Sept. 11, 2026

Why Queen Elizabeth's 9/11 Tribute Still Matters

Show Notes
Transcript

On the anniversary of September eleventh, we remember Queen Elizabeth II's extraordinary gesture of solidarity with America and the Royal Family's lasting connection to the victims and survivors. Plus: Uganda unexpectedly withdraws from the Invictus Games after backing King Charles, fresh reports claim Harry still hopes for a royal role while Meghan does not, and a rare Telegraph column argues it's time Britain eased up on the Sussexes.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/palace-intrigue-harry-meghan-the-crown-royal-family-news-and-gossip--4522904/support.

Palace Intrigue is a daily British royal family podcast covering King Charles, Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Kate Middleton and the House of Windsor. New episodes every day. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:03.250 --> 00:00:13.939
Hello and welcome to Palace Intrigue. I am your host,

2
00:00:14.019 --> 00:00:18.539
Mark Francis. Uganda's military chief has announced that the country

3
00:00:18.679 --> 00:00:22.699
is withdrawing from Prince Harry's Invictus Games just two months

4
00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:28.589
after joining the program. General Mahusi Kainarugaba linked the decision

5
00:00:28.670 --> 00:00:31.929
to his support for King Charles II, following the palace's

6
00:00:32.030 --> 00:00:35.350
clarification that Harry and Meghan do not represent the monarch.

7
00:00:35.990 --> 00:00:38.609
Writing on X, he said, The general, who is the

8
00:00:38.649 --> 00:00:57.810
son of Uganda's president, also told the Times, I have

9
00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:01.659
factions in the Ministry of Defence that support the Harry-Meghan nonsense.

10
00:01:02.200 --> 00:01:05.920
I had to quash it straight away. I support the monarch, period.

11
00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:10.260
Uganda's participation was announced in July at a London event

12
00:01:10.340 --> 00:01:14.200
marking a year until the Birmingham Games in 2027. Harry

13
00:01:14.239 --> 00:01:19.019
attended the reception alongside Ugandan representatives who welcomed the opportunity

14
00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.390
for wounded, injured and sick service personnel to take part.

15
00:01:24.019 --> 00:01:26.670
Radar Online is claiming Prince Harry still hopes to find

16
00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:29.969
a way back into some royal duties while Meghan wants

17
00:01:30.010 --> 00:01:34.390
to preserve their independence. One source told Radar, Harry increasingly

18
00:01:34.409 --> 00:01:37.469
sees a route toward having a meaningful role in Britain

19
00:01:37.870 --> 00:01:42.049
without abandoning everything he and Meghan established in America. Meghan

20
00:01:42.090 --> 00:01:44.849
regards their departure from working royal life as a chapter

21
00:01:44.890 --> 00:01:49.609
that was closed years ago, not something waiting to be renegotiated.

22
00:01:50.159 --> 00:01:53.079
She is completely supportive of Harry repairing his relationship with

23
00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:56.620
his father, but supporting that reconciliation and personally returning to

24
00:01:56.689 --> 00:02:01.150
royal service are two entirely different things. A second unnamed

25
00:02:01.209 --> 00:02:04.329
source told Radar, Meghan isn't trying to prevent Harry from

26
00:02:04.370 --> 00:02:07.730
having Britain in his life. She understands his connection to

27
00:02:07.769 --> 00:02:10.490
the country, his father, and the work he cares about.

28
00:02:11.129 --> 00:02:14.330
Harry's dream is finding a way to make both worlds coexist.

29
00:02:14.969 --> 00:02:19.069
The difficulty is that Meghan doesn't share that dream. In

30
00:02:19.129 --> 00:02:23.050
a separate report, Radar claims Meghan's interest in renewing her

31
00:02:23.129 --> 00:02:27.840
British charitable activities contributed to concerns within the palace about

32
00:02:28.159 --> 00:02:32.180
how the couple's appearances would be understood. An unnamed source

33
00:02:32.199 --> 00:02:35.840
told the outlet, there was growing concern that Meghan's enthusiasm

34
00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:39.580
and ambitions to become publicly active again could create precisely

35
00:02:39.900 --> 00:02:44.370
the ambiguity the Sandringham Agreement was designed to prevent. The

36
00:02:44.409 --> 00:02:47.530
Sussexes can have an enormous public profile, but that cannot

37
00:02:47.569 --> 00:02:51.590
be confused with having a royal role. Majesty magazine editor

38
00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:54.580
Ingrid Seward adds, The king is being firm and decisive,

39
00:02:54.620 --> 00:02:57.460
and whatever he may feel personally about his son, he

40
00:02:57.500 --> 00:02:59.800
can't and will not go against the terms of the

41
00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:04.780
Sandringham summit. In the Telegraph, Annabel Denham suggests we cut

42
00:03:04.819 --> 00:03:08.379
the Sussexes a break. She writes, I hold no torch

43
00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:11.490
for the Sussexes, contrary to what Meghan appears to believe.

