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Meghan FUMED Over Catherine's 20 Room Mansion! But Kate Began Marriage In That VERY SAME Cottage! — Transcript

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  1. 0:00So, Meghan Markle apparently took one
  2. 0:02look at Nottingham Cottage and felt
  3. 0:04short-changed. And the problem with that
  4. 0:06story is that Catherine lived in the
  5. 0:08exact same two bedrooms as a brand new
  6. 0:11wife and never said a word about it.
  7. 0:13That's the detail that makes this whole
  8. 0:15claim fall apart for me. A royal
  9. 0:18biographer named Robert Jobson wrote
  10. 0:20that Meghan was piqued by the disparity
  11. 0:22between the cottage Harry lived in and
  12. 0:24the 20-room apartment William and
  13. 0:26Catherine had at Kensington Palace. And
  14. 0:28honestly, if that's true, it runs
  15. 0:30straight into one very small number.
  16. 0:33Two. We're going to get to why that
  17. 0:35number matters because it changes how
  18. 0:37you hear the phrase two-bedroom cottage.
  19. 0:39Before we go further, if you like this
  20. 0:41kind of breakdown, subscribe to Crown
  21. 0:44Watch. Okay, back to it. First, what the
  22. 0:46book actually says. Jobson wrote that
  23. 0:49Meghan understood William was the heir,
  24. 0:51but believed Harry deserved more because
  25. 0:53he was also a prince. Then you've got
  26. 0:56the word everyone has been repeating all
  27. 0:58week, piqued. People went back to
  28. 1:00Harry's own memoir, where he says he was
  29. 1:02excited to welcome Meghan to his home,
  30. 1:05but also embarrassed because Nottingham
  31. 1:07Cottage was no palace. And then they
  32. 1:09lined up where the Sussexes went next, a
  33. 1:11cottage at Windsor from the Queen,
  34. 1:14a mansion in California with nine
  35. 1:16bedrooms, and now, according to reports,
  36. 1:19a house in the Cotswolds worth around 10
  37. 1:22million pounds, also with at least nine
  38. 1:25bedrooms. Once you read that list in a
  39. 1:27row, it stops being a story about a
  40. 1:29cottage. It starts sounding like a story
  41. 1:31about what felt like enough. And what
  42. 1:34Catherine did with her own homes over 15
  43. 1:36years makes that comparison even
  44. 1:39sharper. Let's start with who actually
  45. 1:41decides who lives where because people
  46. 1:44assume it was William or the King or
  47. 1:46some rule in a drawer somewhere. It's
  48. 1:48none of those. Royal residences get
  49. 1:50allocated through the royal household,
  50. 1:52through the office of the keeper of the
  51. 1:53privy purse, who looks after the
  52. 1:55sovereign's money and property. Their
  53. 1:58job is to match the right family to the
  54. 2:00right house for the work that family
  55. 2:02does. So, a working heir with a growing
  56. 2:04family gets a big household. Private
  57. 2:07secretaries, a diary team, official
  58. 2:09guest, the whole operation that comes
  59. 2:11with being the next king. A younger son
  60. 2:14living on his own gets a cottage inside
  61. 2:16the same walls, close enough to walk to
  62. 2:18his brother's door, small enough to run
  63. 2:20without staff. That's not an insult.
  64. 2:22That's just how it works, and it's how
  65. 2:24it worked for Prince Andrew in the '80s
  66. 2:26and Prince Edward in the '90s. Now,
  67. 2:28here's where the claim gets shaky. The
  68. 2:30cottage that supposedly left Meghan so
  69. 2:32unimpressed was not some forgotten
  70. 2:35outbuilding. It was Nottingham Cottage
  71. 2:38inside Kensington Palace, a short walk
  72. 2:41from the apartment where Harry grew up
  73. 2:43with his mother. And it wasn't new to
  74. 2:45the family when William and Catherine
  75. 2:47first married. While their big apartment
  76. 2:49was being restored, that was their home.
