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Solemnity, royalty, glamour and glitz

May 19, 2018 will for a long time to come be a day to remember. It was a spectacle. It was solemnity at its most enrapturing, royalty, power, glamour and glitz—all rolled into one. That was the royal wedding between Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (L) and US actress Meghan Markle (R) stand together at the altar in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in Windsor, on May 19, 2018 during their wedding ceremony. / AFP PHOTO / POOL / Dominic Lipinski

May 19, 2018 will for a long time to come be a day to remember. It was a spectacle. It was solemnity at its most enrapturing, royalty, power, glamour and glitz—all rolled into one. That was the royal wedding between Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. The couple was driven at the end of the chapel nuptials in the customary horse-drawn open carriage with exceedingly excited and jubilating multitude lining their route and waving heartily. In the streets, in open spaces across Great Britain it was celebration galore. The guests who watched the exchange of vows were 600, but it was a sea of heads lining the route outside from Buckingham Palace to the magnificent St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. Millions all over the world were glued to their television stations to be witnesses to a marriage extra-ordinary. All major television stations all over the globe beamed the wedding into our homes.

It was obvious the whole clan of the royal family was fully in attendance, including frail Prince Phillip, the Queen’s consort. The bride came in a gown with a long tail and veil. The bridesmaids and pageboys drawn from largely the royal family and children of Meghan’s friend said also to be her stylist were a delight to behold. Interestingly four-year-old Princess Charlotte, daughter of William, Harry’s brother who was also the best man, was among them. Prince Charles, in the absence of the bride’s father, Thomas Markle, accosted his daughter-in-law half-way and walked her down the aisle. Mr. Markle had just had a heart surgery. While the programme lasted, Prince Harry could hardly take off his eyes from his wife. There was this overjoyed triumphal feeling and for the lady, it was like an awakening from trance and unbelievabilty: So, it is real! Later at the evening reception hosted by Prince Charles, Meghan could not help but thank the royal family for receiving her into their fold.

There were no politicians invited to the wedding, and no politician turned up, not even the Obamas in whose heart Harry occupies a special fond space. When invitations started going out and there were grumblings in the White House that Mr. Trump must have been dropped out of royal misreckoning, Buckingham Palace had to explain that no politician, not even from Britain, not even Prime Minister Theresa May, was being invited. The reason was that Harry is not on the line to the Throne. Suspicion in the White House heightened because the Queen has not been able to give her nod to receiving Mr. Trump on a State Visit. Even then the gathering was still all power masked blissfully in pomp and pageantry.

Anyone familiar with the British unique system of government would know that the Queen is the sovereign and the executive government carries out its activities in her name and so, we have always heard it said, Her Majesty’s Prime Minister; Her Majesty’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. What we were taught in school was that the Crown means the sum total of government and government activities. The government is the agent of the Crown. In law, the Queen can do no wrong. She is the one who dissolves parliament, albeit on the advice of the Prime Minister. She is consulted on all major policies of the government, even though her views are prohibited from being made public. She derives her powers from the Act of Settlement of 1701. The words of proclamation when the Queen ascended the throne in 1953 cannot but fascinate the listener. They read:

“Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to call to His mercy our late Sovereign Lord King George V1, of blessed and glorious memory, by whose Decease the Crown is solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary: We, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm, being here assisted with these His Late majesty’s Privy council, with representatives of other Members of the Commonwealth, with other Principal Gentlemen of quality, with Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens of London, do now hereby with one Voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart publish and proclaim, That the High and Mighty Princess Alexandra Mary, is now by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory , become Queen Elizabeth 11 by the Grace of God, Queen of this Realm, and of Her other realms and Territories , Head of the Commonwealth, defender of the Faith, to whom Her Lieges do acknowledge all faith and constant Obedience with humble Affection, beseeching God by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Princess, Elizabeth 11 with long and happy Years of reign over us. God save the Queen.”

