If Princess Diana had retained her security detail provided by the palace, she would likely be alive today. Instead, her bodyguard, employed by her boyfriend’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, allowed her to ride without a seat belt in a car driven by a man intoxicated at more than 3 times the legal limit.
Royal security would have never allowed Diana into the situation that ultimately killed her, but given her paranoia that her palace-provided detail was spying on her for the Firm, the princess refused royal protection officers after her divorce from Prince Charles.
The similarities between the situations of Diana and Meghan Markle end there. Markle is not receiving remotely the same treatment that Diana suffered a quarter century ago, and Prince Harry’s insistence otherwise is a gross abuse of his mother’s legacy.
“My biggest concern was history repeating itself,” Harry told Oprah of Markle’s supposed struggles with the royal life. “I’ve said that before on numerous occasions, very publicly. And what I was seeing was history repeating itself, but perhaps, or definitely, far more dangerous because then you add race in, and you add social media in. And when I talk about history repeating itself, I’m talking about my mother.”
It goes without saying that Diana didn’t have to deal with the toxic wasteland of contemporary social media, and yes, Markle has been subjected to unacceptable racism by its dregs. But at the hands of the royal family, she received treatment orders of magnitude better than what Diana suffered and most likely because of how badly Diana suffered from it.
Consider, Charles went through so many women that Diana, then the virginal teenage daughter of an earl whose pedigree rivaled the queen’s own, was essentially the only eligible bachelorette left in England. The only person who believed the royal romance was real was Diana herself. Only once their marriage was a done deal did Diana realize that not only was Charles not in love with her but that he was actually in love with Camilla Parker Bowles, who was then married to another man.
Contrary to the Netflix series The Crown, Charles did actually attempt to be faithful to Diana at the beginning of their marriage. But once she had secured Britain its heir and a spare, Charles turned back to Parker Bowles, and the queen’s response was essentially to tell Diana to deal with it.
In short, the palace recruited a 19-year-old virgin to marry a man in love with another woman because he had slept with so many women that said virgin was the only real candidate remaining. And instead of forcing Charles to give up his Camilla habit, the palace covered for his affair. Only once their marital woes spilled into national news in the form of leaked phone calls, multiple damning interviews, and Diana secretly sourcing Andrew Morton’s biography on her did the queen and Prince Philip allow the two to divorce finally.
Compare that to Markle, for whom the queen broke a plethora of traditions to include her in the family. She allowed Markle to join the family’s Christmas celebrations before her wedding, a privilege not even Kate Middleton was given. Given Markle’s messy relationship with her father, the palace broke the tradition of gifting a new coat of arms for the father of a bride marrying into the royal family and instead granted it solely to Markle. The queen also allowed her, a divorcee, to have a church wedding, an allowance she didn’t extend to Charles and Parker Bowles. They eventually married in a civil service that the queen refused to attend.
From dress codes to the queen’s ban on garlic, Meghan was allowed to break every rule in the book without reproach. All she had to do was her literal job.
Instead, in pursuit of “space” and privacy, she and Harry decided to quit their jobs and become full-time celebrities because somehow, the cutthroat Los Angeles media, protected by the First Amendment, is supposed to be less invasive than the tightly regulated British media that often bows down to the palace.
Even after divorcing Charles, Diana continued to work in her formal capacity as a royal and retained six of her royal patronages. She maintained her Kensington Palace apartments and earned an annual salary on top of her divorce settlement.
Markle and Harry wanted all of this and more — for not working.
Contrary to the fairy tale Markle evidently believed, being a royal is an actual job. In 2019, Princess Anne attended 506 total engagements over the course of 165 workdays. Charles worked 521 engagements over 125 total days. Compare that to Markle, who worked just 31 days. Now, she doesn’t work at all.
Still, she didn’t just complain about losing her salary. Harry and Markle complained that the palace wouldn’t pay for their security, a perk Diana didn’t keep even as she continued her work as a royal and one of the most onerous costs paid by taxpayers for the royals. Their whines are even more audacious when you consider that the two blamed their exit on their desire to become financially independent!
Maybe the palace complaints about her were secretly motivated by racism. But then, why would the person who filed the harassment complaint against her in 2018 be the same one who authored the statement emphatically defending her from racist and sexist coverage while she and Harry were still dating? It’s possible that the palace did deny her access to mental health treatment, but both Harry and Diana received ample therapy with support from the royal family. And really, we’re supposed to believe that a royal was dumb enough to fret publicly over the skin tone of Markle’s future children, who would be three-quarters white?
Queen Elizabeth turns 95 next month, and the even older Philip remains hospitalized. Prince Andrew is under official investigation for his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking, and Charles and Camilla’s already weak approval ratings haven’t been helped by The Crown rehashing their abysmal treatment of the late princess of Wales. The future of the monarchy rests entirely upon Prince William and Middleton, the only royals whose public approval rivals that of the queen.
Harry and Meghan bring the palace nothing but trouble, and even after putting on the waterworks, the couple has still lost the war of public opinion. More than twice as many British adults polled by YouGov think the Oprah interview was inappropriate than those who found it appropriate. Only 12% report having “a lot” of sympathy for the couple. Markle wasn’t treated like Diana, and the public certainly doesn’t see her as the same. The palace is better off without her.