  77. 2:52The same two bedrooms, the same low
  78. 2:54ceilings Harry wrote about, the same
  79. 2:56small kitchen. The future queen started
  80. 2:59married life there. So, when a
  81. 3:01biographer says Meghan was piqued by the
  82. 3:03disparity, the real difference isn't
  83. 3:05between two buildings, it's between two
  84. 3:08women who walked through the same front
  85. 3:09door and came away with completely
  86. 3:11different feelings about it. And I find
  87. 3:13that interesting because Catherine never
  88. 3:15complained about it. Not publicly, not
  89. 3:18in a book, not through a friendly
  90. 3:19journalist. Picture 2011. You've just
  91. 3:23married the future king at Westminster
  92. 3:25Abbey in front of hundreds of millions
  93. 3:27of viewers, and you go home to a cottage
  94. 3:29where you can hear the gardeners outside
  95. 3:31the window in the morning. If you're
  96. 3:32Catherine, you make it a home, you cook,
  97. 3:35you get on with it. And when the bigger
  98. 3:38apartment is ready, you move without a
  99. 3:41word about who had what because you
  100. 3:43understand the bigger place isn't a
  101. 3:45prize.
  102. 3:46It comes with the job. Let me lay out
  103. 3:48the timeline because the order of events
  104. 3:49matters here. April 29th, 2011. William
  105. 3:53and Catherine marry. Before their made
  106. 3:55apartment is ready, their first London
  107. 3:56home is Nottingham cottage. The same
  108. 3:58two-bedroom house that would later
  109. 4:00become Harry's. Autumn 2013, the
  110. 4:02restoration of apartment 1A, formerly
  111. 4:05Princess Margaret's home, is finished.
  112. 4:07That work was reported at around 4 and
  113. 4:091/2 million pounds of public money, much
  114. 4:11of it on a new roof, re-wiring, and
  115. 4:13removing asbestos. William and Catherine
  116. 4:16move in with their first baby around the
  117. 4:18end of the year. About 20 rooms across
  118. 4:20four floors with a nursery, a private
  119. 4:23garden, and the offices of a household
  120. 4:25about to become one of the busiest in
  121. 4:27the palace. It was a working base from
  122. 4:29day one with staff and official
  123. 4:31visitors. When they moved out of
  124. 4:33Nottingham Cottage, Harry took it over
  125. 4:35as his bachelor home. Single, late 20s,
  126. 4:39a serving officer. For years, it was
  127. 4:41simply where he lived. Meanwhile,
  128. 4:43William and Catherine spent a lot of
  129. 4:45time at Anmer Hall in Norfolk, the
  130. 4:47country house the Queen gave them after
  131. 4:48the wedding, while William flew with the
  132. 4:50air ambulance. November 2017, Harry and
  133. 4:53Meghan announced their engagement in the
  134. 4:56sunken garden at Kensington Palace. In
  135. 4:58their engagement interview, Harry says
  136. 5:00he proposed at Nottingham Cottage on a
  137. 5:03cozy night in roasting a chicken. Nobody
  138. 5:06complained about the kitchen that night.
  139. 5:07And for the next year and a half, Meghan
  140. 5:10lived in that cottage, first as fiance,
  141. 5:12then as wife, while her wedding at
  142. 5:14Windsor was planned and her first
  143. 5:16engagements were organized from offices
  144. 5:19a few hundred yards away. November 2018,
  145. 5:22the Queen gives the Sussexes Frogmore
  146. 5:25Cottage in Windsor Home Park. The
  147. 5:27renovation cost around 2.4 million
  148. 5:29pounds from the sovereign grant. They
  149. 5:32move in spring 2019, a house in Windsor
  150. 5:35given personally by the Queen with a
  151. 5:37garden looking out over the royal burial
  152. 5:39ground. Then January 2020, less than a
  153. 5:42year into that house, they announce
  154. 5:44they're stepping back, and within weeks
  155. 5:46they're gone. First Vancouver Island,
  156. 5:48then Los Angeles. In June 2020, in the
  157. 5:51middle of the pandemic, they bought a
  158. 5:52house in Montecito for around 14.65
  159. 5:56million dollars. Nine bedrooms, 16
  160. 5:59bathrooms, and in September 2020, they
  161. 6:02repaid the Frogmore renovation costs.
  162. 6:05January 2023, Spare comes out and Harry
  163. 6:08writes that he was excited to welcome
  164. 6:10Meghan to his home, but also embarrassed
  165. 6:13and that the cottage was no palace. That
  166. 6:16spring the Sussexes are asked to vacate
  167. 6:18Frogmore and by summer they've cleared
  168. 6:20out. Meanwhile, in September 2022,
  169. 6:23William and Catherine had gone the
  170. 6:25opposite direction. They left the 20
  171. 6:27rooms of apartment 1A for Adelaide
  172. 6:30Cottage in Windsor Home Park, a
  173. 6:32four-bedroom house, so their children
  174. 6:34could go to school nearby. A smaller
  175. 6:37house by choice. Then in 2025,
  176. 6:40Kensington Palace confirmed they'd moved
  177. 6:42to Forest Lodge in Windsor Great Park,
  178. 6:45an eight-bedroom house, and reports at
  179. 6:47the time said the couple were paying for
  180. 6:48the property and renovations themselves.
