The Windsors relive Lady Di’s stormy years

LONDON.- The level of internal hostility skyrocketed in the war unleashed in the days and hours leading up to the Dukes of Sussex interview airing, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, with Oprah Winfrey. Messages by an interposed source, he went to direct hits. It’s never a good time to air out dirty laundry when it comes to royalty, except with the Queen isolated at Windsor Castle for almost a year, and the Prince Consort, Philip of Edinburgh (99), hospitalized after undergoing a delicate coronary intervention

Buckingham Palace foresaw a full-fledged offensive, and someone decided the best defense was a good offense. The leak has been attributed to some of the staff who worked under Markle during his time in London, or even those around the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, who was increasingly estranged and injured with his brother Harry. The Times newspaper revealed this time with first and last names that one of her closest assistants came to file a formal complaint about the harassment at work to which the former actress American submitted the staff who worked for him. “The Duchess seems determined to always have someone to take action against. Right now he’s harassing Y [el diario no ha querido revelar el nombre de la mujer] and seeks to undermine their confidence. Several people have informed us that they have witnessed his unacceptable behavior with Y, ”wrote Jason Knauf, then director of communications for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in October 2018 to Simon Case, Prince William’s private secretary.

Case is now Boris Johnson’s cabinet secretary and chief of senior UK officials. He is the man who accumulates the most power without being an elected politician. “I wonder if the house’s workplace harassment policy also applies to bosses,” Knauf concluded.

The press had already reported during this time that at least two people had left, unable to stand Markle’s character and manner.. And that a third – the Y in this story – was about to do so. But the rumors did not go further, and the allies of the Duchess of Sussex were tasked with justifying the incidents by the “frank and direct style” that Americans must give to orders, unusual between subtlety, double talk and the underrated Britons look for.

This time, however, the blow to Markle had been threefold. For the reason: tell the other part of the story before taking the stage with his interview. For details: concrete names and airy emails. And for the official reaction of the Royal House, who chose not to look away and open an investigation.

The swords have been raised. The gradual deterioration of last year, since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided to step down from their official duties in January 2020 and move to the United States, threatens to resurrect the tumultuous time the House of Windsor went to war with Lady Di, Harry’s mother. In fact, the couple copied dates and textual words from the “village princess” to mimic their misadventures with their own.

The storm caused by the interview, in any case, already had a life of its own. Despite being recorded ten days earlier, the Oprah Winfrey producer expected snippets of the speech that appeared to be a direct response to the provocation. “I don’t know how they can expect us to remain silent after all this time, as society continues to actively perpetuate lies about us,” Markle says. The Company is the term used by British tabloids to refer to the royal household, but never used in public by any of its members. “All I wish is that history doesn’t repeat itself,” Harry said to Winfrey, clearly referring to his mother’s turbulent last years.

“The Queen and the Royal Family are not the Corleone family of Windsor. They don’t send a hitman to silence people. In the course of her official duties, Meghan has always been protected by a team of Scotland Yard agents “, said Robert Jobson, the royal expert at Evening Standard. “Being silenced is ridiculous. I imagine that fits the story they want to present, but at a high cost to the Queen, Prince Philip, the Royal Family and the reputation of this country ”.

It does not appear that the reputation of Great Britain, let alone that of Elizabeth II, is threatened by this whole episode. But the “dignified” role that the legendary editor of the weekly The Economist, Walter Bagehot, attributed to the Crown in his classic The English Constitution (the bedside manual to the Queen and her father, George VI) is more and more difficult to interpret. by a family condemned to repeat from time to time a knife-stabbing duel between its members. © El País, SL

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