Some men, the saying goes, have to get married to grow up. So it has proven for HRH Prince Henry Charles Albert David. In the year and a half since marrying the actress, lifestyle blogger and (I’m just assuming) activist Meghan Markle, Harry has indeed left childish things behind.
With the help of his wife, the reckless and rugged prince of a few years ago has swapped boozy evenings and weekends of naked billiards in Las Vegas for woke cupcakes and expensive home refurbishments.
The final stage of his evolution came yesterday, with the announcement that their royal highnesses are to ‘step back’ as ‘senior members’ of the British royal family to carve a new ‘progressive role’ for themselves, with an accompanying charitable foundation of course.
What that role will be remains to be seen. The couple have insisted they will ‘work to become financially independent’, eventually, and Harry will need a job. Quite what that will be is also for the future, though the traditional careers for the Eton-and-Sandhurst-educated (stockbroker or mercenary) would probably involve more hours than he’d like. But Harry is not without some talents. His time as a ‘senior’ royal has shown that he can rub shoulders, cheeks, noses, and sundry parts with peoples of all kinds. His 2012 tour of the Caribbean was widely hailed as a diplomatic success.
Since the Sussexes have indicated they want to spend a lot more time in North America, perhaps a good fit for him would be Governor General of Canada. Heavy on viceregal ceremony and protocol, but with little actual work and even less thought required, it would be a soft landing for Harry into the world of work. It also comes with the perks of a royal residence and retinue which, let’s be honest, he’s probably not quite prepared to do without.
Of course, Canadians might balk at the idea of parachuting in the prince as their new effective head of state. Who, after all, wants to be led by someone famous only as another’s son, prone to cringeworthy outbursts of idiot virtue-signaling…but with a photo album of offensive Halloween costumes in his past? Then again, maybe they won’t mind all that much.
Meghan herself might also find Canada a useful re-entry point to the real world. She lived and worked in Toronto for a time as a C-list American TV star, proving that the fragile duchess can handle the Canadian equivalent of superstardom.
Constitutionalists will quibble that there is a Governor General already — the former chief astronaut of the Canadian Space Agency (who knew?) — but legally the job is in Her Majesty’s gift and at Her Majesty’s pleasure. And anyway, Mme. Payette is unanswerably French.
Whether or not Grandma steps in to give Harry the gig, we have to hope he finds something soon. In the meantime, as an over educated, unemployed, 35-year-old living with and off his family, Harry has succeeded in growing up into a true millennial — perhaps more ‘normal’ than any royal in a generation.
