Meghan Markle's first magazine interview since 2017 delivered a startling warning for Buckingham Palace. Photo / AP
Meghan Markle's first magazine interview since 2017 delivered a startling warning for Buckingham Palace. Photo / AP
OPINION:
Since 1952, when the Queen acceded the throne, the United Kingdom has been involved in dozens of wars and military campaigns, one Emergency (Cyprus), one Crisis (Suez) and three Cod Wars. (Truly. It was a fight with Iceland over fishing rights in the North Atlantic).
In the 90s, there was the War of the Wales, a conflict fought exclusively on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, as Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales battled it out in brutal PR fashion. (He was a cold-blooded philanderer! She was an unbalanced crackpot who loved psychics!)
Meghan Markle's first magazine interview since 2017 delivered a startling warning for Buckingham Palace. Photo / AP
Then came two decades of peace when the biggest crises for Buckingham Palace involved Prince Andrew's odious choice in friends, Sarah, Duchess of York's insatiable need for cash and the sad demise of the Queen's final generation of corgis.
But is a new front about to erupt? Should someone right now be outfitting the footmen in battle fatigues and teaching them how to re-tweet?
The telling comments came towards the end of Meghan's interview with the magazine. Photo / The Cut
This week New York's magazine The Cut published a 6500-word interview with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (her first such magazine outing since joining the royal family) which showcases in truly masterful fashion that the 41-year-old's favourite and, by and large, only topic of conversation is herself.
Now, much of the hubbub that has followed the piece's publication has centred on the fact that, according to the duchess, her marriage to Prince Harry was a source of similar celebration in South Africa to Nelson Mandela's release from prison. (The Nobel Peace Prize winner's grandson Zwelivelile "Mandla" Mandela has pushed back against her extraordinary claim, telling the Daily Mail that her marriage to a "white prince" did not compare to the ending of apartheid, surely a statement that should go without saying).
However, largely overlooked in the story, in which Meghan manages to come across as simultaneously self-absorbed and dull, is she drops a couple of lines that sound an awful lot like something of a warning to Buckingham Palace.
The moment comes towards the end of the piece (if you haven't read it, you can find it here) when the duchess and journalist Allison P. Davis are wrapping things up and they start to discuss forgiveness.
"It's interesting, I've never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking," Meghan says. "I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to." (When asked why not she responds, "Still healing.")
"I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive," the duchess says "wisely," according to Davis.
"But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I've really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything," she says, "her voice full of meaning," per the journalist.
"And then she is silent," Davis writes. "She breathes in and smiles and breathes out and says, 'I have a lot to say until I don't. Do you like that? Sometimes, as they say, the silent part is still part of the song.'"
At this point, I'll pause, just in case you feel the urge to dry retch a bit ("the silent part is still part of the song"? PUH-LEEEEESE).
But don't let the Californianese of this exchange distract from the notable lines here – "I can say anything" and "I have a lot to say" – both of which could be read as carrying a certain threat about possible future revelations.
In the last 18 months, Meghan and her husband Prince Harry have caused Buckingham Palace and the corgis no end of strife with their penchant for "saying anything", given they have so far accused the Windsors of "total neglect", a truly horrible sort of indifference towards mental health issues and most shockingly, of racism.
In the last 18 months, Meghan and her husband Prince Harry have caused Buckingham Palace and the corgis no end of strife, Elser says. Photo / AP
Thus far, whenever the duke and her duchess open their mouths within the vicinity of a journalist, blogger, podcaster or anyone using the voice memo app, the windows of the Palace have generally ended up rattling.
So, Meghan oh-so-coyly suggesting "I have a lot to say until I don't" could suggest that she just might have a whole lot more devastating ammunition up her designer cashmere sleeves.
After all, she has 10 more episodes of her Archetypes podcast series to go, hour upon hour where she can speak her truth all she wants.
And if this scenario did come to pass, of the royal family being buffeted by a stream of fresh criticisms and embarrassing disclosures about Palace life, it would represent a serious escalation in hostilities of the Anglo-American, Sussex-Windsor Clash.
See, for years now, the duchess and her other half, the Duke of Sussex, Sprinkler Fixer of Montecito (also from The Cut story), have been popping up to take pot shots at the royal family. However these instances have all generally been isolated incursions if you will, them putting their heads above the parapet, getting a few anti-Palace jabs in before retreating to their meditation yurt to see if Michelle Obama had gotten back to their last six unread messages.
