The racism of the British Royal Family is not a new thing. Elisabeth I part-funded slave expeditions carried out in West Africa by John Hawkins (1562, 1564 and 1567). She donated ‘The Jesus of Lubeck’, a 700-ton vessel purchased by the Royal Navy for Henry VIII, for Hawkins’ second voyage. She honoured Hawkins with a coat of arms featuring a rope-bound nude African slave. On 11 July 1596, Elisabeth I ordered that Africans living as freemen in England be arrested and used as compensation to one Caspar via Senden, a German slave trader.
Between 1660 and 1685, Charles II and other members of the British Royal Family invested heavily in the enslavement of Africans. Charles II granted charter, and monopoly, to the ‘Company of the Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa’ to transport West Africans as slaves; the company seal was an elephant bearing a castle flanked by two enslaved African men with the logo: ‘By Royal patronage commerce flourishes, by commerce the realm’. Between 1672 and 1688, the Duke of York (later James II), and Lord High Admiral, was the company’s largest shareholder and governor, branding his slaves like animals with the letters ‘DY’ to differentiate them from company slaves who themselves were branded with the letters ‘RACE’.
Anne continued with the Royal tradition of supporting the British trade in slaves. In 1712, she secured an exclusive 30-year contract for the supply of slaves to the Spanish West Indies. The 17th century properties of the Stuart dynasty, including Kensington Palace and Hampton Court Palace connected to William III, had in it money derived from enslavement of Africans. Hence, the British Royal Family, particularly George III and his sons, opposed the abolition of slavery. In 1799, the Duke of Clarence (later Prince William, later William IV) used his maiden speech in the House of Lords to oppose abolition. The British Royal Family only aligned itself with the anti-slavery cause after £20 million compensation had been offered to the slave owners.
It therefore comes as no surprise that the British Royal Family treat Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, the way that they do. Meghan is a divorcee like Camilla. Camilla broke up the most fairytale of royal marriages, Charles and Diana’s; the Duchess of Sussex did no such terrible thing. Camilla joined the family together with a baggage of children; Meghan provides the family with genuine heirs. Camilla caused the Anglican Church to have an adulterer at its head; the Duchess of Sussex committed no such sacrilege. Queen Elizabeth proposed Queen-consort as the title for Camilla, but Charles III, to complete her rehabilitation, gave Camilla the title of ‘Queen’ in defiance. And yet they deny Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, similar rehabilitation. The British Royal Family treat Meghan differently from Camilla because Meghan is of African descent. It is as simple as that.