Meghan Markle's claims 'misleading', she would have known why Archie wasn't made a prince: Experts
Royal experts have claimed Meghan Markle "would have known" why Archie was not made a prince and that suggesting it was due to his skin color was "misleading." During her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Duchess of Sussex claimed there were conversations surrounding Archie's title alongside concerns about how dark his skin might be.
"In those months when I was pregnant, we had in tandem the conversations of him not being given security or a title, and also concerns about how dark his skin might be when he’s born," Meghan Markle, 39, told Oprah Winfrey. "They didn't want him to be a prince or princess, not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol, and that he wasn't going to receive security."
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King George V had laid down the current Royal rules in 1917. Under those guidelines, Archie would become a prince or receive an HRH title only when Prince Charles becomes king.
Royal expert Katie Nicholl told Royalty TV's 'The Royal Beat' that the Sussexes would have been well aware of the rules and so their claims were rather "misleading." She said: “Meghan would have known [that this was for an established constitutional reason] and Harry would definitely have known." Nicholl added: "I think it was disingenuous to throw all this together and suggest that Archie wasn’t a prince because of the color of his skin. I think it was misleading.”
Meanwhile, royal biographer Hugo Vickers said he was bewildered by Meghan's comments on the need to provide security for baby Archie. “I don’t know how many one-year-olds need security because they are normally covered by their parents and Prince Harry had plenty of security at that time," he told The Royal Beat.
This comes after Meghan Markle claimed that the only reason she was concerned about her son receiving a royal title was because of the security she believed it would entail. "But the idea of our son not being safe, and also the idea of the first member of color in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be..." Meghan said. "You know, the other piece of that conversation is, there’s a convention — I forget if it was George V or George VI convention — that when you’re the grandchild of the monarch, so when Harry’s dad becomes king, automatically Archie and our next baby would become prince or princess, or whatever they were going to be."
According to Meghan, it wasn't their decision to not give Archie a title. This contradicted reports when Archie was born in 2019 that Meghan and Harry had chosen not to use a title for their son. It was claimed that the parents decided not to give him one of the Duke of Sussex's lesser titles, the Earl of Dumbarton, and thereby signaled they wanted Archie to be a "private citizen."
Meghan's claims regarding concerns over the color of Archie's skin will be "addressed privately," the Queen has said. "The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning," a statement from the Palace read in part. "Whilst some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately."
