Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family


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That was all rubbish. Of course they were fine with the photos being sold. It was practically set up as an event to introduce Kate into the royal family. And William wasnt there so not to overshadow the wedding pair. It was a PR savvy move there which benefited everyone.
Who are 'they'? William and Catherine? I'd say this was a wedding because Peter and Autumn wanted to get married. As William is close to his cousins Peter and Zara; and Catherine had been his girlfriend for several years, she was of course invited even though William wasn't able to join. In addition, she already had her public recognition as girlfriend at Sandhurst in 2006. So, this wasn't about them...

They didn't have a problem with it. It's always surprised me people thought they did. He never would have done it if they did.

Who are 'they'? The fact that other royals haven't done it since might suggest that there is some truth in the BRF not being happy about what happened. Had they been perfectly fine with this set-up, we would have seen it more often imho.

They were not in the same position. Harry and Meghan were full time working royals who were receiving money from the Sovereign Grant. Autumn and Peter were not.. And Autumn's family is not well off..
I havent heard of the queen being shocked...She might not like it but if Autumn's family could not afford to pay for a wedding, the RF Could have helped out.

Why would Autumn's family need to be the bill for the wedding of the queen's grandson? Did Meghan's family also have to pay for her wedding to one of the queen's other grandsons?
 
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Who are 'they'? William and Catherine? I'd say this was a wedding because Peter and Autumn wanted to get married. As William is close to his cousins Peter and Zara; and Catherine had been his girlfriend for several years, she was of course invited even though William wasn't able to join. In addition, she already had her public recognition as girlfriend at Sandhurst in 2006. So, this wasn't about them...



Who are 'they'? The fact that other royals haven't done it since might suggest that there is some truth in the BRF not being happy about what happened. Had they been perfectly fine with this set-up, we would have seen it more often imho.
No I dont think the RF were totally happy about it.. Generally if they are not having a public televised wedding, like W and Kate or H and Meg, they have a quieter wedding and there are a few outdoor pictures released... but not sold.
. and if Meg and Harry were to sell pics of Archie, which has been suggested, it would look bad. So I can't imagine Meg really thought of doing that.

Why would Autumn's family need to be the bill for the wedding of the queen's grandson? Did Meghan's family also have to pay for her wedding to one of the queen's other grandsons?

Generally the bride's family pay for the wedding, Nowadays, it is more often both the bride and groom who pay with help perhaps from their families...
 
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Generally the bride's family pay for the wedding, Nowadays, it is more often both the bride and groom who pay with help perhaps from their families...

Even if the groom's family is very rich and the bride's family has a median income? And is that British tradition or also Canadian tradition?

Did Catherine's and Meghan's families also pay their royal weddings? And didn't Jack's and Edo's families contribute to their weddings?

I would sincerely hope that Peter and his family didn't put the burden on Autumn and her family to fully pay for their wedding. Just like I don't think it was up to the Middletons or the Markles (who weren't even invited) to pay for their daughters' weddings.

I believe the queen typically pays for the reception... The rest of the tab is probably taken up by the royal parents and some by the non-royal parents/bride/groom and/or the couple themselves.

Yesterday, I learned that drinks on British weddings are to be paid by the guests themselves; is that true? And would that also apply at royal weddings?
 
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Even if the groom's family is very rich and the bride's family has a median income? And is that British tradition or also Canadian tradition?

Did Catherine's and Meghan's families also pay their royal weddings? And didn't Jack's and Edo's families contribute to their weddings?

I would sincerely hope that Peter and his family didn't put the burden on Autumn and her family to fully pay for their wedding. Just like I don't think it was up to the Middletons or the Markles (who weren't even invited) to pay for their daughters' weddings.

Its a general British tradition, yes but it has been fading out in the past 20 or 30 years.. Meg and Kate were marrying Princes and having big royal weddings, so of course teh RF paid most or all of the expenses. But Peter is a private citizen. He is rich compared to Autumn but clearly he didn't feel a desire to shell out a lot for the wedding and they ended up selling the photos to pay for it...
 
