Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with their newborn son Archie at Windsor Castle on May 8, 2019 (Dominic Lipinski/Pool via AP)
It mistakenly identified the two relatives who allegedly made racist comments about the skin color of Harry and Meghan’s son
The Dutch translation of Endgamea book about British royalty written by Omid Scobie, caused an uproar in the UK because it mistakenly included i nomi of the two people in the family who allegedly made racist comments about the skin color of Archie, the first child of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, before he was born. The Dutch version of the book was immediately withdrawn from Dutch bookstores, officially due to an unspecified “error”, but by now the issue had been widely reported in English newspapers and commented on on social networks.
Initially the names of the two royals were not mentioned by British newspapers and tabloids, which notoriously have an unwritten agreement with the royal family to deal with scandals concerning it with a certain sobriety. The reluctance was probably also motivated by the fact that it is not clear how the two names ended up in the Dutch edition, given that the author and the publishing house claim they were not there in the original: it is therefore an accusation at the moment without evidence, and which is not even supported by the author of the book. But then the famous presenter Piers Morgan, known for having no sympathy for Meghan, identified them in his program, revealing that they are not two marginal members of the family, but rather King Charles III and Kate, Princess of Wales and wife of William, Harry’s brother and first heir to the throne.
Since then also in several British newspapers, including the Guardianthey were explicitly spoken about, while other publications, such as BBCthey continued not to identify the two people.
In a famous interview given by the couple to US presenter Oprah Winfrey at the beginning of 2021, Markle said that, when she was pregnant with Archie, a member of the royal house had shown concern about the skin color the baby would have, given that she is the daughter of a white man and a black woman. Although Markle did not name any names, the episode was widely commented on, and was frequently cited as alleged evidence of widespread racism in the royal family.
No names are mentioned in the original English version published by HarperCollins either, but references are made to two people who allegedly made those comments. The Dutch edition, like the one in Italian published by Solferino, it was released on Tuesday. After his withdrawal, Xander, the Dutch publishing house, said that the error cited by Scobie would be corrected in time to put the book back on sale starting from December 8: in the meantime, however, the Dutch journalist Rick Evers had noticed and shared on X (Twitter) a passage from the book in which the name of King Charles III is mentioned in relation to the alleged comments. Other less specific references cited by both Evers and other Dutch readers seemed to allude to the fact that the second person to have made racist comments was Kate.
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Publisher Xander Uitgevers doesn’t want to confirm about this specific theme, about mentioning the name of Charles, which doesn’t appear in the English version about this situation.
— Rick Evers (@RickEversRoyal) November 28, 2023
Even though the English newspapers had not taken the names present in the Dutch version, the two members had been identified as people of “high rank” and the news had received great attention. The Daily Mirror for example it had the headline: «A book names the ‘racist royals’», while the Daily Mail it cited “Scobie’s book withdrawn for naming ‘racist royals’ by mistake.” Then on Wednesday evening Morgan, known for his right-wing positions, said that those who pay the taxes with which the royal family is supported have the right to know what the Dutch readers knew, and had therefore identified Charles and Kate. However, he added that he believed that “none of the members of the royal family had made racist comments”.
Harry and Meghan behind Charles and his wife Camilla during the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey, on September 19, 2022 (AP Photo/ Martin Meissner, Pool)
The alleged racism of the royal house and part of the British press were among the reasons why at the beginning of 2020 Harry and Meghan decided to no longer be actively part of the monarchy and to leave the United Kingdom. From that moment on, relations with the rest of the royal family had cooled considerably, as Harry described both in his hugely successful autobiography Spare both in the Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, together with his wife. However, neither in the book nor in the series is there any in-depth discussion of the accusations of racism (already at the time of Winfrey’s interview it had been clarified that in any case they did not concern either Queen Elizabeth II or her husband, Prince Philip).
In an interview with Dutch TV, Scobie said he had not identified the royal family members accused in his book and had no idea how they ended up in the Dutch translation. Saskia Peeters, the translator of the book, he said al Daily Mail that she had not added any names, clarifying that, “as a translator”, she only translates “what she sees on the pages in front of her”.
A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace, the royal residence, told the Guardian that they did not want to comment on the matter, and not even the princes of Wales, William and Kate, expressed their opinion.
Meghan photographed behind Kate during a religious ceremony at Westminster Abbey on March 11, 2019 (AP Photo/ Kirsty Wigglesworth, pool)
Xander’s chief operating officer, Anke Roelen, said the publisher will try to find out how the names ended up in the book. You then underlined that its creation was “an extremely precise process, which lasted months”, therefore asking us to be “cautious in arriving at hasty conclusions”. In the meantime, however, both some translators and industry experts have expressed doubts about the possibility that the Dutch translator added names on her own initiative.
According to literary agent Willem Bisseling, the most plausible hypothesis is that Peeters worked on a previous draft of the manuscript in English, adding however that «it is only a [sua] assumption”. Some, however, maintain that Scobie inserted the names on purpose in an early version of the book, as Evers also hypothesized in another post on X. “The question,” Evers says, is whether he did it “negligently or on purpose.” Some experts seem to support the latter theory, and have accused Scobie of engaging in incorrect behavior and seeking publicity. Furthermore, Scobie had previously written a book about Harry and Meghan, and he was believed to have a benevolent attitude towards them.
Daniel Taylor, a media lawyer at the Taylor Hampton firm in London, however recalled that both the author of a book and the publishing house that publishes it risk being accused of defamation if they attribute racist attitudes to a person without evidence. It’s the same reason why most UK newspapers and media have been reluctant to specifically mention Charles and Kate. The other plausible reason, however, is the enormous influence that the British royal family exerts on the local press. The first English newspaper to explicitly mention the names on its website on Thursday afternoon was the Guardianwhich has notoriously critical positions towards the monarchy.
– Read also: Prince Harry’s autobiography, according to whoever wrote it
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2023-12-01 13:56:54
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