Charles should remove Harry and Meghan’s Sussex titles over book, says leading UK paper

The editorial board for the U.K.’s “newspaper of record,” The Times, said this week that King Charles III should consider stripping his son and daughter-in-law, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, of their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles, following the publication of “Endgame,” a highly critical book about the monarchy, written by an author known as their “unofficial mouthpiece.”

While Harry and Meghan deny any “affiliation” with the book by Omid Scobie — through anonymous leaks to the media — the Times editorial board said it is “still reasonable to presume that the Sussexes at the very least may have given their blessing to Scobie’s new collection of largely unsubstantiated Windsor-bashing allegations.”

“Far from seeking the quiet life and reconciliation they claim to ­desire, it looks instead as if Harry and Meghan are inflicting maximum public ­reputational damage on their relatives and the ­institution to which those individuals belong,” the Times said in its “leading article,” as the Times editorial board commentaries are known.

The couple have yet to make a public statement about the book, which became a cause célèbre in the U.K. upon its publication Tuesday. The firestorm went global later in the week when Charles and Kate Middleton were named in Dutch copies of the book as the two royals at the center of a palace race controversy.

Meghan first ignited the controversy in 2021 when she told Oprah Winfrey in a globally televised interview that there had been “troubling” conversations in the royal family about how dark her son’s skin would be. Sources close to the royal family told The Telegraph that there is no basis to Meghan’s claims.

Scobie said Meghan named the two royals involved in these discussions in a private letter she wrote to Charles after the Winfrey interview. The American former actor, who is biracial, raised concerns about “unconscious bias” in the royal family.

Scobie has said he didn’t name the two royals in the English edition of “Endgame,” specifically saying he didn’t include their identities in the final manuscript that he turned into his publisher. He cited concerns about U.K. libel laws. But the names turned up in an explosive passage that mysteriously turned up in the Dutch edition of the book. The Dutch translators of “Endgame” have said in interviews that the names were in the manuscript they received, the Daily Mail reported.

Scobie has given tense interviews over the past couple days, insisting he’s not the Sussexes “mouthpiece” or friend and denying that he wrote the book with their assistance or on their behalf. He also said he doesn’t know how the names ended up in the Dutch editions and denies allowing the names to be leaked as part of a publicity stunt to boost book sales.

In an interview with the BBC, Scobie refused to apologize to the king or the Princess of Wales. “It’s not for me to apologize because I still want to know what’s happened.” Scobie also insisted that he was “extremely proud of” the book, but expressed dismay that his work has been “completely overshadowed by an event that’s caused me a lot of frustration.”

Harry and Meghan have yet to make a public statement on Scobie’s book or on his father and Kate being identified as the so-called “royal racists.” On Friday, sources “close to the Duchess of Sussex” told The Telegraph that she never intended for Charles or her sister-in-law to be publicly identified. The Sussex sources also said that Scobie didn’t learn their names from anyone in their camp.

The Times editorial board expressed skepticism that Harry and Meghan didn’t somehow cooperate with Scobie on “Endgame,” his second “scurrilous” book about the institution the couple “stepped back from” almost four years ago. The Times said that Scobie denied collaborating with the Sussexes on “Finding Freedom,” his first book about their conflicts with the monarchy. At the time, the Sussexes also insisted that they had not contributed to that book. That is, the Times said, until Meghan was forced to reveal under oath that she had sent “briefing notes” to an aide prior to his meeting with Scobie.

“In calling his new book ‘Endgame,’ Scobie is posturing as the chronicler and prophet of the fall of the House of Windsor,” the editorial board said “Having quit the royal family, the Sussexes now seem intent on destroying it.”

At the same time, the Sussexes “persist” in “clinging to their noble tiles” as well as using them “freely and frequently, not least when pursuing commercial gain and influence.”

“This self-serving attachment to the trappings of a family and an institution which they have otherwise ­rejected, and continue to trash, is hypocritical and distasteful,” the editorial board said. “If the Sussexes had any shame, they would decide to be the Sussexes no longer.”

The editorial board concludes its piece by saying there are 30 dukes in the peerages of Britain and Ireland. “King Charles would not be blamed if he acted to reduce that number to 29.”

Periodically, there have been calls for the monarch to strip Harry and Meghan of their Sussex titles, including when they first stepped away from royal life in 2020 and moved to the United States. As the Times piece suggests, it is within Charles’ power to remove the titles, as they were a gift from the late Queen Elizabeth II when Harry and Meghan married in 2018.

Charles, however, cannot take away Harry’s prince title or remove him from the line of succession; such a move would require an act of Parliament. If Charles were to remove the Sussex titles, Harry could still call himself Prince Harry and Meghan, thereafter, would be entitled to call herself Princess Henry,” the Daily Mail said.

Royal experts have said they doubt that Charles would take away the Sussex titles from Harry and Meghan, no matter what happens in the future. Robert Jobson, who wrote the book, “Our King Charles III: The Man and the Monarch Revealed,” told the Daily Express this summer it’s “just not going to happen.” He said it would “create a story,” and stir up “the hornet’s nest” and “not achieve anything.” Another royal insider told the Daily Mail this week that Charles is not a “punitive” man and he would never want to humiliate the couple.

While removing the Sussex titles is not on the table, sources told The Telegraph that Buckingham Palace is mulling other options in response to Scobie’s book identifying Charles and Kate in the race scandal. The palace is considering legal action of some kind, though it’s not certain against whom or what, The Telegraph said.

A royal source said: “We are considering all options.”