Skin in the game
Meghan Markle is not the first biracial member of the British royal family, which traces its lineage to at least two queens of African origin, according to a royal expert.
“All of the British royals have African blood,” said Lady Colin Campbell, a Jamaica-born socialite who wrote “People of Color and the Royals,” published in 2019.
One black royal was Queen Charlotte, who is the focus of the Netflix series “Bridgerton,” Campbell told The Post. Born in 1774, Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a direct descendant of Margarita de Castro Souza, a Portuguese noblewoman who traced her line to Madragana Ben Aloandro, the North African mistress of Portugal’s King Afonso III in the 13th century. Historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom has said the depiction of Charlotte in royal paintings emphasizes her African features.
In addition to Charlotte, who was married to King George III, Campbell and other historians point to Philippa of Hainault, the wife and adviser to King Edward III. Philippa was of North African Moorish ancestry, born in northern France in 1314.
“When you take this history into consideration, accusing the royal family of racism is preposterous,” said Campbell, alluding to Markle and Prince Harry’s (right) recent interview with Oprah Winfrey in which she claimed that she was subjected to poor treatment because of her race. Markle also said one member of the royal family expressed concerns about her baby’s skin color before the birth of her son, Archie, in May, 2019. According to Campbell, there was “constant intermarriage” among both British and European royals who have “proportionally a large percentage of African blood,” she said. And she claims there was little racial prejudice until the latter part of the 17th century, when Britain’s West Indian colonies increasingly relied on slave labor for the cultivation of sugar cane. “When sugar started to become more important than gold to the British community, slaves who worked the fields were dehumanized,” she said.
It has been debated whether Princess Diana’s family, the Spencers, were among the slaveowning gentry. An 18th-century portrait of ancestor John Spencer depicts him and his son, also named John, with a black man named Caesar Shaw crouching near a dog. Shaw has been described by historians alternately as a slave or a servant. Many Spencers are listed in a database of historic British slaveholders.
Campbell, who has appeared on British celebrity reality shows and wrote one of the first biographies of Princess Diana in 1992 (“Diana in Private”), has also written “Meghan and Harry: The Real Story.” She calls Meghan’s interview with Winfrey “the cynical ploy on behalf of a greedy woman.”
Additional reporting by Jon Levine