Meghan Markle ‘was a smiling face in a dull institution’ and ‘too good to be true’ for the monarchy, according to novelist Dame Hilary Mantel.
The British Booker Prize-winning author, 67, spoke with Harper’s Bazaar to celebrate the publication of the final installment of her bestselling Tudor trilogy, The Mirror & the Light.
Photographed at Hampton Court Palace, the author said she was pleased that Meghan’s marriage to Prince Harry had survived the couple’s decision to stand down as senior royals.
Dame Hilary explained: ‘I’m pleased that it’s the marriage that’s surviving and the connection with the monarchy that has to go because I think almost all of us would have bet that if she [the Duchess of Sussex] left, she’d have to leave alone.’
Dame Hilary Mantel, 67, called Meghan Markle, 38, a ‘smiling face in a dull institution’ as she said she feared the Duchess would be forced to leave the royal family alone
The British Booker Prize-winning author suggested ‘abominable racism’ was involved in the Duchess of Sussex’s decision to leave the UK (pictured, the Duchess on her final royal engagement before announcing her plans to step back from the family in January)
She added: ‘Though, none of us know the details of how this is going to work out.’
‘I think that Meghan was too good to be true,’ Hilary admitted. ‘She was a smiling face in a dull institution, she cheered the nation up no end, or at least men and women of good will.’
Harry and Meghan rocked the Royal Family in January when they announced they would step down as senior royals, less than two years after their marriage. They intend to split their time between the UK and Canada.
Speaking about the treatment of Meghan, Hilary insisted: ‘I do think abominable racism has been involved. People who say that’s got nothing to do with it – well, they need to check their privilege!’
The author (pictured) spoke with Harper’s Bazaar to celebrate the publication of the final instalment of her bestselling Tudor trilogy, The Mirror & the Light
Talking to the BBC this week, Hilary reiterated her belief that racism had played a part in the criticism aimed at the Duchess.
The author said: ‘I hesitate to call her a victim. But I think there has been an element of racism in the invective against her. I think it’s more deeply embedded in people’s consciousness than any of us are willing to admit.’
She added: ‘There’s an intense concentration on the bodies of royal women. If anyone doubts that, we only have to look at what happens when our royal ladies are pregnant and when they give birth.
‘They are perceived as public property in the same way that Tudor women were perceived.’
Prince Harry, 35, and Meghan (pictured) rocked the Royal Family in January when they announced they would step down as senior royals, less than two years after their marriage
The treatment of royal women was ‘sad’ and ‘objectionable’, she said, because ‘it is simply turning the individual woman back into a breeder’.
Asked about the duchess, she said that scrutiny of royal bodies ‘does include the skin’.
In 2016, Harry said media coverage of Meghan had ‘racial undertones’ and novelist Sir Philip Pullman claimed Meghan ‘is attacked by the British press because she’s black’.
In 2013 Dame Hilary came under fire for likening the Duchess of Cambridge to a ‘shop window mannequin’ who would become a ‘jointed doll on which certain rags are hung’.
The April issue of Harper’s Bazaar (pictured) is on sale from 04 March 2020
The comments were condemned by then prime minister David Cameron as ‘completely misguided’, although she said her words had been taken out of context.
Despite Hilary winning a Booker Prize for both her first and second novel in her series about Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII, she says it never matters at the time of writing.
She explained to Harper’s Bazaar: ‘I’m keeping my eye on the content of the book, and asking, “Does that succeed with readers?”
‘The whole issue of prizes, bestseller lists and so on is out of my hands. When you’re actually writing day-by-day, I don’t find any of that matters.’
She also revealed how it felt writing her protagonist Thomas Cromwell’s death, admitting she broke down into tears.
‘Actually, it’s really embarrassing, this, but when it came into my head how it must go, I was in Sainsbury’s at the checkout,’ she recalled.
‘My hands were packing and tears were falling really, really fast onto my hands. And by the time I got into the car park, I’d done it. It was emotionally processed.’
The Mirror & the Light (£25, Fourth Estate) is published on 5 March. The April issue of Harper’s Bazaar is on sale from 04 March 2020.