Some of the blows were low. In the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s slick new Netflix documentary, Prince Harry took aim at his brother, the Prince of Wales, and his father, King Charles, while his wife Meghan swiped at her sister-in-law Catherine, Princess of Wales.
“I think for so many people in the family, especially the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mold as opposed to somebody you perhaps are destined to be with,” Harry said. Perhaps that’s a fair, if unfilial, reflection on his father’s doomed marriage to his mother, Princess Diana. But what a cruel judgement on his brother William’s choice of wife.
Later in the show — three out of six episodes were released on Thursday — the Duchess, disheveled for the cameras, contrasted her cheery informality with the emotional frigidity of the royal family. The cameras then cut to a pompous photo of the Prince and Princess of Wales descending a grand staircase, with Catherine wearing a stiff white ensemble and matching pillbox hat.
The Sussexes’ charge sheet against the Royal Family is a familiar one: The Windsors need to check their white privilege, they have been slow to modernize to match a less hidebound society and they lack emotional warmth. And that is just the superstructure, as Karl Marx would say.
The real heart of this targeted piece of television is an alleged pact between the monarchy with the U.K. tabloids, including the middle-market The Daily Mail. The view is that the papers boost the popularity of the monarchy in return for the right to grossly intrude into the royals’ private lives. It’s compelling — but that is not the same thing as being wholly true.
In the Sussexes’ defense, Harry’s historic complaint about the hounding of his mother and his younger self by the paparazzi and the tabloids has substance. However, as a U.K.-based editor signed up to a code of practice that forms part of my contract of employment, I would point to the fact that the British press — unlike some French and American outlets — can’t publish intrusive photographs of the royals. The images that the couple largely complains about those that are circulated outside the U.K.
In the Duke’s view, the U.K. was also hit by a wave of racism arising from the 2016 Brexit referendum. Amid this alleged upsurge of nativist sentiment, his wife’s mixed-race heritage aroused the ire of Britain’s bigots, he says. If that were true, no wonder he decamped across the Atlantic; after all, 52% of his countrymen voted to leave the European Union. But all but the most over-simplifying Remainers know that the vote cannot be subject to one pat explanation.
Still, the couple most certainly did encounter hostility from social media and in print publications. Harry cited MailOnline’s misleading and racially charged headline that middle-class Meghan came “Straight Outta Compton.” No doubt this sense of being unwelcome or sneered at speeded their departure.
How should the Royal Family respond to this attack on its values and practice? In part, by “rising above it” rather than trading blow for blow with their estranged relatives, that time-honored reaction to criticism. That will require self-restraint as Prince Harry is following up his foray into documentary next month with the publication of his book “Spare,” already dubbed a “revenge memoir,” whose title hints at a lifelong sense of alienation. On the basis of having met the present the Prince and Princess of Wales on several occasions, I would also urge them — as the next in line to the throne after King Charles — to learn some useful lessons from what must be painful viewing.
The tabloids howl at the Sussexes’ Netflix documentary for its “dishonesty,” but the episodes I watched were well-edited and rang emotionally true about Harry and Meghan’s whirlwind romance. Their plea for fair treatment is not unjustified either. And Meghan’s departure from “The Firm,” as the Royal Family calls themselves, was a loss to an increasingly diverse country where rates of racial intermarriage are higher than most.
Given the late Queen Elizabeth II’s heroic championing of the multiracial Commonwealth, it seems harsh to condemn the Royal Family as racist. But the Netflix program is a reminder that sometimes you have to demonstrate publicly and consistently that your heart is in the right place. William and Kate must take the lead on that. If they are serious about modernizing the Palace, they must start hiring diverse talent to support them in more visible leadership roles.
Last week as the Waleses left to visit Boston, Buckingham Palace was forced to sack an 83-year-old lady-in-waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, after she made implicitly racist comments to a guest at a reception for King Charles’s wife Camilla, the Queen Consort. The ladies-in-waiting are now to be replaced by unpaid “companions.”
William and Kate have been dealt a good hand in the long-term: They will inherit the Crown in due course, while the Sussexes must continue to struggle to hold our attention. In the battle for America’s eyeballs, the Waleses met President Joe Biden on their visit to Boston last week.
Back in the U.K., the establishment lines up behind William and Kate — even if my 17-year-old daughter’s generation in vibrant London and the big cities tends to identify wholeheartedly with Meghan (probably because she has dealt with irksome patriarchal figures). But best not forget that the Princess of Wales can express quiet empathy, too. While Meghan and Harry were on the sofa with Oprah Winfrey last year, Kate informally attended a vigil for Sarah Everard, who was murdered by an off-duty policeman.
As a newspaperman, I also note with wry admiration how artfully Harry and Meghan got their message across. They reflect a trend in communications that makes it difficult for media organizations to quiz celebrities on even or testing terms. In their series, the media didn’t even get to ask a planted question — the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told their story straight to the cameras and edited their own script.
Another lesson for the Royal Family may be that their own communications need to innovate in order to consolidate their appeal as inheritors of the (real) Crown when audiences are glued to the drama version and the story of the two apostates.
For all the artifice of “Harry & Meghan,” there is a directness and lack of diffidence that will keep us tuning in. What might the “William and Kate” equivalent look like, allowing for the fact that they will actually get to reform the monarchy, rather than just complain about its strictures? That is the gauntlet thrown down by Harry and Meghan, and it can’t be discarded lightly by the royals they have left behind.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Martin Ivens is the editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Previously, he was editor of the Sunday Times of London and its chief political commentator.
