Daniela Elser: The Queen's Christmas speech that tore the royal family apart

OPINION:

One of the Christmas traditions the UK enjoys that has never quite made its way to our shores is the Queen's speech drinking game. It is, perhaps, the only sensible way to watch Her Majesty's annual festive message to her people, an outing infamous for how stultifyingly boring the whole thing is.

Except, that is, for the speech she delivered in 2019, a speech that in under eight minutes managed to do irreparable damage to the fabric of the royal family and set in motion a series of events which would lead to the greatest schism in the royal house since Wallis Simpson disembarked at Liverpool.

So, let's rewind. It's late 2019. A new virus is circling in China but the world seems eminently untroubled by its insidious spread, Donald Trump has yet to be impeached not once but twice, and Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are nowhere to be seen in Britain, having scraped their way through a particularly trying, drama-filled year.

Things had gotten off to a bad start with Meghan's Kardashian-esque baby shower in New York, complete with celebrity harpist and held in a $100,000 New York hotel penthouse; followed by the Sussexes' decision to move to Frogmore Cottage, which cost the Sovereign Grant $4.4 million; the farrago surrounding the birth of their son Archie (who can forget the announcement she had gone into labour hours being released when the bub had in fact been born hours before?); and then the ensuing brouhaha over his christening, an event held without the Queen and with the press in high dudgeon over being excluded.

Meghan and Harry went against tradition and kept Archie's christening private. Photo / AP

Getting tired? Well, we are only barely up to June.

That month it was revealed that the Sussexes were leaving the Royal Foundation, the charity body that Harry and brother Prince William had started together in 2009 and that the newly-ish-weds would be setting up their own office in Buckingham Palace, at which point no amount of spinning could quite disguise the fact that of how parlous the relationship between the princes had become.

In late July Harry went to Google Camp in Sardinia, reportedly delivered a barefoot speech about climate change, and then spent August jetting about the Med on private jets, taking four such flights in 11 days. (Oh and while the Sussexes reportedly passed on the Queen's invitation to spend time with her at Balmoral because Archie was too young, they could clearly zip off to Ibiza and the South of France with their bub. Huh.)

In September, when the couple landed in South Africa for their make-or-break official tour, the lustre had well and truly come off the once golden couple. Harry was caught on camera snapping at one reporter and on October 1st, he announced that Meghan was suing the Mail on Sunday. Two days later, news that he was suing the Mirror and The Sun broke.

Back in London, their higher ups were taking due note. The couple, in taking this court action without getting the 'Top Lady's' permission (as Diana, Princess of Wales called the Queen), the Sussexes had broken a cardinal rule.

Their decision to sue, Robert Lacey wrote in last year's excellent Battle of Brothers, were "supreme examples" of "pure insubordination, not just to [the Queen's private secretary Sir Edward] Young and his staff, who would have to process the implications as they affected the crown, but ultimately to the Queen. It was absolutely unknown for one, let alone three, such major conflicts with the outside world to be initiated by any member of the family without the Queen's blessing – which Harry and Meghan had neither asked for nor received."

So too did the couple's "undisclosed plans to market merchandise under their own royal trademark took their rebellion one step too far," according to Lacey.

Britain's Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle pose for photographers during a photocall in the grounds of Kensington Palace in London, Nov. 27, 2017. Photo / File, AP

Come October, the documentary that Harry and Meghan had filmed in Africa aired, during which both gave emotional interviews with the duchess becoming the first HRH to ever complain about not 'thriving.'

All of which is to say, the wheels were well and truly coming off for the Sussexes.

So off the Sussexes trotted to a destination unknown (later revealed to be a $20 million borrowed mansion on Vancouver Island, a monstrosity that taste forgot) for a long and hard think about what they wanted to do next. Various biographies, since then, have revealed that, by this point, the duo was keen to renegotiate their royal roles.

Which brings us to Christmas Day, 2019.

The Queen had filmed the message earlier in the month in the Green Drawing Room at Windsor Castle and as was usual, by her side were a carefully arranged selection of family photos.

However, as longtime royal correspondent Christopher Anderson recounts in his recently published Brothers and Wives, Her Majesty decided on a last minute spot of rearranging.

"Elizabeth II looked over the table where the photographs she had so lovingly selected were arranged," he writes. "All were fine except for one, she told the director as she pointed to a heartwarming portrait of Harry, Meghan, and eight-month-old Archie. 'That one,' said the Queen, surveying the other images of past and future monarchs and their families. 'I suppose we don't need that one.'"

When the speech aired on December 25, while the shot prominently featured images of her father, King George VI, son Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Cambridge family. Conspicuously absent: The Sussexes.

All of this, Lacey writes, "reflected a deliberate decision on the part of Queen Elizabeth II."

Likewise, while Her Majesty did say "Prince Philip and I have been delighted to welcome our eighth great-grandchild into our family" at one stage, nor did she mention Archie – or his parents – by name.

Harry and Meghan, thousands of kilometres away, did not miss this pointed move, with the couple viewing Picturegate as "yet another sign that they needed [to] consider their own path," the authors write in Finding Freedom.

"Palace sources insisted that the photos were chosen to represent the direct line of succession, but Harry felt as though he and Meghan had long been sidelined by the institution and were not a fundamental part of its future," Freedom reports.

Further rubbing salt into the wound was another image that Buckingham Palace did release around this time, one showing the nonagenarian sovereign with Princes Charles, William and George. The implicit meaning could not have been clearer: No matter who gets the most headlines and Instagram likes, all that matters at the end of the day are the people who will one day end up with their face on money.

It's hard not to view this move, in hindsight, as nothing short of provocative, however it was, per Lacey, one "enthusiastically supported by Prince William, who was not saying anything for the record – but who wanted to send his younger brother a message."

None of which appears to have been lost on the Sussexes who by the time they arrived back in the UK in early January were, by all accounts, bristling and no longer willing to take it.

But here's the thing: What would have happened if the Queen, rather than weeding out the Sussex shot as has been alleged, had left it by her side? If she had, despite the renegade couple's way, extended an olive branch of sorts and realised that such a public indignity would only inflame their sense of unfairness and push them even further out into the cold? What if she had taken the opportunity to very demonstrably reinforce the importance of the Sussexes to the future of the monarchy?

In hindsight, and yes I know it is 20/20, if the Queen had, for her Christmas address, played things less reactively and more strategically, who knows to what extent it might have mollified, to some degree, the riled up Sussexes?

Sure, this might not have wholesale staved off Megxit but it might have meant that when Harry and Meghan touched down in London ready to make their case for a new deal, their hackles might not have been quite so up nor their tempers quite so hot.

What is clear is that Christmas afternoon and the very literal cutting of the Sussexes out of the picture, looks a lot like it cemented both the royal family and the Duke and Duchess' fates.

Here's one final thought. Harry and Meghan's son Archie, who is about to enjoy his third Christmas, has never spent the holidays in the UK or with his father's family. Sadly, at the rate things are going, he never might.