  181. 6:51And then, the Sussexes landed in
  182. 6:53Birmingham and moved into that private
  183. 6:55house in the Cotswolds, reported at
  184. 6:57around 10 million pounds, with at least
  185. 7:00nine bedrooms. This week, [music] the
  186. 7:02claim from Jobson's book, which first
  187. 7:04came out in 2024, went around the world
  188. 7:06again, picked up by magazines and
  189. 7:08websites on both sides of the Atlantic,
  190. 7:11as if it were brand new. The timing,
  191. 7:14with the Sussexes now living in England,
  192. 7:16gave it a second life. And the response?
  193. 7:19Nothing from the Sussexes. Nothing from
  194. 7:21Kensington Palace or Buckingham Palace.
  195. 7:23Nothing from the Princess of Wales, who
  196. 7:25has never commented on any of this. Not
  197. 7:28when the book came out. Not when the
  198. 7:29memoir came out. Not this week. In 15
  199. 7:32years in this family, Catherine has
  200. 7:34never publicly complained about a home,
  201. 7:37a title, a staff number, or a budget.
  202. 7:40Now, the Sussex camp would tell you this
  203. 7:42is ancient history, that every couple
  204. 7:44compares houses, and it means nothing.
  205. 7:46But anyone who has been a guest in
  206. 7:48someone else's home and quietly counted
  207. 7:50the rooms knows that's not really how it
  208. 7:52goes. You don't compare houses with your
  209. 7:54brother-in-law out of interest in
  210. 7:56architecture. You do it to see where you
  211. 7:58stand. And the bigger issue here isn't
  212. 8:00the cottage. It's the oldest question in
  213. 8:03any royal family. What is the the son
  214. 8:06owed? So, let me walk through four
  215. 8:08points. One, royal homes follow royal
  216. 8:11work, not rank and not feelings.
  217. 8:14Apartment 1A was the London home and
  218. 8:16office of the heir with staff and a full
  219. 8:18diary. A younger son in his early 30s
  220. 8:21living alone got a cottage inside the
  221. 8:24same palace walls. Prince Andrew didn't
  222. 8:26get the heir's home. Prince Edward
  223. 8:29didn't get the heir's home. Even
  224. 8:31Princess Margaret, the king's own aunt,
  225. 8:33lived in apartment 1A, but she had it as
  226. 8:35a working royal and it went back to the
  227. 8:38household when she died. Two, the
  228. 8:40household has basically no discretion to
  229. 8:42hand one son the same as the other just
  230. 8:45to keep the peace. Residences belong to
  231. 8:47the crown. The money comes from the
  232. 8:49sovereign grant or the duchy, and every
  233. 8:51pound has to be justified as part of the
  234. 8:54work. The minute a palace goes to a
  235. 8:56prince for fairness instead of duty, the
  236. 8:58household answers to the taxpayer, and
  237. 9:01the taxpayer always finds out. Every
  238. 9:03residence shows up in the annual
  239. 9:05accounts, and every renovation gets
  240. 9:07reported line by line within days, which
  241. 9:10is exactly how the Frogmore bill became
  242. 9:12a national story. Three, the money tells
  243. 9:15you a lot because money always leaves a
  244. 9:17record. The renovation of apartment 1A
  245. 9:20for the heir came out of public funds
  246. 9:22and was examined in the sovereign grant
  247. 9:24accounts. Frogmore came out of the same
  248. 9:27funds and was later repaid by the
  249. 9:28Sussexes. Forest Lodge, according to
  250. 9:31reports, is being paid for by William
  251. 9:33and Catherine themselves. Montecito and
  252. 9:36the Cotswolds house were both privately
  253. 9:38Every one of those has a paper trail,
  254. 9:40and not one was ever owed to anybody. A
  255. 9:42home is a tool for the work, and when
  256. 9:45the work stops, so does the home.
  257. 9:47That's what happened with Frogmore.
