Kate and Meghan in the Royal Box at Wimbledon ahead of the ladies' singles final in July 2019.
Kate and Meghan in the Royal Box at Wimbledon ahead of the ladies' singles final in July 2019.
OPINION:
July 1 is a Thursday, which means that for most Australians we will wake up, drink coffee, go to work and contemplate how we ended up with a Prime Minister who has all the charisma and intellectual gravitas of a suburban chiropractor (Scott Morrison always reminds me of a sentient pudding, somehow …).
But in London? Oh, in London, especially at one particular address in Kensington, July 1 will be a huge day. Monumental, in fact.
That Thursday will mark the most closely anticipated moment in royal history since Prince Harry and his then-girlfriend Meghan Markle got the idea into their heads to put on a royal wedding for us, the mouth-breathing hoi polloi. (As she put it to Oprah Winfrey recently, "this thing, this spectacle, is for the world".)
See, way back in the days of yore (by which I mean 2017), Princes William and Harry came up with the idea of commissioning a sculpture in honour of their mother, Diana Princess of Wales, which would be erected in the sunken garden at Kensington Palace, one of the princess's favourite spots.
That piece, created by Ian Rank-Broadley, will be unveiled on July 1, which would have been Diana's 60th birthday had her life not been cut so tragically short in 1997 when she was just 36 years old.
Sadly, a lot has changed since the Wales men first got this sculpture idea into their balding heads and, in the intervening years, they have infamously fallen out - with younger brother Harry (along with his now-wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex) upping sticks and relocating to the gluten-, dairy- and negativity-free climes of California.
Which is why, come the Thursday in question here, the entire British press pack plus the world's eyes will be trained on William and Harry for any glimmer that the men might have started to edge towards reconciliation.
However, what lies at the heart of this situation is forgiveness – not only can the brothers forgive one another for their words and actions, but can they forgive one another's wives?
William and Harry at Prince Philip's funeral on April 17. Photo / AP
And this particular aspect of the whole messy melodrama – the role that the two duchesses played – could ultimately be what a future rapprochement between William and Harry hinges on.
In hindsight, it was entirely predictable that Meghan's arrival on the palace scene would spark a virulent strain of royal WAG versus royal WAG stories in the tabloid press.
However, things got decidedly more serious in November 2018 when experienced royal correspondent Camilla Tominey first reported that there had been a scene prior to the Sussex wedding which had left Kate in tears.
Since then, various permutations of this story have proliferated, with added claims that the emotional incident had taken place at a flower girl dress fitting and that the question of whether the adorable poppets should wear tights was to blame for the meltdown.
Meghan's claim that Kate made her cry is said to have infuriated her brother-in-law. Photo / Harpo Productions
And then came Harry and Meghan's TV confessional in early March which saw the duo, both strangely overdressed for a sun-dappled Pacific patio, make their po-faced case to Oprah Winfrey and a global audience of 50 million viewers about why they had to quit palace-dom. Among the topics they covered was the Great Wedding Tears Episode.
"Everyone in the institution knew that didn't happen," Meghan said, before going on to say that in fact that "the reverse" had transpired.
"I am not sharing this to be in any way disparaging about her [Kate]. I would hope that she would want that to be corrected.
"She made me cry and it really hurt my feelings … I thought in the context of everything else going on in the days before the wedding, didn't it make sense to do what everyone else was doing knowing what was going on with my dad and whatnot?"
Nearly two months on, as the reverberations from the Sussexes' interview are still being felt, what is interesting is that it's the Kate claims which have allegedly done serious damage to their relationship.
William is "understood to have been furious" with his sister-in-law after levelling the claims against his wife, The Telegraph has reported.
A senior royal source has told The Sun that William "can't tolerate" how Meghan has treated his wife.
"William is very, very protective of Kate," royal historian Penny Junor has said. Photo / Royal Family, Instagram
"To have a go at William is one thing," veteran royal historian Penny Junor recently told The New York Times. "But the reality is that although they said they wouldn't name the person who allegedly asked racist questions about their children's skin colour, Meghan had no compunction throwing Kate under the bus.
"William is very, very protective of Kate and he is likely to be more upset about attacks on her than he is by the attacks on him."
Given Prince Charles is their father, whoever would have predicted that manly, chest-thumping protectiveness could play a part in how the House of Windsor got into such a mess?
On the one hand we have Harry, who told James Corden earlier this year that in leaving the UK because of the "toxic" situation created by the British media he "did what any husband [or] father would do". On the other we have William who, per these reports, has taken umbrage at his wife's reputation being quite so badly muddied on prime time.
In April, The Times' Roya Nikkhah wrote that "royal sources insisted last week that their 'recollection' of the event had not changed", while Tominey, who broke the story, recently said during a TV interview, "I don't write things I don't believe to be true and that haven't been really well-sourced."
So can – or will – any of this be patched up by the time William and Harry stand side by side on July 1? Will enough water have gone under the bridge for any sort of forgiveness to be on the table?
While the two men were photographed briefly speaking at their grandfather Prince Philip's funeral in April, the sculpture unveiling will be an entirely different kettle of Fortnum & Mason tinned mackerel. This time, there will be no grand state occasion to hide behind, nor will they be required to spend much of the outing in dignified silence.
Junor has said: "The hurt is so deep it cannot be fixed by a walk."
So if not a walk, then … maybe a lengthy mountain hike?