44
00:03:12.030 --> 00:03:14.919
Britain did not greet her with hostility. In fact, we

45
00:03:14.939 --> 00:03:17.460
were rather taken with her. Polling at the time of

46
00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:21.900
their fairy tale nuptials showed an overwhelming majority were entirely

47
00:03:21.939 --> 00:03:26.979
relaxed about royals marrying divorcees, foreigners, and people from other ethnicities.

48
00:03:27.699 --> 00:03:31.800
Meghan began public life here with a considerable reservoir of goodwill.

49
00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:34.819
The history of the monarchy is littered with difficult children,

50
00:03:35.099 --> 00:03:39.400
sibling rivalries, and unhappy marriages. What's surprising isn't that Harry

51
00:03:39.419 --> 00:03:43.099
and Meghan happened It's that anyone thinks this is unprecedented.

52
00:03:43.539 --> 00:03:47.680
Not that history entirely absolves them from some spectacular unforced errors.

53
00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:50.699
Spare is the genie Harry will never put back in

54
00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:53.719
the bottle. There's no undoing the decision to package for

55
00:03:53.780 --> 00:03:58.280
mass consumption your brother's most unedifying moments and your father's shortcomings.

56
00:03:58.870 --> 00:04:02.490
Harry's war on the press has become obsessive, indiscriminate and

57
00:04:02.550 --> 00:04:06.250
unfair to the British media. There's money in being the

58
00:04:06.280 --> 00:04:08.919
Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and they've made it. The

59
00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:14.479
Netflix shows, podcasts, lifestyle websites, and overpriced jam. Some of

60
00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:18.500
the resulting content has been stupefyingly vacuous, yes, but the

61
00:04:18.519 --> 00:04:22.660
same people who demanded they become financially independent seem astonishingly

62
00:04:22.819 --> 00:04:26.060
exercised by their attempts to make money. What else are

63
00:04:26.079 --> 00:04:28.800
they supposed to do? Harry can't quietly become a bank

64
00:04:28.839 --> 00:04:32.500
manager in Derby. What's more, there is something faintly tragic

65
00:04:32.540 --> 00:04:35.740
about embarking on a better life in Montecito only to

66
00:04:35.779 --> 00:04:38.699
discover it doesn't exist. Just as there is something tragic

67
00:04:38.740 --> 00:04:42.360
about Meghan, who has acquired almost every glittering trophy our

68
00:04:42.420 --> 00:04:45.959
culture tells people they should want. Beauty, money, fame, status

69
00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:49.810
of prince. Children only to be left wanting. Harry and

70
00:04:49.819 --> 00:04:53.009
Meghan might be ridiculous, but they're not wicked. Is the

71
00:04:53.149 --> 00:04:57.269
current pile-on not getting a little vicious, tedious and unnecessary?

72
00:04:58.050 --> 00:05:00.709
We don't know what is happening within the family, only fragments,

73
00:05:00.949 --> 00:05:04.430
many previously supplied by Harry himself in spare. At the

74
00:05:04.470 --> 00:05:06.910
very least, we should admit how we love to hate

75
00:05:06.970 --> 00:05:12.779
this pair. That public panto-villain-server. Useful social function. Nothing unites

76
00:05:12.860 --> 00:05:16.899
quite like a shared enemy. Particularly, once sufficiently privileged, the

77
00:05:16.939 --> 00:05:20.180
cruelty toward them can be mistaken for virtue. The monarchy

78
00:05:20.220 --> 00:05:24.319
has survived wastrel princes, warring relatives, abdications, and it will

79
00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:26.839
survive the current bunch. That, after all, is one of

80
00:05:26.860 --> 00:05:30.040
the strengths of an institution... that involved rather than being

81
00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:33.120
invented from scratch. It does not depend on the wisdom

82
00:05:33.220 --> 00:05:36.379
or otherwise of the people who briefly embody it. Perhaps

83
00:05:36.420 --> 00:05:39.680
we should leave the Windsors be. More palace in just

84
00:05:39.699 --> 00:05:47.060
a moment. Two days after the September 11th attacks, Americans

85
00:05:47.100 --> 00:05:50.720
gathered outside Buckingham Palace and heard their own national anthem.