With this at the back of Meghan’s mind, it was no surprise she was overwhelmed she was marrying into the family of the Queen of England, into enduring glamour and power. It is even more so that Queen Elizabeth has carried herself with awesome dignity and panache. It is such that when a queen is mentioned the mind races to no other than Queen Elizabeth 11 of England. The big question, even to Meghan, is how did she find herself into such a family, into splendor, and arguably into a family of utmost reckoning across the globe? She is a black American, in public glare for a long time as an actress and a divorcee. She is also 36. Yet, at the evening reception hosted by Prince Charles on the day of the wedding, she said to the family and the gathering of 200 guests, that when she set eyes on Prince Harry, she knew deep within her that he was the man meant for her. She told the gathering that her long wait had paid off. Harry himself had spoken in a similar sentiment earlier talking about how they met. He said that he recognized her instantly as his wife the first time he saw her. Such was their chemistry that when he proposed to Meghan in November last year, in his words, “She didn’t even let me finish. She said, “Can I say yes?”’

Who then are these remarkable newlyweds? Are they meeting for the first time? Are they strangers to themselves? Where are they coming from? Of all the girls at his beck and call how come Prince Harry could not settle for one among the eligible girls all over the United Kingdom and he had to cross the Pacific Ocean to spot and hook Meghan as his wife? Millions who watched the wedding would wonder how the girl from a struggling family was able to hook a Prince and launch herself into such fame and opulence and material certainty. A majority are bound to regard her as a very lucky girl. Many a great number of ladies would wish they were in her shoes. Many would regard her ascendancy as injustice: here I am, a paragon of beauty, good education, matchless in terms of upbringing; here I am with everything going for me. What have I done that I was not hooked by this guy? The biting of lips and gritting of teeth questioning the justice of the Creator could border on blasphemy.

It also raises the question of why some are born with silver spoons in their mouths, into fabulous wealth and an innumerable population of human beings is born into squalor and perpetual penury. The beauty of the orchards and lawns on the way from the chapel at Windsor to the Buckingham Palace is unbelievably enthralling. In the end the consolation among the believers of whatever faith is the ways of the Most High are inscrutable!

However, with familiarity with the mechanisms governing life, we will find that our misgivings and bewilderment are due to our limitations and ignorance of principles of life. There are no accidents in life. The Creator is logic personified. The Almighty is Life and Truth, absolute Truth, the only One that can say I am. The Justice that governs our lives is incorruptible, perfect and unchanging for He is both Love and Justice; Justice is a cardinal feature of all life. It is no other than the seed of today will be harvested tomorrow. If it is not in the present earth life it will unfailingly be in a subsequent one.

The time of harvesting depends on the nature of the seed sown. Every activity of every human being is a seed planted in the soil of life. It will like our physical plant go through maturation process, bear fruits for compulsory harvesting, sour or sweet. The situation of each person is a consequence of his past. If it is unsavory, and bitter, the present earth life is an opportunity out of Love to learn from the past mistakes and misconduct and be a better human being by understanding the principles that regulate our lives and abiding by them. Out of Justice suffer to the extent of our disregard for these mechanisms, the Laws of Creation in which the Will of the Most High is expressed. In the present world many wake up and take delight in doing harm to their fellow human beings. They take lives with reckless abandon. So is it that a swath of Nigerian land has today been turned into killing fields.

How can anybody conclude that for the killers there will be no consequences, even if the killing is out of carelessness or self-will? We always believe all we need do at the last hour is to ask for forgiveness. Is it not written: “The Lord cannot be mocked”? “It is recompense for recompense. Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” Evil doing will attract evil to the doers in multiples of harvests on their reincarnation. Before then it will result in unspeakable torment for them in the Beyond for thousands of years. On reincarnating, if still permitted, they will be paid in their own coin until they come to the recognition of what led to their bitter experiences for it is said: “What a man soweth that shall he reap many times over.”

For, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan, only those gifted can trace their lives in the journey of life. At death it is the physical coverings called the body that are discarded, hence we describe these as remains. The spirit pleads for re-embodiment in search of atonement after decades in the Beyond in the deepest darkness and hellish conditions. It is, therefore, possible for paths which crossed in previous lives on this earth plane to meet again for a number of reasons, either shoulder to shoulder in marriage to embark on ventures that are to ennoble and uplift or for atonement for errors of their past.

A great many people have met total strangers and they begin to rack their brains wanting to remember where they had met before. Such encounters hardly click, because they belong to past lives. From their pronouncements and circumstances of their meeting, it is doubtful if Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan are meeting for the first time!! Their meeting must have been from their past weavings!! They can only build on these for sustainability and higher scores, still.

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