R0YAL B0MBSHELL: ‘Britain Needs Meghan Markle’ Explosive Claim Sparks Fury Among Royal Fans
The difficult truth about Meghan Markle: Britain needs her
Anne Boleyn vs Katherine of Aragon. Diana vs Camilla. Kate vs Meghan. Throughout history, royal women have been pitted against each other. Pinioned in the public eye, they find themselves pressed into service to tell reductive stories about all women, prosecute culture wars and create rifts. Their misuse infects wider attitudes. They become caricatures, demonised or celebrated for impossible perfection.
Such contests can be real or confected, comparisons natural or forced. Anne Boleyn, soon after her death the subject of duelling biographies by combatants on either side of one of the greatest culture wars of all, the Reformation, is even now defined in opposition to Henry VIII’s other wives. Meanwhile, Elizabeth I remains locked in combat with Mary, Queen of Scots; Princess Diana still tangles with Queen Camilla; and every female royal of modern times is measured against the Elizabeths or Victoria and, invariably, found wanting. Now, cartoonish versions of Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex and Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales are slugging it out, each attached to projected value sets – Meghan progressive and liberal, Kate small-c conservative and traditional.
History, of course, is in eternal flux, revised when new information comes to light and according to the preoccupations of each era. I wrote my new book, Divide and Rule, because despite these revisions, there is a startling constant: women are routinely marginalised, except for those unlucky enough to be born royal or marry into royalty, who acquire disproportionate influence. My book looks behind the distorted images of these royals in search of the more nuanced, and compelling, truth.
Prince Harry arrives in the UK this week. Meghan and their children will not accompany him because of the Sussexes’ ongoing fears over their security. It is possible that they may slip into the country later in the week, perhaps even see the King, but such a visit would be fleeting if it happens at all. Critics charge the couple with exaggerating the risks but Neil Basu, the former head of Counter-Terrorism Policing in England, has said that Meghan faced “disgusting and very real” threats, some from the far right, during her time as a working royal. A copy of a report prepared by a private security firm in February said that Harry is the focus of six terrorist plots alone. So-called lone wolf attackers represent the highest priority threat to the whole family.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex in Australia in April. A former counter-terrorism police chief has said Meghan faced ‘disgusting and very real’ threats as a working royal (Photo: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
An economy of hate has grown up around the Sussexes and especially Meghan. To her detractors, anything short of a full-blooded assault on her character represents an attack on all they claim to hold dear. Opponents of the Sussexes have for months muttered darkly of “Project Thaw”, depending on different tellings a dastardly plot to restore the errant Duke and Duchess to frontline royalty (pass the smelling salts) or to open the possibility of a limited rapprochement and maybe salve some of the very real pain of the family fracture.
Denigrating Meghan hurts her and the wider family—but the damage does not stop there. Though brickbats are often launched against her in the name of the monarchy, these missiles also gouge holes in its crenelated ramparts. A core role of the sovereign, supported by his family, is to represent and unite the peoples of the 15 realms he serves as head of state. In the UK, support for the monarchy has dropped sharply, especially among the young. A recent poll shows only a third of 18- to 34-year-olds backing the current system, compared to 74 per cent in 2013. A separate survey indicates that a majority of young Britons from minority ethnic backgrounds favour moving to a republic. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s misadventures are responsible for much of the current disaffection, but so too is the loss of Harry and Meghan.
Unlike other organisations, the monarchy can only add to its balcony line-up via marriage or reproduction. How should the institution woo back the demographics who saw themselves reflected in the Sussexes and suspect that the very characteristics they identify with, including Meghan’s biracial heritage, underpin the failure to retain them as working royals?
The job of royalling is nebulous. A good deal of it consists of meeting the public, and here too the paucity of Windsors is taking a toll. Andrew has finally been banished. Health problems and advancing age threaten some of the family’s most dedicated performers. This is a serious problem. “I have to be seen to be believed,” Elizabeth II supposedly quipped. Like many “facts” about royal women, this may be myth; the late Queen herself attributed the quote to Victoria. The sentiment, however, is accurate.
The Royal Family watch a flypast during Trooping the Colour in June. Unlike other organisations, the monarchy can only add to its balcony line-up via marriage or reproduction (Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty)
Last year, the royals deployed across the UK and overseas to carry out 2,459 official engagements. King Charles, now 77 and under treatment for cancer, tops the list for hardest-working royal, followed by his sister Princess Anne (75), the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh (respectively 62 and 61), Camilla (78) and the Duke of Gloucester (81 and little known even in Britain).
Popularity is a numbers game too. How can Charles hope to unify his subjects amid the battle royale between fans of the Sussexes and the Waleses? The conflict heightens feelings towards each camp, creating passionate fan bases but also stripping them and the wider monarchy of the kind of passive support critical to sustaining it. At various times, Whitehall sources have linked China and Russia to disinformation about Kate, while Bot Sentinel detected a co-ordinated campaign against Meghan. My own research found evidence of deliberate attempts to inflame online debates and disseminate untruths, aided by troll farms and deep fakery.
I interviewed Gina Neff, professor of responsible AI at St Mary’s University and executive director of Cambridge University’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, for my book. The originators of such material “often don’t care about the underlying issues”, she told me. “Their whole playbook is to sow the seeds of doubt and mistrust.”
Sallies against the Sussexes do not help to uphold the monarchy – instead they undermine it. An increasingly urgent question is to what extent populism has the institution in its sights. For all that the English far right festoons itself with Union flags, it instinctively perceives the King as dangerously liberal and the monarchy as a roadblock. Divide and Rule explores the extent to which the latter idea – for example that George VI and his daughter Elizabeth II served as bulwarks against fascism – holds up to scrutiny.
It is certainly true that by tolerating the virtual tarring and feathering of royal women – Meghan today, who knows which Windsor tomorrow – we normalise hate-filled language and the dehumanising of public figures. Online violence promotes the analogue kind, while sexist and racist discourse is helping sow acceptance for the rolling back of rights and protections that once seemed secure. I hope that by revisiting the stories of royal women, we can understand the gulfs between who they really were or are and their misogynistic portrayals – and show how these distortions affect all of us.
Here’s a thought: Anne Boleyn or Katherine of Aragon? Kate or Meghan? You can choose not to choose.
