When Meghan Sussex corrected Mindy Kaling on her Netflix show, clarifying that she and her family share the name Sussex, the backlash was immediate and relentless. Critics accused her of being pretentious, confused, or of making a “pointed remark”. The discourse dragged on for months.
Now Kate has signed a donation using the exact same convention, “Catherine Wales”, and nobody batted an eye. The rule, apparently, depends entirely on which woman is using it.
Here is what Hello reported:
The Princess of Wales has donated in support of Ted, an 11-year-old she met while climbing Ben Nevis as part of the Three Peaks Challenge. Ted was also taking on the challenge that day.
Ted is a wheelchair user who completed the challenge with the support of a team of family and friends. He is raising money for Molly Olly’s Wishes, a charity that supports children with serious illnesses.
Kate Middleton donated to Ted’s campaign and, in a rare move, left a message signed under ‘Catherine Wales’.
She wrote: “One of the real highlights of the Three Peaks Challenge was meeting inspiring people like you along the way. Huge congratulations to the entire team for raising money for such a wonderful cause. C”.
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The Hypocrisy Is Glaring
So let me get this straight. Catherine Wales is perfectly acceptable, but Meghan Sussex is supposedly a scandal? Interesting. Because every time Meghan uses Sussex, the usual crowd acts as if she has invented a fake name, stolen a title, or personally rewritten Debrett’s. Yet when Kate appears to use Wales in the same practical way, suddenly everyone understands how royal titles work.
Royals have used territorial titles as surnames for years. William and Harry were known as William Wales and Harry Wales during their military years. The Wales children use Wales. Kate can use Catherine Wales because her husband is the Prince of Wales. So why is Meghan treated like she is doing something outrageous when she uses Sussex? The answer is obvious. The rule changes depending on which woman they want to attack.
And then there is the donation itself. Harry and Meghan are consistently attacked whenever they help others or donate to charitable causes. Critics say they are attention-seeking and that royals should not be donating money for reasons that always seem to shift. Yet Kate can undertake a charitable hike with a full team of camera crews and photographers, while also publicly donating using an informal naming convention that would have drawn outrage had Meghan done the same.
Apparently, donations are fine when Kate does them. Using a title as a surname is fine when Kate does it. Emotional public messaging is fine when Kate does it.
But when Meghan does anything remotely similar, suddenly it is tacky, attention-seeking, inappropriate or “not royal.” That is why people notice. It is not about the name itself. Catherine Wales is fine. Meghan Sussex is fine. The problem is the selective outrage from the same people who pretend etiquette only matters when it can be weaponised against Meghan.
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If fact, it’s the total opposite. When I started reading this article, it was clear that Kkkate was once again copying Meghan, by doing charitable work publicly, to desperately improve her deeply damaged brand (fake pictures, fake cancer ?, deplorable work habits, credible lies “Meghan made me cry”). Never mind her pathetic attempts to clone Meghan’s sartorial aesthetics!
I think the irony is that Meghan and ‘Catherine’ are more commonly known as ‘Meghan Markle’ and ‘Kate Middleton’.
It’s really important that we don’t buy into false premises at the heart of a lot of these claims including that the titles have value (in some limited capacity but not really in relation to celebrity, attention or making money). Historically valuable estates came attached but that’s not usually the case today (although interestingly of course for the actual purpose of making money Charles’ most lucrative title is Duke of Lancaster and William’s is Duke of Cornwall – note well that both these titles come from being the first born son of the previous title holder and not from doing any particular sort or work, being a good person, ‘not trashing your family’ etc). I’d suggest that all the designation ‘Sussex’ means is that Meghan’s husband is a descendant of the monarch along the male line and that he got married? That remains true however Meghan and Harry behave or who likes them. Supposedly it’s seen as an title for an artsy son and had long been retired before being created for Harry on the occasion of his marriage.
Prince Edward also had a TV production company that only made shows about Royalty and Royalty adjacent matters – I believe he referred to himself as Edward Windsor for this (the BBC reported him touting for business in the US while saying ‘British media hates success’, so you know, just trashing the country, nbd). It wasn’t sucessful and in the end Queen Elizabeth 2 paid him to shut it down (probably a lot more than was reported at the time seeing what’s been coming out about their finances). What’s important is that it came to an end because he failed and not because you can’t be ‘half in and half out’ (like for example Elizabeth with her own business or Anne with hers).
The so-called value and conditionalities of the titles and title use are all new concepts invented so that Meghan and Harry can be said to be corrupting them. I think if TPTB hadn’t made a big deal about it for the couple they probably would not have had to make a big show of ‘stripping’ Andrew recently. We’ve got to remember that historically what there is no morality clause for these positions, they are inherited, captured, created or bestowed on favourites? What they had done usually was try and just brush embarrassing persons under the carpet and hope the public forget about them – if Meghan and Harry were the ‘danger’ and the ’embarrassment’ they are claimed to be what Elizabeth and Charles would have done was quietly fund them and what the British Media would have done is ignore them. The Duke of Windsor, who probably committed worse crimes than Andrew, of course did not do ‘Royal work’, was funded, kept a title, lived abroad with security for the rest of his days and has all his secrets safely dumped down the Memory Hole.
The endless drivel about the titles and the ‘monetising’ are a pretext to be able to continue to go on about Harry and Meghan, after having told them to get lost and also to feel like they have something of ours still that they haven’t given back after the breakup so the owe us and we are entitled to be angry at them etc.
There are at least 1000 people roaming the world with the surname ‘Sussex’ – it’s not a big deal. Meghan and Harry are the big deal. And if her father Thomas Markle or her half sister or half brother have anything to say about her that will get big stories and coverage in the UK press. Her name ‘Markle’ has more value to the British media than her title!
I’m afraid that I will have to end on a criticism even as I acknowledge it is an unfair sutuation. Meghan should stop using her title which I genuinely and truly believe she does not care about. I think it’s Harry making a point here at this time, I know they offered to give them back but then it was agreed they should retain them and think about it now, this makes sense, the Royals benefit from the World Wide fame of the Sussexes (even if that fame is founded not in love or respect but horrible unwelcome commodifying UK tabloid obsession) so they are happy to maintain the link IMO, but the benefit is one way. Also recall that for years Sarah Ferguson retained and used her title and I never heard a single person suggest she should lose it until that became a thing they started saying for Meghan – – who is still married to her Royal husband – – because as I’ve said there is zero real concern about monetising or being an embarrassment. I think Meghan should be clear about being Meghan Sussex in her business and in her social media. Not Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex? I think, call the bluff of the haters here? In reality, she is Meghan Markle, occasionally, she is the Duchess of Sussex but she should aggressively perform being ‘Meghan Sussex’ and then it will be the media who will be responsible for calling her something else (and they will – in the UK the titles are the legal names of the family)? That article where they said that she was announced as ‘The Duchess of Sussex’ was shady AF. Her signing her cards Duchess of Sussex is cute but again, I say leave it. It allows the royalists claim they have something that she wants…