The dispute over allegations made by Prince Harry, 39, and Duchess Meghan, 42, against the British royal family continued to agitate in the United Kingdom over the weekend. A granddaughter of former South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela stood behind Harry and Meghan on Sunday. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, however, defended the royals.
This was preceded by headlines after headlines about the names of two royals that were published – according to previous information accidentally – in a book by the author Omid Scobie, whom Harry and Meghan accused of having speculated about the skin color of their then unborn children.
Although Scobie denied being a “mouthpiece” for Harry and Meghan or even being friends with them, the two were associated with his book in the British media. A Conservative lawmaker suggested on Sunday that a World War I law originally aimed at German nobles with British titles could be used to strip Harry and Meghan of their titles as Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
“If someone does not want to be royal, that is a decision we respect – but they should not retain titles and privileges if they damage an institution that plays an important role in our national life,” MP Bob Seely wrote in the “Mail on Sunday”. He announced that he would introduce an amendment to the so-called “Titles Deprivation 1917 Act” in the House of Commons in the coming weeks.
Ndileka Mandela, a social justice and women’s rights activist following in the footsteps of her grandfather, who died in 2013, said Harry and Meghan should be “allowed to express whatever it is that they want to express and to choose their own path ” as she told the BBC on Sunday. She compared the two of them to her famous grandfather, who fought against an arranged marriage. The South Africa of today only exists because he went his own way. Harry and Meghan should have the freedom to go their own way, said Ndileka Mandela.
The Mandela granddaughter did not want to judge whether Harry and Meghan’s children were victims of discrimination due to alleged speculation about their skin color. “I don’t have any first-hand information on this,” she said.
The allegations arose in a sensational interview with US talk show legend Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. According to Meghan, Prince Harry was confronted with speculation from various members of the royal family about how dark the skin of his then unborn son Archie, 4, would be . Meghan, who has partly African-American roots, did not want to reveal the names of the accused royals because it “would be very damaging for them.”
However, the names of the allegedly accused royals were published in the Dutch translation of the recently published book Scobies. The publisher then recalled the books. According to consistent reports from major British media outlets such as the BBC and the Guardian, the two named are King Charles, 75, and Princess Kate, 41. Since then, the issue has been making headlines in Britain incessantly.
It initially remained unclear why the names could only be read in the Dutch version of the book entitled “Endgame”. Author Scobie asserted that he had not submitted a book containing the names. However, the Dutch translators also insisted that they had not added anything.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson weighed in on the debate in an opinion piece in the Daily Mail tabloid on Saturday. He found the alleged speculation about Archie’s skin color, whom he mocked as “princeling”, to be harmless. The allegations are “another example of the process in which normal human thought patterns and behavior are denounced, demonized and deleted from the canon of what is acceptable,” the conservative politician wrote.
The Sunday Times reported, citing insider sources, that the dispute had led to Harry and Meghan being excluded from an aristocratic wedding next June. Accordingly, the Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, who is a close friend of both Prince Harry and his brother Prince William (41), decided with a heavy heart not to invite the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in order to avoid unpleasant situations. There was initially no confirmation of this.
