‘English’ royal expert... is a US estate agent!
AMID the breathless international coverage of Prince Harry’s wedding, one voice carried authority across the globe.
Speaking in a plummy English accent and dressed in an assortment of top hats, bow ties and tweed jackets, Thomas Mace-Archer-Mills gave dozens of interviews to broadcasters from Norway and the US among others, providing an authoritative British perspective on the monarchy.
The 38-year-old appeared perfectly qualified to lecture Meghan Markle on how ‘us’ British behave.
Unfortunately, the self-appointed ‘royal consultant’ and chairman of the British Monarchist Society is actually an Italian-American estate agent from New York state called Thomas ‘Tommy’ Muscatello.
He has pontificated on royal matters not only to various foreign media firms but even the BBC and The Economist, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which revealed his identity yesterday.
The Anglophile told the paper he had loved Britain since he was a boy and picked up the accent during visits. He has even acquired a couple of English relatives. George Mills, 83, a former Grenadier Guardsman from Canterbury, told the WSJ he made friends with the American outside Buckingham Palace, and agreed when Mr Mace-Archer-Mills asked if he could call him his grandfather.
Mervyn Redding, 80, a retired civil servant from Essex, said she met Mr Mace-Archer-Mills at a monarchy enthusiasts event and eventually let him call her ‘granny’.
Mr Mace-Archer-Mills has frequently commentated on the monarchy from Britain, speaking to BBC Radio, France’s TF1 TV channel, US TV’s Comedy Central. He has repeatedly stressed on air that he is British. In a commentary on Meghan Markle, recorded outside Buckingham Palace, he said: ‘She is loud, she is American, she fights for her cause. We don’t do that here. We do things quietly with dignity.’
He told Norway’s TV 2 about ‘the traditions and heritage that we have as British people’.
Mr Mace-Archer-Mills has set up businesses including Crown & Country Magazine, a cryptocurrency called Royal Coin and a book on royal cocktails entitled Their Majesties’ Mixers. He said last night the WSJ had ‘breached journalistic trust, omitted truths and mis-sold what the initial interview was for’.