Meghan Markle is not the first biracial member of the British royal family to trace her lineage back to at least two queens of African descent, according to a royal expert.
“All British royals have African blood,” said Lady Colin Campbell, a Jamaican-born socialite who has written numerous books about the Windsors, including “People of Color and the Royals,” published in 2019.
One of the Black royals was Queen Charlotte, who is the focus 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 traced her lineage to Madragana Ben Aloandro, the North African mistress of Portuguese King Afonso III in the 13th century. Historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom has said that the depiction of Charlotte in royal paintings emphasizes her African features.
In addition to Charlotte, who was married to King George III, Campbell and other historians point to Philippa of Hainaut, the wife and adviser of King Edward III. Philippa was of North African Moorish descent, born in Northern France in 1314.
“When you consider this history, it is ridiculous to accuse the royal family of racism,” said Campbell, referring to Markle’s recent interview with Oprah Winfrey in which she claimed she had been mistreated because of her race and had suicidal thoughts. Markle also said a member of the royal family was concerned about her baby’s skin color before the birth of her son Archie in May 2019.
According to Campbell, there was “constant intermarriage” among both British and European royals who “have a relatively high percentage of African blood,” she said. And there was little racial prejudice until the later part of the 17th century, when Britain’s West Indian colonies increasingly relied on slave labor for the cultivation of sugar cane.
“As sugar began to become more important than gold to the British community, slaves working the fields were dehumanized,” she said.
Caesar Shaw.
It has been debated whether Princess Diana’s family, the Spencers, were among the slave owners. An 18th-century portrait of ancestor John Spencer shows him and his son, also called John – the future first Earl Spencer – with a black man named Caesar Shaw crouching with a dog. Shaw has been variously described by historians as either a slave or a servant. Many Spencers are listed in a database of historical British slave owners, although it is unclear how closely they are related to Diana’s line.
Campbell, who has appeared on British celebrity reality shows and wrote one of the first biographies of Princess Diana (“Diana in Private”) in 1992, has also written “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 about the damage she does as long as she achieves her goals of fame and fortune,” Campbell said.