However, we have seen and heard more from Meghan in the last 10 days, via her podcast series and the interview, than we have perhaps ever and she has not been shy about lobbing a few grenades at London.
In the debut episode of Meghan's Archetypes podcast series, the former Suits star recounted having to continue on with their royal programme during a tour of Southern Africa after a heater caught fire in son Archie's room, the message being of maternal love valiantly going up against the cold-blooded, implacable Palace.
Then, in The Cut story, came the unsubstantiated allegation that some members of the British press had called her children the N-word and the claim that if the Sussex family had stayed inside the royal tent, "she'd never be able to do school pick-up and drop-off without it being a royal photo call with a press pen of 40 people snapping pictures," as Davis writes. (Let me point out that this situation, as far as I'm aware, has never happened for 9-year-old future King George VII.)
Meghan has already lobbed a few grenades at London in her Archetypes podcast series. Photo / Spotify
Between Meghan's podcast, Harry's supposedly forthcoming memoir and their "at home" docuseries all happening or set to hit soon, how many more digs at the royal family might they try and wedge in there? How many more stories are we going to have to endure about the meanie Men In Grey who failed to appreciate Meghan's authentic self and her ability to transform the moribund monarchy with nothing more than a sharpie and some bananas? (Remember that?)
Speaking to the Daily Beast, Duncan Larcombe, the former royal editor of British tabloid the Sun, has said of the former actress' podcast: "This was the opening salvo in Meghan's 12-week war. It has the potential to be even more damaging than the Oprah interview because it is Meghan, in her own words, on her own show, doing exactly what she wants, and the fact is she took the first opportunity to plunge the knife in."
However, just because the duke and duchess might be about to unload about royal life with fresh vigour doesn't mean their verbal blows will land with as much of an impact as they might have in the past.
Once upon a time, a new era of Sussex revelations about Harry's family should have had the titled lot of 'em quaking in their handmade shoes; for a long time the prospect of Harry and Meghan unleashed, all those hurt feelings and bruised egos, must have been a Windsor nightmare.
Except a lot has changed in the last couple of years and while Harry and Meghan continue to wheel out the same woe-is-us bleating, it feels like the world has moved on a bit.
Only last week, before this all really kicked off, the French magazine Point de Vue ran a cover story about the duchess' "self-destruction."
Meanwhile over in the Washington Post, columnist Alyssa Rosenberg wrote a piece titled, "To succeed in media, Meghan Markle needs to leave royal trauma behind." Rosenberg writes: "In truth, the only way for the Sussexes to build a truly new life, and have a wider impact on the causes they care about, is to stop making themselves the centre of the story.
"To a certain extent, Meghan and Harry seem trapped in a real-life version of what New Yorker critic Parul Sehgal last year dubbed the trauma plot, fixated on what led them to flee across the pond to the exclusion of what they're going to do now that they're here."
Then there is the global press reaction to the duchess' Cut interview.
One German tabloid accused her of "shamelessly" attempting to "instrumentalise the myth of Diana for her career," the Telegraph has reported, while another asked if she had 'overshadowed' the 25th anniversary of Diana, Princess of Wales' death. Other European publications reportedly charged her as "posing like a real diva" and of showing a "slight reproach to [Harry's] family, if not a bitterness."
Today, Harry and Meghan are less of the formidable, dangerous foe for the House of Windsor than might have been if the couple had managed to achieve something – anything – of real note since quitting royal life.
If the couple are indeed on the cusp of a vigorous round of anti-royal invective (make note of the 'if' there) then how might the Queen and co. respond? Might the Palace, with an ailing Queen to deal with, be done with sitting quietly on their hands and decide to take up PR arms?
Or, have the Sussexes accidentally de-fanged and de-clawed themselves courtesy of the fact that they are fast approaching ridicule status? After all, having watched then routinely and openly criticise the Palace for years now, the shock of it all has long since passed.
While it is impossible to know quite what comes next, what seems clear is that with Harry and Meghan audio, TV and book projects all about to be let forth into the world, the new age of Sussex is here. Whether people care and will want to buy, read, watch and listen to what they have to say is another question entirely.
In that interview with the Mail, Mandela's grandson had a message for Meghan: "Get out there, pull up your sleeves and better the lives of ordinary people in England and in the United Kingdom."
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
