Opinion | Meghan Markle Is the Duchess the Royal Family Needs - The New York Times 5/6/19, 1(01 PM

Opinion

Meghan
Markle Is
the Duchess
the Royal
Family
Needs
The British monarchy
has always gathered
fresh power when it is
useful. The new baby
will gild the myth.

Meghan Markle making a public appearance in

March.

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Opinion | Meghan Markle Is the Duchess the Royal Family Needs - The New York Times 5/6/19, 1(01 PM

By Tanya Gold
Ms. Gold is a British journalist who writes for Harper’s Magazine.

May 6, 2019

Meghan Markle has given birth to a son, and the British press, which for weeks has
been positively giddy with rumor, is released from its stifling wait for actual news of
a royal baby.

While they waited, no detail, true or untrue, was too small to print: Ms. Markle will
have a home birth. Ms. Markle will have a water birth. Ms. Markle has rejected the
gynecologists to the royal household for a female doctor. Ms. Markle will have an
organic birth, which is something I just invented. Ms. Markle would have her baby
before May 5 because her makeup artist returned to New York that day, according to
his Instagram. Ms. Markle was house hunting in California. And on and on.

At the height of baby watch, journalists were dispatched when an ambulance was
parked near Frogmore House, the couple’s residence, for several hours (it turned out
that paramedics had stopped for lunch).

Why does Ms. Markle have the press in such paroxysms? Well, she is an interloper:
divorced, American, biracial and, apparently, progressive. And she dares not only to
inhabit the role of duchess but also to make it her own. But her critics — energized
by their racism, misogyny and snobbery — can relax. She is not a revolutionary
socialist nor a convincing human rights activist who will destroy everything they
love. She will not bring down the royal family. In 2019, she is precisely what they
need.

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Opinion | Meghan Markle Is the Duchess the Royal Family Needs - The New York Times 5/6/19, 1(01 PM

Obsessive interest in the minutiae of monarchy is not new. It may be irritating to the
objects of its devotion, but it is essential to their success. If you must have gods —
and that is what they are — you have a responsibility to believe that they are better
than the rest of us. If you don’t, what is the point? And so those who dare to ascend to
the rank of royalty without the blessing of royal birth are viewed as, at best,
suspicious, and at worst, Wallis Simpson 2.0.

The Duchess of Cambridge, formerly the wealthy but not upper-class Kate
Middleton, was nicknamed Waity Katie while she was waiting for Prince William to
propose marriage. She was photographed sunbathing topless in France, and the
pictures were published. She survived by saying nothing and bearing three children,
and is now left alone.

But Ms. Markle, whose marriage is a much more dramatic clashing of worlds, has
proved irresistible.

Tabloids have christened her Duchess Difficult, and she is accused, with more
agonizing alliteration, of having had a “tiara tantrum” at a fitting for a bridesmaid’s
dress for Princess Charlotte, 4, at which the Duchess of Cambridge, 37, cried.

We hear of dawn messages to staff, requests for heating in medieval chapels — did
she ask why Windsor Castle was built so close to the airport, one wag reportedly
asked — and a semi-transgressive attendance at a baby shower in New York City.
She moved from Kensington to Berkshire, which was reported as a “schism” between
Prince Harry and Prince William potentially as deadly as the feud between Richard
II and his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke, which incited the Wars of the Roses. The
break is reportedly so bitter that there is talk of Ms. Markle and Prince Harry
spending a few years in Botswana to regroup.

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Opinion | Meghan Markle Is the Duchess the Royal Family Needs - The New York Times 5/6/19, 1(01 PM

Then there is the role that only a self-made actress would have the daring to invent
for herself: Ms. Markle, feminist progressive duchess, who writes inspirational
mantras on bananas for sex workers and hugs — hugs! — well-wishers across metal
barriers thick with metaphor.

And now, feminist progressive duchess, and mom. The new royal baby will be raised
a feminist, as well as being the first royal to be skilled in yoga. The nursery at
Frogmore cottage is reportedly, outrageously, “gender neutral.” And the couple will
not have a Norland nanny, traditional choice of the British aristocracy, who dresses
like a depressed Mary Poppins. They are looking for an American nanny, showing
that Ms. Markle’s “heart is still very much in her homeland of the US,” The Daily
Mail lamented.

And yet, Ms. Markle is not a radical. She is a monarchist. Her feminism has nothing
to say about solidarity. It cannot. It is the feminism of the 1 percent, a unique woman
with great power. It is Elizabeth II’s feminism — hell, it is Elizabeth I’s feminism.
Under these criteria, Prince Harry is a feminist too for marrying her, which surely
came as a great surprise to him.

As to quasi-progressive credentials, the couple is well matched. Prince Harry is a

hugger and a moonlight dancer whose public utterances, though likely heartfelt, are
like ripples on a pond. Together they talk about a mental health crisis but not its
causes; about environmental catastrophe but not its causes; about the Grenfell
Tower fire but not its causes. There is nothing on austerity, inequality or poverty. He
wore a garland of flowers to announce scholarships to study climate change. She
wrote a foreword to a cookbook from the Grenfell Tower community kitchen.

So you see, Ms. Markle’s critics have nothing to fear. In the 1970s Queen Elizabeth II
was enticed to greet crowds by saying “hello.” Previously she had ignored them. In
2019, hugging and other acts are welcome and even necessary as what is considered

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Opinion | Meghan Markle Is the Duchess the Royal Family Needs - The New York Times 5/6/19, 1(01 PM

good manners changes. Ms. Markle’s style may be different from that of other
members of the royal family, but she is still a monarchist.

Of us and yet above us; exalted and common. People thrill to the knowledge that
Elizabeth II uses Tupperware and a two-bar electric fire in her palace, presumably
while wearing the Imperial State Crown and National Health Service spectacles. Ms.
Markle’s status as a feminist who supported female suffrage in New Zealand a mere
125 years after it appeared is similarly disarming. And the enchantment grows until
even I am fascinated by a woman who inspires the headline “Meghan Markle’s
Inspirational Banana Messages Slammed as Offensive by Sex Worker,” and I am a
republican.

The royal family has always gathered fresh power when it is useful. They will take
George Clooney as a friend if they must. They will delight in Oprah and talk of gang
violence, yoga and the shrinking habitat of the polar bear if it keeps them on the
throne, and the new royal baby — soon to be the object of its own commemorative
china — will gild the myth.

Why do you think you are reading about the Mountbatten-Windsors in this
newspaper and on Instagram when the Romanovs, the Hohenzollerns and the
Habsburgs are all gone?

Tanya Gold writes for Harper’s Magazine.

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