THE FALLOUT
Dr Tessa Dunlop, a historian and royal expert, says as much as the family want it all to go away quietly, serious issues have been raised.
The racial allegations will be far more damaging to Kate than to her father-in-law, she believes. “The king cuts a bumbling father figure whose gaffes are easier to forgive.
“But Kate can’t hide behind age and stage. Society holds women to higher standards: princesses are meant to be kind.”
Dr Dunlop says the royals should use this controversy as an opportunity to have a long, hard look at themselves. Omid Scobie’s book – no matter what people may think of it – is another reminder that the monarchy didn’t do enough to protect Meghan Markle, Britain’s first working royal woman of colour.
“We might never know the truth of that exchange about an unborn Archie – I expect the royal family will stick to ‘recollections may vary’– but a constructive conversation with the Sussexes about their concerns is long overdue,” Dr Dunlop says.
“More broadly the optics aren’t great: beyond the terribly white balcony at the king’s coronation (why couldn’t they have included some pageboys and girls from the Commonwealth?), Buckingham Palace’s recent admission that ‘it is not where it would like to be’ on staff diversity says it all”.
Just 9,7% of palace employees are from an ethnic minority in a city like London, where over 40% of the population are of colour.
“It’s not good enough,” Dr Dunlop says. “If this makes for uncomfortable reading at home, it will prove far more damaging in many of Charles’ other realms.”
As the skin-colour row raged following Harry and Meghan’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, a terse William insisted “we are very much not a racist family”.
“Now they need to prove it,” Dr Dunlop says. “Actions speak louder than words.”
Royal expert Ingrid Seward ,
however, believes the royals will simply “shrug off” the controversy and get on with things.
“They have no choice,” she adds. “The royal family have withstood far worse. But it’s the amount of vitriol streaming out that makes it even more difficult. But it will be handled. And it will go away.”