Mantel on Meghan: She was too good for dull monarchy
DAME Hilary Mantel has described the Duchess of Sussex as a ‘smiling face in a dull institution’.
The Wolf Hall author said she was pleased that Meghan’s marriage to Prince Harry had survived the couple’s decision to stand down as senior royals.
The 67-year- old posed in regal attire at Hampton Court Palace in south- west London – a key location in her trilogy of novels about Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell – for Harper’s Bazaar.
Referring to Meghan and Harry, she said: ‘I’m pleased that it’s the marriage that’s surviving and the connection with the monarchy that has to go, because I think almost all of us would have bet that if she left, she’d have to leave alone. None of us know the details of how this is going to work out. But I think that Meghan was too good to be true. She was a smiling face in a dull institution, she cheered the nation up no end – or, at least, men and women of good will.’
In January, Harry and Meghan announced their plans to step down as senior royals less than two years after their marriage.
Dame Hilary said there is no denying Meghan has been a victim of ‘abominable’ racism. She added: ‘People who say that’s got nothing to do with it – well, they need to check their privilege.’
She also told the BBC: ‘There has been an element of racism in the invective against [Meghan]. I think it’s more deeply embedded in people’s consciousness that any of us are willing to admit.’ The author provoked controversy in 2013 for likening the Duchess of Cambridge to a ‘shop window mannequin’ who would become a ‘jointed doll on which certain rags are hung’.
The comments were condemned by the then prime minister David Cameron as ‘completely misguided’, although she said her words had been taken out of context. Dame Hilary won the Booker Prize for her novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, and will tomorrow release the long-awaited final part of the trilogy, The Mirror And The Light. The April issue of Harper’s Bazaar is on sale today.