One detail in Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle’s latest outing together reveals just how different their lives have become.

98. That’s the number, at least, of brooches that were owned by Her Majesty The Queen, pieces that she deployed with a UN-worthy sort of diplomatic dexterity. Time and again, Her Majesty, a woman who never gave a single, solitary interview, communicated to the world just what she was thinking by her choice of brooch.

There can be no greater example than when, in 2018, during the State visit of tangerine porn star payer-offer and far-right-apologist, Donald Trump.

During the trip, she wore three pieces: A brooch given to her by Barack and Michelle Obama, two people Trump clearly dislikes immensely; one that was a gift from Canada, a country Trump clearly dislikes intensely; and one the Queen Mother had worn to her husband George VI’s funeral, whose grim connotations need no explanation.

Well played Ma’am.

So, should we assume that her granddaughter-in-law Kate, the new Princess of Wales has quietly been paying attention to this semaphore-via-carat approach?

Overnight on Thursday, the royal family, en masse, appeared in public for the first time, all in black and looking truly devastated, for the Queen’s final trip from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall where she will now lie in state.

Princes William and Harry took part in the procession behind the gun carriage carrying Her Majesty’s coffin through the streets of London, with tens of thousands of people lining the route, the images of brothers an eerie echo of them undertaking the same grim task nearly exactly 25 years ago.

Meanwhile, their wives, Kate and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex travelled to Westminster Hall by car, along with Camilla, the Queen Consort and Sophie, Countess of Wessex.

(Why didn’t Kate and Meghan travel together? Precedence dictated that the queen and queen-in-waiting got top billing in the convoy.)

As the party arrived at the 900-year-old building, it became obvious that the Princess of Wales had accessorised her outfit with an accessory she only occasionally wears, namely a brooch. In this instance a huge, walloping pearl and diamond brooch, given to her by Her Majesty, and that is so large it verges on the comical.

Meghan too was pulling out the ‘touching tribute’ card, wearing the discrete pearl and diamond earrings that she was given by the Queen in 2018.

The backstory here is really quite sweet. Only six weeks after the Sussexes’ big fat jubilant royal wedding, the sovereign, in a really blatant but no less kind gesture, took Meghan along for a rare joint engagement, with the duo travelling via the Royal Train. (Kate would have to wait until 2019, nearly nine years after her marriage, to get the same privilege.)

And it was while Her Majesty and Meghan were on their train trip, chug chug chugging through the countryside, that the sovereign gave the newest royal recruit with those earrings and a matching necklace.

So, here we have two royal wives, two lots of beautiful jewellery, all of which, on paper, sounds pretty equal.

But, if there is one thing the royal family is not, never has been and absolutely never will be, it is equal.

Meghan, while in conversation with Gloria Steinem in 2020, might have promoted the idea that women should be “linked not ranked” but that message has yet to permeate the moribund walls of Buckingham Palace.

What is the monarchy if not one millennium-long exercise in ranking?

If anyone had ever been in doubt of that immutable fact, then all they had to do was glance at the sparklers Her Majesty bestowed on her daughters-in-law. That is not to say, for a moment, that the difference in grandeur reflected regal sentiment but simply the all-pervading pecking order.

William and Harry were raised by their mother on a rigorously level, impartial playing field but the vast discrepancy in their fates was always going to make itself known. One of them was always going to end with his face slapped on stamps and opening parliament; the other, touring sewage plants and recycling centres. (Well, that’s what Princess Anne has been doing for years.)

Today The Princess Royal travelled deep below London to see the Thames Tideway Tunnel - the city’s new sewer system. When complete, the Tunnel will help to prevent millions of tonnes of waste from polluting the Thames. HRH fixed in the last bolt at Chelsea Embankment 🔩 pic.twitter.com/diKz5hBZRg

There was always going to be a fork in the road for William and Harry, when that illusion of equality shattered and life took them in different directions, but the younger prince truly went far, far off-road and into the wild when he and Meghan staged their eruptive exit from The Firm.

It’s impossible not to wonder what it must feel like for Meghan to have to contend with this situation right now, especially when she spied the diamond and pearl whopper pinned onto Kate’s black coat dress?

It is not as if they can avoid facing the prickly issue of precedence, made even more abject by their quitting, this week.

For example, take the Sophie situation. Prior to Megxit, Meghan outranked Sophie, Countess of Wessex, who is married to Prince Edward, 13th in line to the throne, he of those thwarted theatre and TV dreams. However, for the ceremony at Westminster Hall, it was the duchess, no longer a frontline Windsor, who was plonked at the end of the row of royal spouses.

The messy business of hierarchy is something that, according to reports, both Harry and Meghan struggled with.

In his recent book Revenge, veteran biographer Tom Bower writes about the duchess’ “resentment about the Palace’s keen sense of deference and hierarchy.”

He writes that in 2018, for her first appearance on the Palace balcony for Trooping the Colour, Meghan was “aggrieved by the royals’ commitment to hierarchy during the conversations before stepping on to the balcony” and that “she disliked the automatic assumption that she was junior to Kate. She believed she should be treated as an equal. Harry sympathised.”

Tina Brown, author of The Palace Papers, told the Washington Post earlier this year that, while appearing on Suits, “ was always as an actress number six on the call sheet … Essentially, in Prince Harry, she also married number six on the call sheet.

“So in terms of the hierarchy of the palace, in terms of the monarchy, Harry was a wonderful addition to the royal lineup, but he really wasn’t going to get the kind of status, the kind of pulling power in terms of assignments … all the things that you get, of course, when you’re the first in line.”

In 2019, before the world had heard of Megxit, Meghan told interviewer Tom Bradby, “I never thought that this would be easy. But I thought it would be fair.”

But when has “fair” had anything to do with an institution that quite literally ranks people? Where even the way that members stand, on occasion, is strictly dictated? Where blood eternally trumps merit, commitment and hard work?

For Harry and Meghan, their lowlier place on the Palace food chain, as opposed to the even loftier heights now occupied by the Waleses, is inescapable this week. To paraphrase Shakira, a Wales family favourite, brooches don’t lie.

Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal expert with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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