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Pandemic lockdowns and lack of opportunity drove 24-year-old drama school graduate Sarah Evans back to her family’s home in a small town in Wales. At the general store where he works, the subject of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the now California-based Duke and Duchess of Sussex, sparks heated discussions with an older clientele.
There has long been a generational divide in Britain over the role of the royal family. But the couple’s explosive interview this month with Oprah Winfrey highlighted those age-based differences, a gap that some believe could point to eventual trouble for the millennial monarchy.
British as a whole Strongly support the institution of the monarchy, with about two-thirds in favor of keeping it, according to a YouGov poll last week. However, among 18-24 year olds, that support drops to less than half.
In the post-interview poll, a solid majority of Britons aged 18-24 expressed their approval of Meghan and Harry, who spoke openly about their struggles against racism, mental health issues, a callous palace culture and a tabloid press. mendacious and intrusive. Their elders, particularly those over 65, expressed strong disapproval of both of them, particularly Meghan.
From behind the cashier of the little shop in Rhyl’s seaside resort, Evans receives a daily ear from the fiery realists, mainly older townspeople, about the “blatant lies” that are told in the interview, though his peers tend to record the couple’s comments as powerful truths.
“I found myself defending them,” Evans said of the pair, of whom he had previously given little thought. The most ardent royalists among her shop’s clientele, often in their 70s and 80s, “now just hate this woman,” he said, referring to Meghan.
Evans’ age group is too young to have personal memories of Harry’s mother, the lively and emotional Princess Diana. Exiled from the royal family after her separation from Prince Charles, she was fatally injured in a car accident in Paris in 1997 pursued by paparazzi.
Diana’s tragic bow, however, was in the minds of many people almost three years ago, when the eyes of the world were on the royal spectacle of Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Evans recalls his own doubts about whether a biracial former American actress would really be accepted.
“We have all grown up knowing what happened to Diana; it has always been something that has been talked about, ”he said. “But this makes me understand everything a little more.”
In the nearly two weeks since the interview aired in America and then Britain, the palace has said little. Other news, including the kidnapping and murder of a young Londoner, Sarah Everard, and European scruples over the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, have dampened the outcry somewhat.
A statement issued last week on behalf of the 94-year-old Queen Elizabeth II said the family was “saddened” to learn of the extent of Harry and Meghan’s distress, and would discuss the matter in private. Harry’s brother William, second in line to the throne, told reporters that “we are not a racist family.”
Still, the controversy persisted. The separated prince brothers, William and Harry, were reported to have had an “unproductive” talk. Michelle Obama, in a televised interview last week, sympathized with the royal family’s pain and said she hoped the episode would be a “teaching” moment.
The queen’s personal popularity, always strong, was hardly affected by the interview. Other family members, including Harry’s father Charles, the 72-year-old waiting king, fared worse.
Charles was already lagging behind the royal family’s popularity chart, ranking seventh in recent polls, and Harry’s revelation that his father at one point stopped answering his calls helped revive the conversation about whether the line of royal succession could end up skipping a generation, to 39. William of a year.
Few in Britain expect the monarchy to go anywhere, especially as Elizabeth, a beloved national icon, sits on the throne. And such a prospect, although very remote, would involve complex maneuvers like a national referendum, an act of parliament, or both, experts have said.
But the generational divide over the role of royalty echoes schisms over broader issues like Brexit (older people drove the 2016 vote that resulted in Britain’s exit from the European Union) and the punishment of inequalities. economic conditions that have left younger compatriots unable to establish themselves in the housing market.
“As a generation of young people, we were told that things could only get better,” wrote journalist Ben Smoke in a story published this week in British GQ that analyzed the interview and its aftermath. “They lied to us.”
Smoke wrote that Meghan and Harry’s setbacks showed that the British establishment is “incapable of total structural change on its own, that even those at the center of it would still be sacrificed in the name of tradition and convention if threatened. . “
To the outside world, the British monarchy remains an object of fascination, and its many adornments – castles and crowns, horse-drawn carriages, and glowing red-clad palace guards – are a major tourist draw. That fits well with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s drive to build a “global Britain” brand, based less on economic clout than unique cultural character.
But those who would like to see the monarchy removed were quick to point out that the ongoing discord surrounding the interview did little to polish an image of the British mystique.
“Far from projecting soft power around the world, the monarchy is a disgrace we have to endure,” the abolitionist group Republic tweeted on Wednesday. “For now.”
In the Harry and Meghan saga, many young people saw a missed opportunity to reinvigorate themselves. Michael Duffy, a 25-year-old Londoner originally from Ireland, said that when the two married, he felt they could bring change to a tired and dated royal establishment.
“I was going to take it to 21S t century, ”he said. “I just thought Meghan and Harry were going to be a little more with the times, really.”
Elizabeth, on the throne for nearly seven decades, is for many older Britons an echo of their own youth. She became sovereign of the country at just 27 years old, just eight years after Britain emerged, beaten and stripped, from the rubble of World War II.
James Elwin, a 24-year-old who has an entry-level “broker” job at British broadcaster ITV, said that he did not want the monarchy to be abolished entirely, but that the royal family needed to change with the times. , becoming more accessible. and relevant.
“I think they have served a purpose in history,” he said.
Special correspondent Boyle reported from London and writer King from Washington.
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