‘Who is and who is not on the Royal Christmas desk has always been like the changing panorama of faces on the balcony’: How The Queen’s Christmas photo gallery was a sign of things to come for Harry and Meghan

Whether it’s a simple walk in the fresh air with the family or the full splendor of a coronation, when it comes to royal occasions, the symbolism and the choreography are everything.

And nothing is more closely scrutinized for meaning at this time of year than the monarch’s Christmas broadcast.

What did Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, think of the Queen’s message on Christmas Day 2019?

Filmed in the Music Room at Windsor Castle, it was one of her more theatrically staged seasonal broadcasts with a tastefully opulent backdrop of gilt mirrors, oil paintings of candelabras and a sparkling, perfectly proportioned Christmas tree with light and gold baubles.

But it was the foreground that mattered.

The Queen’s Christmas broadcast in 2019 was the penultimate one she ever made

William, Kate and family were prominently present. Harry and Meghan don’t

Baby Archie, their first child, had been born earlier that year, another great-grandchild for the Queen

Prince Harry and Meghan with their son Archie during a meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Cape Town, September 2019

Beside her and slightly in front of the queen, in prominent view of her watching subjects, a group of family photographs were placed – including a portrait of the father whose early death at the age of 56 from a stroke transformed her from young woman to queen.

Her son and heir Prince Charles was recorded with his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

William, Kate and their children appeared in a cheerful group photo, while at the back a portrait of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh could be seen superimposed over them.

Harry and Meghan, baby Archie’s new parents, were nowhere to be seen.

The Sussexes had played a role in the past, but now, amid fraught negotiations over their desire for a new, autonomous place in royal life – and just a few weeks before Megxit was formally declared – Harry and Meghan were gone.

As author Robert Lacey noted in his best-selling book Battle of Brothers:

‘Harry and Meghan had shown a smile in a silver frame in 2018. But in 2019 there would be no sign of them, nor any mention of the Sussex name – as that name would now apparently be used to sell licensed merchandise. was not asked by the queen.

‘Who is and who is not on the Royal Christmas desk has always been like the changing panorama of faces on the balcony of the Kremlin in Moscow.

“It showed who was in favor and who wasn’t.”

As Lacey notes, the Queen acknowledged the arrival of Harry and Meghan’s first child, but avoided the word Sussex, preferring to say: ‘Prince Philip and I are delighted to welcome our eighth great-grandchild to our family.

The Sussexes, Lacy writes, “were as effectively ‘unpersonalized’ as the Soviets’ unpersonalized Trotsky and Khrushchev.”

There were perfectly good reasons not to involve Harry and Meghan.

An ever-growing royal family meant there was (and is) an inevitable limit to the number of photos that could be shown. (The Danish royal family has had similar and well-publicized difficulties in figuring out who should and who should not be given full status).

The few who made it into Windsor Castle’s music room were in the direct line of succession or, in the case of Philip, Prince Consort, married to the Queen. There was a logic to it.

Could collecting photos have been the whim of a TV producer – someone who likes clean lines and tidy desks perhaps.

Lacey doesn’t think so. According to insiders, he writes, this choice was originally the idea of ​​Prince Charles, who was keen to promote a ‘downsized’ monarchy.

Prince Harry and Meghan at Canada House, just one day before dropping the Megxit bombshell

Two young mothers, Kate and Meghan, attend the polo at the Billingbear club in the summer of 2019

Meghan smiles for the cameras, Prince Harry looks down as they attend their final engagement during the Commonwealth Day Service on March 9, 2020

Furthermore, whatever decision was made, it was clearly supported by the Queen.

Palace sources had meanwhile said ‘that the plan to depict the direct line of royal succession was enthusiastically supported by Prince William, who said nothing for the record – but wanted to send a message to his younger brother.’

That message came across clearly, at least according to Finding Freedom by pro-Sussex authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, who concluded that for Harry and Meghan, the choice of photos was “yet another sign that they need to consider their own path.”

Three weeks later, the Sussexes stunned the nation by announcing they would split their time between North America and Britain and step back from frontline royal duties.