Alleged racism, palace intrigues, nosy journalists: Why 'Harry & Meghan' has caught the imagination of the English public

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry during an interview with Oprah Winfrey. (Image: Joe Pugliese/Harpo Productions via AP)

The historian Robert Palmer writing about the American Revolution in his influential book The Age of the Democratic Revolution said: “It dethroned England, and set up America, as a model for those seeking a better world.”

More than 60 years after the book was first published, the modern-day manifestation of Palmer’s assertions is being beamed by an American corporation through the hugely popular series Harry & Meghan, featuring the youngest son and daughter-in-law of King Charles III. Sitting in California, and courtesy a $100 million deal from Netflix, the royal couple have dealt a heavy blow to some of the most famous British institutions, starting with the Royal family. The tabloid press, royal courtiers, the UK home office (Harry took them to court over his security arrangements while in the UK), all of them have been berated by the couple from The Land of Opportunity.

The broad outline of the squabble between Harry, the fifth in line for the throne, and his family has been known, but it is now that it has come up with all the attendant muck. Racism, palace intrigues, nosy journalists all seem to have contributed to the Sussexes’ decision in January 2020 to step down from their roles as full-time working royals. Senior members of the Royal family were aghast at the decision and much of the blame was put on Meghan the ‘outsider’ who, it was said, was intent on breaking apart the family.

Then came the March 2021 interview on CBS with Oprah, where for the first time the couple revealed that there was unease in the Royal family over the skin colour of the couple’s first-born Archie. The month after the interview, Prince Philip died and Harry came down to London to attend the funeral. There were few more occasions, including the Queen’s funeral, which got Harry to England but the relationship has not thawed, much like major parts of London’s streets that remain covered in snow.

The inclusion of Meghan Markle, a mixed-race child, born in America, as the wife to Queen Elizabeth’s grandson had heralded a major cultural shift in the 11-century-old British Royal family. But once the fairy tale wedding was done, it was not long before selective press leaks to discredit Meghan and embarrass her were being attributed as punishment for not playing the proper part in the Firm. Harry blames The Daily Mail for Meghan’s miscarriage in 2020 and accused the palace of being happy to lie to protect William but for “three years they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”

Harry never had a good relationship with the press, and the scars from the accident that killed his mother Princess Diana have always loomed large. But in the series he made a larger, and much deeper incision by saying that women who marry into the Royal family face “pain and suffering.” So essentially they face a tough time - inside the palace through the written and unwritten rules of the Firm, and outside through it’s the paparazzi.

Not surprisingly, the docuseries has got the press in a tizzy who are having a field day describing the utter banality and staged theatrics. As expected, very few of the Royal Correspondents/Editors have come to the defence of the Sussexes, who have co-produced the docuseries. The more robust of the Royal family loyalists have used the trope of biting the hand that fed them for the couple.

There has been equal excitement over another hit Netflix series about the Royal family, The Crown, which led to complaints from Cabinet ministers that pandering to cinematic and creative freedom extracts too heavy a price on accuracy which is unacceptable. The fear was that viewers would take everything portrayed as historical as they would not be able to discern fiction from fact. In that sense, Harry & Meghan, narrated by the couple in their own words, is somewhat of an antithesis of The Crown. To be fair, that it is not considered so by a large section of the British tabloid is because it presents only one side of the story.

Though Royal spats and squabbles have been aplenty in England, it seems the family has an unease with independent, strong-willed women who seem to inflict structural blows to the institution. In the last century Wallis Simpson took the King away, and in this century, Meghan Markle swept the prince off his feet. But coming back to Palmer and his book. He also wrote that America has “got people into the habit of thinking more concretely about political questions, and made them more readily critical of their own governments and society.”