Move on please - this is not a thread about royal weddings.
 
While I agree that the info more than likely came from H&M themselves, which was... less than well thought through BTW, I fail to understand how this could harm Angela Kelly. She didn't write the book, nor did she reveal the info to the author.
 
Oh I have no doubt there were friends of H & M as well is Angela Kelly and any other person in the near vicinity who could have talked amongst the mselves or their friends.
 
A thoughtful and knowledgeable review that puts the book in its place, IMHO.
https://royalbooknews.blogspot.com/2020/08/finding-freedom-not-even-fine-whine.html


Thank you for that review - very thoughtful and up to the point. It reflects much better, than I could write it, what I feel about them.


O had hight hopes, that all would go well, with Meghan's background and feeling sure in front of cameras; but it backfired spectaculaly, and for most of it, they have only to blame themselves.


Such a shame; they could have been such an asset and also lead a good life.
 
While I agree that the info more than likely came from H&M themselves, which was... less than well thought through BTW, I fail to understand how this could harm Angela Kelly. She didn't write the book, nor did she reveal the info to the author.

Career wise or future employment, the Finding Freedom book will not harm her. She might be getting a lot abuse and vitriol from social media, particularly from some of the Sussex's ardent fans. But I don't think she reads the comments on social media, given that "Twitter is not real life" and she has much more important things to care about :cool:
 
Article in the Express claiming that H&M were the only ones who could have told Scobie about the detailed descriptions of the jewel vault that was in Finding Freedom:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/roya...ra-finding-freedom-buckingham-palace-security

I said previously that Angela Kelly might have described the vaults in "Dressing The Queen" (can't check it because I loaned my copy but can't recall to whom). My reasoning is that I thought I'd heard/read before that they were under the palace and very well lit. Maybe it's not in that book but was talked about somewhere else or maybe I dreamt it but I have a niggle in the back of my head that I knew this already.

Edited to add:
Some googling threw up this from the Daily Mail in 2016:
"Her Majesty’s tiaras are at the heart of her jewellery collection, so extensive it has to be stored in a room the size of an ice rink, 40ft below Buckingham Palace."
So they had a source for that - I'll keep looking...
 
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It won't affect Angela Kelly's position, but it must be very unpleasant for her to have her name dragged through the papers. It's never nice when an innocent bystander is dragged into someone else's arguments anyway, never mind having it all over the international media.
 
Career wise or future employment, the Finding Freedom book will not harm her. She might be getting a lot abuse and vitriol from social media, particularly from some of the Sussex's ardent fans. But I don't think she reads the comments on social media, given that "Twitter is not real life" and she has much more important things to care about :cool:

It won't affect Angela Kelly's position, but it must be very unpleasant for her to have her name dragged through the papers. It's never nice when an innocent bystander is dragged into someone else's arguments anyway, never mind having it all over the international media.

Thanks. :flowers:

That's good.

I just thought it was very odd she was mentioned in the book by name and in a negative way.
Naming and shaming a staff member/employee will usually backfire.

Firstly because it's bad form.
Secondly because it's unnecessary. They could simply have written: "Blah, blah... But oddly enough that was not an option, we were told by a senior member of QEII's staff. Blah, blah."
And thirdly because if you name and shame someone from another staff, your own staff members may begin to think whether they can trust you not to give them the same treatment.
 
The book reviewer's assessment of Meghan's character and personality-as well as Harry's-is "spot on" as the Brits say.

I agree 100% that MM should have taken the initiative of reaching out within the BRF to seek advice and guidance instead of waiting on others.

I posted this exact opinion a couple of weeks ago.:ermm:

ETA: Did Lady Colin Campbell really write the LIE that Meghan did not curtsey to HMQ at her wedding when this was so quickly verified as untrue??
 