  258. 9:49Four, there's precedent going back to
  259. 9:51the start of the late Queen's married
  260. 9:53life. In the late 1940s, a young
  261. 9:56Princess Elizabeth, heir to the throne,
  262. 9:58lived in Malta while her husband served
  263. 10:00in the Royal Navy. They rented a modest
  264. 10:03place called Villa Guardamangia. Those
  265. 10:05years are often described as some of the
  266. 10:07happiest of her life. The future queen
  267. 10:09in a rented villa, never measuring it
  268. 10:12against anyone's palace. That's the
  269. 10:14standard this family was built on. Think
  270. 10:16about it the way an ordinary family
  271. 10:18would. Two brothers, the older one
  272. 10:20inherits the family business and the big
  273. 10:22house because he has to run it. The
  274. 10:24younger gets the flat above the garage
  275. 10:26rent-free for as long as he wants. His
  276. 10:29new wife looks at the flat, looks at the
  277. 10:31big house, and decides it's unfair. The
  278. 10:34older brother's wife, who lived in that
  279. 10:35very flat when she first married, says
  280. 10:37nothing.
  281. 10:38Which of those two women does the family
  282. 10:40trust more? And which one gets invited
  283. 10:42back for Sunday lunch every year without
  284. 10:44anyone thinking twice? I'll make one
  285. 10:46more promise before we go on. In a few
  286. 10:49minutes, I'll get to what Harry himself
  287. 10:51said about that cottage in his
  288. 10:53engagement interview years before the
  289. 10:55memoir, cuz it's the opposite of how
  290. 10:56it's described now. So, let's put the
  291. 10:58houses side by side. Nottingham Cottage,
  292. 11:01two bedrooms inside Kensington Palace,
  293. 11:04the first married home of William and
  294. 11:06Catherine, later Harry's bachelor home,
  295. 11:09where he and proposed over a roast
  296. 11:10chicken, and where he and Meghan lived
  297. 11:12until 2019. In Spare, Harry wrote he was
  298. 11:15embarrassed by it. Catherine has never
  299. 11:18written a word about it. Her first
  300. 11:19married home is just a place she lived.
  301. 11:22Apartment 1A, around 20 rooms on four
  302. 11:25floors, once Princess Margaret's,
  303. 11:27restored with public money and used as
  304. 11:29the London household of the heir.
  305. 11:31William and Catherine's children spent
  306. 11:33their early years there, and it worked
  307. 11:34as an office as much as a home. Frogmore
  308. 11:37Cottage, the royal gift from the Queen,
  309. 11:40renovated for around 2.4 million, later
  310. 11:42repaid, lived in for less than a year
  311. 11:45before the move to Canada and then
  312. 11:46California, and then mostly empty while
  313. 11:49the arguments about who paid for what
  314. 11:51played out in the papers. Montecito,
  315. 11:53bought in June 2020 for around 14.65
  316. 11:56million dollars. Nine bedrooms, 16
  317. 11:59bathrooms,
  318. 12:00>> [music]
  319. 12:00>> private paid for privately, a house many
  320. 12:03times the size of the cottage that
  321. 12:05supposedly caused so much hurt. The
  322. 12:06Cotswolds, the newest house, the one
  323. 12:09that brings this story back to England,
  324. 12:11around 10 million pounds, at least nine
  325. 12:13bedrooms. Read those out slowly. Two
  326. 12:16bedrooms, 20 rooms, a royal gift, nine
  327. 12:19bedrooms in California, nine in England.
  328. 12:22Whatever the Sussexes felt about that
  329. 12:24first cottage, they haven't gone short
  330. 12:25of space since.
  331. 12:27And the part nobody puts in those lists,
  332. 12:29Adelaide Cottage, four bedrooms, chosen
  333. 12:32by William and Catherine in 2022, when
  334. 12:35they could have stayed in 20 rooms, then
  335. 12:37Forest Lodge, eight bedrooms, which
  336. 12:40reports say they're paying for
  337. 12:41themselves. The Ayers family went down
  338. 12:43in size when it suited the kids and paid
  339. 12:46their own way when they went back up. If
  340. 12:48anyone had a reason to measure rooms, it
  341. 12:51was the family with three children and a
  342. 12:52working office. They didn't. Now, here's
  343. 12:55the detail that stopped me. In November
  344. 12:582017, in their engagement interview,
  345. 13:01Harry was asked how he proposed. He said
  346. 13:03it was a cozy night in at the cottage.