86
00:05:51.319 --> 00:05:53.660
Queen Elizabeth had personally requested that the band of the

87
00:05:54.079 --> 00:05:57.670
Coldstream Guards play the Star-Spangled Banner during the changing of

88
00:05:57.689 --> 00:06:02.069
the guard on September 13th, 2001. It was an extraordinary

89
00:06:02.149 --> 00:06:05.170
change to one of Britain's most familiar ceremonies. A foreign

90
00:06:05.209 --> 00:06:08.379
national anthem would ordinarily be played in connection with a

91
00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:11.480
visiting leader. This time it was being played for people

92
00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:15.360
trying to comprehend what had happened to their country. Outside

93
00:06:15.379 --> 00:06:19.160
the gates, people held American flags. Some sang along, others cried.

94
00:06:19.819 --> 00:06:23.220
The Queen's response also produced a sentence that would become

95
00:06:23.300 --> 00:06:26.740
one of her most remembered Grief is the price we

96
00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:30.220
pay for love. Those words were part of her message

97
00:06:30.300 --> 00:06:33.240
to a memorial service at St. Thomas Church in New York,

98
00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:38.480
delivered by British Ambassador Christopher Meyer on September 20th. The

99
00:06:38.500 --> 00:06:41.180
sentence is now inscribed on the church's memorial to British

100
00:06:41.220 --> 00:06:44.800
and Commonwealth victims of the attacks. The anthem outside Buckingham

101
00:06:44.839 --> 00:06:48.060
Palace was only part of the family's response. Prince Charles

102
00:06:48.110 --> 00:06:50.899
signed a condolence book at the American Embassy in London.

103
00:06:51.569 --> 00:06:53.769
On September 14th, he joined the Queen and Prince Philip

104
00:06:54.329 --> 00:06:57.730
at St. Paul's Cathedral for a service of remembrance. William

105
00:06:57.769 --> 00:07:00.970
also signed a condolence book, accompanying his father to the

106
00:07:01.430 --> 00:07:06.040
American Consulate in Edinburgh on September 21st. He was 19

107
00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:09.660
and about to begin university at St. Andrews. For the Queen,

108
00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:13.639
remembering the attacks continued long after those first ceremonies. In

109
00:07:13.660 --> 00:07:16.819
her Christmas broadcast that year, she said, The terrorist outrages

110
00:07:16.860 --> 00:07:19.699
in the United States last September brought home to us

111
00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:22.810
the pain and grief of ordinary people the world over,

112
00:07:22.970 --> 00:07:26.810
who find themselves innocently caught up in such evil. A

113
00:07:26.870 --> 00:07:29.529
year after the attacks, she sent another message to St.

114
00:07:29.629 --> 00:07:33.269
Thomas Church. Every person who was lost that day was

115
00:07:33.310 --> 00:07:38.550
someone very special. A son, a daughter, a father, mother, husband, wife,

116
00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:43.069
loved one or valued friend. Over the years, other members

117
00:07:43.110 --> 00:07:45.430
of the family made their own journeys to Ground Zero.

118
00:07:46.360 --> 00:07:49.480
Charles and Camilla visited in 2005. Harry laid a wreath

119
00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:52.959
there in 2009. while the memorial was still being built.

120
00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:56.860
The Queen visited in 2010 and laid a wreath at

121
00:07:56.899 --> 00:08:00.259
the World Trade Center site. William and Catherine went to

122
00:08:00.279 --> 00:08:04.420
the memorial and museum in December 2014. They placed flowers

123
00:08:04.459 --> 00:08:06.399
at the South Pool beside the names of those who

124
00:08:06.439 --> 00:08:11.589
died aboard Flight 93. Their signed message read, In sorrowful

125
00:08:11.790 --> 00:08:15.110
memory of those who died on 11th September and in

126
00:08:15.290 --> 00:08:19.600
admiration of the courage shown to rebuild. That recognition of

127
00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:23.689
rebuilding became a recurring part of the royal tributes. Alongside

128
00:08:23.699 --> 00:08:26.930
the remembrance of those killed was an acknowledgement of the

129
00:08:26.970 --> 00:08:30.810
people who had carried on, cared for one another, and

130
00:08:30.850 --> 00:08:35.549
helped restore their communities. This year, Charles and Camilla returned

131
00:08:35.649 --> 00:08:38.929
to the memorial in New York, laying flowers and meeting survivors,

132
00:08:39.389 --> 00:08:44.980
first responders, and relatives of those who died. We remember,

133
00:08:45.179 --> 00:08:47.419
and we thank you for listening, this is Palace Intrigue.

Why Queen Elizabeth's 9/11 Tribute Still Matters

Listen On

Recent Episodes