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I enjoyed reading the bookreview. Only thing I don't really agree with is the claim that Meghan had to reach out to Catherine and that Catherine didn't have to do so at all. Why, what's wrong with both reaching out to each other? I would reach out to my new sister-in-law if I had more years of experience living in the RF and she just entered.
 
Maybe Kate or one of the other Royal women didn't want to come off as presumptuous or pushy. I remember seeing a story that Princess Caroline of Monaco determined never to offer her new sister-in-law Charlene advice unless it had been asked for.

That makes sense, imo.
 
I enjoyed reading the bookreview. Only thing I don't really agree with is the claim that Meghan had to reach out to Catherine and that Catherine didn't have to do so at all. Why, what's wrong with both reaching out to each other? I would reach out to my new sister-in-law if I had more years of experience living in the RF and she just entered.

I would too but in fairness to Catherine, Harry had already gone up the wall when William tried to give him some well-meaning advice so I wouldn't blame her if she thought it was best to wait until she was asked. Also, Meghan (from what I've seen of her in public) presents as a supremely confident person who has a clear agenda that she's working on. Confident, busy people don't always give off signals that they're open to advice from others so Catherine might well have thought that Meghan wouldn't welcome her input.
 
I enjoyed reading the bookreview. Only thing I don't really agree with is the claim that Meghan had to reach out to Catherine and that Catherine didn't have to do so at all. Why, what's wrong with both reaching out to each other? I would reach out to my new sister-in-law if I had more years of experience living in the RF and she just entered.

Why do you feel that Catherine should have reached out with unsolicited advice?
 
I would too but in fairness to Catherine, Harry had already gone up the wall when William tried to give him some well-meaning advice so I wouldn't blame her if she thought it was best to wait until she was asked. Also, Meghan (from what I've seen of her in public) presents as a supremely confident person who has a clear agenda that she's working on. Confident, busy people don't always give off signals that they're open to advice from others so Catherine might well have thought that Meghan wouldn't welcome her input.

Or Catherine might have shared some thoughts and ideas with Meghan and noticed that any input she gave fell on deaf ears, so she stopped trying after a while? Indeed thinking that it was better to wait for Meghan asking for advice before offering it.
 
Or Catherine might have shared some thoughts and ideas with Meghan and noticed that any input she gave fell on deaf ears, so she stopped trying after a while? Indeed thinking that it was better to wait for Meghan asking for advice before offering it.

I think that's also a possible reason why she didn't "reach out" as much as Meghan (in hindsight) says she would have welcomed. Catherine's strategy was to take a very small role initially, gradually building up her own profile over time, which wouldn't have appealed to Meghan, who had already decided to "hit the ground running".
 
Given that the shopping trip "snub" got leaked, I suspect that there were trust issues.

I think that Catherine didn't take to Meghan and probably vice versa. In spite of Harry's eagerly saying that she had met W and Cat and they all loved her... I think she was just wary of Meg and didn't find her congenial.. and didn't want to go shoppign with her.. Problaby felt too that M seemed super confident so she didn't need/want any advice on how to be a royal....
 
Does anyone know, have Harry and/or Meghan been interviewed or even asked for comment about this book? I haven't followed this thread consistently so I apologize if this has already been covered here.

It would be interesting to know if either one of them have actually read this book.
 
Does anyone know, have Harry and/or Meghan been interviewed or even asked for comment about this book? I haven't followed this thread consistently so I apologize if this has already been covered here.

It would be interesting to know if either one of them have actually read this book.
I doubt if tehy will talk about it. Officially they have not had anything to do with it.
 
I doubt if tehy will talk about it. Officially they have not had anything to do with it.

Thank you Denville. I know very little about the book other than what is being reported here on TRF.
 
Thank you Denville. I know very little about the book other than what is being reported here on TRF.

Nor do I.. except that Omid was very cagy about where he got his info and it seems like he was making it clear that he did not talk to them and they are not going to say they had anything to do with the boollk
 
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