Meghan Markle is not the first biracial member of the British royal family to trace her offspring to at least two queens of African descent, according to a royal expert.
“All British kings have African blood,” said Lady Colin Campbell, a Jamaican-born socialist who has written numerous books about Windsor, including “People of Color and Gifts,” published in 2019.
A black royal was Queen Charlotte, who is the focal point of the Netflix series “Bridgerton,” Campbell told The Post. Born in 1774, Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a direct descendant of Margarita de Castro Souza, a Portuguese noblewoman who drew her line to Madragana Ben Aloandro, the North African mistress of Portuguese King Afonso III in the 13th century. -lea. Historian Mario de Valdes and Cocom said that the description of Charlotte in the royal paintings emphasizes her African features.
In addition to Charlotte, who was married to King George III, Campbell and other historians point to Philippa de Hainault, the wife and adviser of King Edward III. Philippa was of North African Moorish ancestry, born in northern France in 1314.
“When you consider this story, it’s absurd to accuse the royal family of racism,” Campbell said, referring to Markle’s recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which she said she was treated poorly because of her race and that he had suicidal thoughts. Markle also said that a member of the royal family expressed concern about the color of her baby’s skin before the birth of her son, Archie, in May 2019.
According to Campbell, there was a “constant marriage” between both British and European kings, who have “a proportionately high percentage of African blood,” she said. And it was little in the way of racial prejudice until the latter part of the seventeenth century, when the British colonies in West India relied more and more on the work of slaves to cultivate sugar cane.
“When sugar began to become more important than gold for the British community, the slaves who worked in the fields were dehumanized,” she said.
Caesar Shaw.
It was debated whether Princess Diana’s family, the Spencers, were among the noble slave owners. An eighteenth-century portrait of the ancestor John Spencer depicts him and his son, also named John – the future cousin Earl Spencer – with a black man named Caesar Shaw crouched next to a dog. Shaw has been described by historians alternately as a slave or servant. Many Spencers are listed in a database of historic British slaveholders, although it is unclear how closely they are related to Diana’s line.
Campbell, who appeared on British reality shows and wrote one of the first biographies of Princess Diana in 1992 (“Diana in Private”), also wrote “Meghan and Harry: The Real Story”. She is not a fan of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. She called Markle’s recent interview with Winfrey “the cynical trick on behalf of a greedy woman.”
“I think Meghan Markle is … a very destructive and divisive operator, who is reckless in terms of the damage she does, as long as she achieves her goals, which are fame and fortune,” Campbell said.