  347. 13:06They were roasting a chicken, and
  348. 13:08[music] it was just an amazing surprise.
  349. 13:10He sounded proud of that cottage. He
  350. 13:12sounded happy in it. Meghan smiled next
  351. 13:15to him. Five years later, in Spare, the
  352. 13:18same cottage had become something he was
  353. 13:20embarrassed to show her. Same building,
  354. 13:23same kitchen, same chicken. What changed
  355. 13:26wasn't the cottage. It was the story.
  356. 13:29So, does that sound like a man who was
  357. 13:32ashamed of his home from the start or
  358. 13:34like a story that got rewritten later to
  359. 13:36fit a new grievance? Add the second
  360. 13:39layer. Jobson writes that Meghan
  361. 13:41understood William was the heir, but
  362. 13:43believed Harry deserved more because he
  363. 13:44was a prince. Think about what that
  364. 13:46actually implies. It treats a younger
  365. 13:48son having less as a problem to be
  366. 13:50fixed. In this family, it isn't a
  367. 13:52problem. It's the rule. Princess Anne
  368. 13:55has lived for decades at Gatcombe Park
  369. 13:57in Gloucestershire, a working farm, and
  370. 14:00never asked for anything grander. Prince
  371. 14:02Edward and Sophie live at Bagshot Park.
  372. 14:05Neither has been reported to resent the
  373. 14:07heir's home, and between them they've
  374. 14:09given more than a century of public
  375. 14:10service without comparing square
  376. 14:13footage.
  377. 14:14Third layer, the one that settles it for
  378. 14:16me, Catherine herself in 2022, she and
  379. 14:19William left 20 rooms for four-bedroom
  380. 14:22cottage because it suited their kids.
  381. 14:24The heir and his wife chose less space,
  382. 14:27and according to the biographer, the
  383. 14:29second son's wife resented having less.
  384. 14:31Those two facts sit side by side, and
  385. 14:35they say a lot about how differently the
  386. 14:37two women understood the family they
  387. 14:39married into. For Catherine, a royal
  388. 14:42home has always been a place to do a job
  389. 14:44and raise a family. In this account, for
  390. 14:46Meghan it was a measure of status, and
  391. 14:49it came out wrong. I do want to be fair.
  392. 14:51This claim comes from one author's book.
  393. 14:54Meghan has never responded to it, and
  394. 14:56nobody can see inside her head. But, the
  395. 14:58record of the houses isn't opinion. It's
  396. 15:01in the sovereign grant accounts, in
  397. 15:03property records, and in Harry's own
  398. 15:06memoir. Put yourself in Catherine's
  399. 15:07position. You lived in that cottage. You
  400. 15:10know the floorboards. You know the
  401. 15:11kitchen where your brother-in-law later
  402. 15:13proposed. And one day you read that your
  403. 15:16sister-in-law felt the place was beneath
  404. 15:18her husband.
  405. 15:18>> [music]
  406. 15:19>> You might not be angry, maybe just sad
  407. 15:21that a home you were happy in became for
  408. 15:24someone else a measure of how little
  409. 15:26they were valued. That's why this hits
  410. 15:29harder than most. It isn't about one bad
  411. 15:32evening. It's about an attitude, the
  412. 15:34belief that being a prince means being
  413. 15:35owed something. In this family, it's
  414. 15:37always been the other way around. Being
  415. 15:39a prince means owing something to the
  416. 15:42country and to the people who pay for
  417. 15:43it. Now, reactions this week, on the
  418. 15:4627th of October, royal commentator
  419. 15:48Richard Fitzwilliams said Harry's latest
  420. 15:51attempts at reconciliation had already
  421. 15:53been undermined because they were made
  422. 15:55in public, and that he can't be trusted.
  423. 15:57Broadcaster Helena Chard said the palace
  424. 16:00doesn't trust Harry and Meghan, and that
  425. 16:02Harry's recent interview confirmed
  426. 16:03William's fear that private
  427. 16:05conversations end up in public. That's
  428. 16:08the backdrop. Nobody in the family is
  429. 16:10going to talk about a cottage because
  430. 16:12every word would land in the next book
  431. 16:14or documentary. So, Catherine didn't
  432. 16:16raise her voice or call a press
  433. 16:19conference. According to people around
  434. 16:21her, the only thing she signed this week
  435. 16:23was a stack of thank you letters to
  436. 16:24volunteers and staff she'd met on recent
  437. 16:26engagements, written by hand the way she
  438. 16:29always does. With Remembrance only days
  439. 16:31away and her Christmas Carol service at
  440. 16:33Westminster Abbey being prepared, she
  441. 16:36just got on with the work. William has
  442. 16:38said nothing either. He's preparing for
  443. 16:40the Earthshot prize in Mumbai on the
  444. 16:4217th of November. The King is in the
  445. 16:44Caribbean on a state visit to Guyana,
  446. 16:46then the Commonwealth summit in Antigua.
