding-related stories I cited seem like the kinds of things that could be applied to just about any wedding anywhere and don't have too much importance and significance. Weddings are first class generators of drama even when they aren't royal weddings so all that doesn't seem as though it indicates anything about the relationships within the royal family. Even if they are true, they aren't significant.

Ditto for the move to Frogmore Cottage. The need for space, privacy and a place for children to play seems like much more likely reason to move than a feud with the Cambridges for which there is zero evidence.

The other stuff, who knows. We'll see.
 
I think perhaps its important to remember just why we link articles here. We state opinions and to back up our opinions, we rely on *credible* sources to validate what we are saying.

Many, many tabloid stories posted about the relationships between members of the British royal family rank right up there with the headlines of a "gin soaked Camilla plotting the demise of the Queen" type of stories.

I believe we could all use a bit more discretion on what we deem to be credible and what can be deemed as bird cage liners. ?
 
Meanwhile back in the kitchen at Nottingham Cottage, Meghan and Kate are sipping tea and laughing at the dogs begging for scraps and yelling at the kids "no running in the house!" as they laugh their heads off at the silly nonsense the tabloids are up to. In fact, I'd even wager half of my last piece of brown bread with butter that they have a contest to see who can come up with the silliest one for their next tête-à-tête. Of course this is pure nonsense but its possible. :D

But seriously folks, imagination is a wonderful thing and as we don't know these royals personally, we use our imagination a lot and so do the tabloids. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it nicely that "We live by our imagination, our admirations and our sentiments".
 
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