  447. 16:49And for what it's worth, when residences
  448. 16:51were on his mind in the past, the family
  449. 16:53was generous. It was Charles as Prince
  450. 16:55of Wales who walked Meghan down the
  451. 16:57aisle at St. George's Chapel in May
  452. 16:592018, and his mother who gave the couple
  453. 17:02Frogmore Cottage. The Princess Royal has
  454. 17:04said nothing, which fits. She's lived at
  455. 17:06Gatcombe since the '70s, runs it as a
  456. 17:09working estate, and would likely find
  457. 17:12comparing houses with a sibling faintly
  458. 17:14ridiculous. She's never been the heir,
  459. 17:17never had the heir's home, never
  460. 17:18complained. If anyone had a right to
  461. 17:20feel overlooked, it was the hardest
  462. 17:22royal working royal of her generation
  463. 17:24living on a farm. She spent 50 years
  464. 17:26turning up instead. The Sussex camp's
  465. 17:28line was that this is old news, a story
  466. 17:31from a book written years ago, not worth
  467. 17:33answering. That's reasonable, but it's
  468. 17:36also damage control because the claim
  469. 17:38doesn't hurt them on its own. It hurts
  470. 17:40because it fits a pattern the public
  471. 17:42already believes. And Harry wrote the
  472. 17:45word embarrassed himself. He wrote no
  473. 17:47palace himself. Jobson only added what
  474. 17:50Meghan felt. The more they say the story
  475. 17:52is unfair, the more people open spare
  476. 17:55and find the passage. You can't unprint
  477. 17:58a page of your own memoir. Meghan has
  478. 18:00never answered Jobson's claim. Her week
  479. 18:03was busy with an announcement about
  480. 18:04Australian television, a guest role on
  481. 18:07Junior MasterChef in 2027. Whatever she
  482. 18:10once felt about a two-bedroom cottage,
  483. 18:12her calendar now is studios, not
  484. 18:14palaces. And Jobson deserves a mention.
  485. 18:17He's followed this family for decades,
  486. 18:19written books on the King, William and
  487. 18:20Catherine. He didn't invent the houses.
  488. 18:23He described the reaction. And he's
  489. 18:25written admiringly of Catherine for
  490. 18:27years, so this isn't an attack book. The
  491. 18:29passage about Meghan is there partly
  492. 18:32because it shows, by contrast, the kind
  493. 18:34of woman Catherine is. According to
  494. 18:36friends of the Sussexes, a message went
  495. 18:38through the private secretaries after
  496. 18:40the claim resurfaced suggesting the
  497. 18:42palace might correct the record, perhaps
  498. 18:45by saying the Sussexes had always been
  499. 18:47grateful for their homes. In that
  500. 18:49telling,
  501. 18:50the message mentioned Diana and the home
  502. 18:53she made for her sons at Kensington
  503. 18:54Palace. Charles didn't take the call,
  504. 18:57and nobody around him was surprised. A
  505. 18:59book about the Princess of Wales doesn't
  506. 19:01need a reply from the Princess of Wales.
  507. 19:03A former private secretary once put it
  508. 19:05this way, "The palace never comments on
  509. 19:07a book because the moment it does,
  510. 19:10>> [music]
  511. 19:10>> it's writing the next one for them." So,
  512. 19:12there was nothing. No correction, no
  513. 19:14friendly word to a friendly columnist.
  514. 19:16And at the top of the narrow lane, past
  515. 19:19Nottingham Cottage, the gates did what
  516. 19:21they do every night. They lock as they
  517. 19:23have for 300 years. The cottage is
  518. 19:26quiet, windows dark, the small garden
  519. 19:28swept for autumn.
  520. 19:30The sunken garden is empty apart from a
  521. 19:32statue of a mother standing between two
  522. 19:34brothers who no longer stand together.
  523. 19:36The cottage the Sussexes lived in as
  524. 19:39working royals isn't theirs to come back
  525. 19:41to. It belongs to the household again
  526. 19:43waiting for whoever the work needs next.
  527. 19:46From the cottage to the garden is a few
  528. 19:48minutes walk. From the brothers standing
  529. 19:50together in 2021 to not speaking has
  530. 19:52taken about 5 years.
  531. 19:54The distance isn't the cottage, it's
  532. 19:56everything that was said about it
  533. 19:57afterward. And here's how this hurts the
  534. 20:00Sussexes somewhere they didn't expect.
  535. 20:02They moved back to England saying they
  536. 20:03wanted to be closer to family. But every
  537. 20:06time a story like this resurfaces,
  538. 20:08people don't think about family. They
  539. 20:09think about houses, the cottage that was
  540. 20:12too small, the royal gift they left
  541. 20:14after a year, the California mansion,
  542. 20:16the nine bedrooms in the Cotswolds.
  543. 20:18Instead of a couple coming home, people
  544. 20:20see a couple who were never satisfied
  545. 20:22with the home they were given. And the
  546. 20:24people noticing most are exactly the
  547. 20:26ones they're trying to win back, the
  548. 20:28British public who pay for royal homes
  549. 20:30through the sovereign grant and remember
  550. 20:32every renovation bill. You can't be
  551. 20:34embarrassed by a cottage the future
  552. 20:35queen lived in happily and then ask the
  553. 20:38country to feel sorry you weren't given
  554. 20:40enough.
  555. 20:41Which brings me back to the number, two.
  556. 20:44Two bedrooms the size of Nottingham
  557. 20:45Cottage, to Meghan, according to Jobson,
  558. 20:49a sign Harry was treated as less than he
  559. 20:51deserved. But two was also the size of
  560. 20:53the first married home of the Princess
  561. 20:55of Wales. Catherine lived in those same
  562. 20:57two bedrooms as the wife of the future
  563. 20:59king and never said a word. When the 20
  564. 21:02rooms came, she took them as part of the
  565. 21:04work. When her children needed something
  566. 21:07different, she gave up 20 rooms for
  567. 21:09four. Now, per reports, she and William
  568. 21:13are paying for their next home
  569. 21:14themselves. Two bedrooms were enough for
  570. 21:16the future queen. In the biographer's
  571. 21:18account, they weren't enough for a
  572. 21:20duchess. Set that against the women who
  573. 21:22built the standard and declined titles
  574. 21:25for her children so they could grow up
  575. 21:26ordinary and has lived on a working farm
  576. 21:29for half a century. Elizabeth II, the
  577. 21:31young wife in the rented villa in Malta,
  578. 21:34went on to reign 70 years and sat alone
  579. 21:37at St. George's Chapel in April 2021 at
  580. 21:40the funeral of her husband of 73 years,
  581. 21:42asking for nothing the rules didn't
  582. 21:44allow everyone else. And Diana, whose
  583. 21:47name always comes up when the Sussexes
  584. 21:49talk about Kensington Palace, what she
  585. 21:51built there wasn't a collection of
  586. 21:53rooms, it was a childhood. She took her
  587. 21:55boys to theme parks, to queue for
  588. 21:57burgers, to homeless shelters so they'd
  589. 22:00understand how other people lived. A
  590. 22:02home isn't measured in bedrooms, it's
  591. 22:04measured in who's inside it and what you
  592. 22:06do for the people outside. William
  593. 22:08learned that. Catherine lived it from a
  594. 22:10two-bedroom cottage to 20 rooms of
  595. 22:12working palace to a four-bedroom house
  596. 22:15by choice, always making the house fit
  597. 22:16the family rather than the reverse. The
  598. 22:18Sussexes, nine bedrooms later, are still
  599. 22:21talking about the cottage, still
  600. 22:23explaining it, still being asked about
  601. 22:25it years after they first walked through
  602. 22:27its door. That's the real lesson of this
  603. 22:29week, not who got more rooms, but who
  604. 22:31was grateful for the rooms they had, and
  605. 22:33who turned a cottage into a grievance
  606. 22:35that's followed them through four
  607. 22:36houses. A book described a feeling, a
  608. 22:39memoir confirmed it, and a princess
  609. 22:41walked through the same door and never
  610. 22:43needed to say a thing. Two bedrooms were
  611. 22:45enough for the future queen.

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