It took more than a week for the royal institution to get its story straight and come up with some nonsensical talking points about this Thomas Markle situation. I find it interesting that Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace were caught flat-footed, not by the fact that Thomas Markle is very likely a PDFile, but that the Duchess of Sussex issued a statement revealing the existence of Roslyn Loveless’s 2018/19 letter. THAT is what caught everyone off-guard, and that’s why it took them about nine days to get their stories straight about who knew what and when. It looks like royal sources are going for flat denials, which is pretty interesting given that multiple Mail columnists and possible Sussex sources have said that it’s more than likely that other royals and courtiers knew about the contents of Loveless’s letter. Here’s the first of the Windsors’ cover stories about what they knew and when, with some bonus information about the letter, the police and how Meghan wanted to go public.

The Sunday Times has established that key royal courtiers and police chiefs were not made aware of an incendiary letter sent to Scotland Yard in 2019 by Markle’s first wife, raising the possibility that further alleged offending went unnoticed for up to seven years. It can also be revealed that Meghan, the duchess, was minded to go public about the allegations against her father after being handed the letter, but was advised by the police not to do so.

Last weekend it emerged that a letter sent to the Metropolitan Police by Roslyn Loveless, who divorced Markle in 1975, was passed to Meghan and Harry for their “awareness”, but was not shared with law enforcement agencies in the US and southeast Asia, where Loveless alleged that child sex offences may have taken place.

Stretching to seven pages, the hand-written letter was delivered by post in January 2019 to the Met’s fixated threat assessment centre, a unit that normally keeps tabs on royal stalkers. Those familiar with the correspondence describe it as “rambling”, with potted biographies of the extended Markle family, including their perceived indiscretions. Loveless, who died in 2024, specifically alleges that Markle had sex with a child in the US and regularly travelled to the Philippines and Thailand because he claimed that “12-year-olds are legal there”.

The letter was assessed by royalty and specialist protection (RaSP) officers, and, according to historic Met logs, a decision was taken to pass it on to the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Kensington Palace. At the time, the Sussexes shared an office and many staff with William and Catherine, then styled the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. It is understood that Meghan, 45, was handed the letter by one of her royal bodyguards, who assured her: “Leave it with us, we’ll investigate it.”

The same RaSP officer is also said to have advised the duchess not to go public at a time when she was being criticised for cutting ties with her father without any explanation. Her father did not attend the Sussexes’ wedding in 2018. On Saturday night the Met, which did not investigate any of the allegations against Thomas Markle because they took place overseas, was still trying to identify and track down the officer.

Despite the seriousness of the claims — and the possible reputational risk they could pose to the royal family — several key players at Kensington Palace have indicated that they were kept out of the loop. They include Samantha Cohen, a former aide to Queen Elizabeth II who was Meghan and Harry’s private secretary at the time.

Jason Knauf, who was joint communications secretary to the Sussexes and Cambridges, is also thought to have been unaware of the Loveless letter; as was Simon Case, William and Catherine’s private secretary, who later served as cabinet secretary to four prime ministers. One source said of Meghan and Harry: “They were very private and tended not to share stuff with others.”

Aides to Charles, then Prince of Wales, are also thought to have been kept in the dark about the allegations against Meghan’s father. Had they been aware, it is likely that they would have warned the media to be cautious about reporting around her father.

Met chiefs including Cressida Dick, then commissioner, and Neil Basu, then assistant commissioner for specialist operations, who oversaw royal protection, were not informed about Loveless’s letter. Had they known about the allegations, it is very possible that they would have instructed officers to inform their counterparts at the FBI and police in Thailand and the Philippines. The Met’s failure to alert other law enforcement agencies is being investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct. However, it appears that RaSP officers who assessed the 2019 letter failed to understand the gravity and broader significance of the claims against Markle, and chose not to refer it up the chain of command.

“These people are not detectives and have a tendency to be quite linear in their thinking,” said a policing source. “RaSP would only have been interested in what it meant for the security of the Duke and Duchess [of Sussex]. Having assessed that, they should have thought about the wider consequences.”

[From The Times]

To me, this blatant ass-covering from the police falls apart when you consider the fact that Roslyn Loveless probably had no idea about how the Metropolitan Police is structured, nor would she direct her letter to one relevant department. Meaning, she sent a letter to Scotland Yard and hoped it would find the relevant people. Meaning, her letter probably passed through many hands before it even got to Meghan’s royal protection officer, and if the cops found it credible enough to pass along to the Sussexes, that means the cops found it credible enough to pass it along through their whole chain of command.

The ass-covering from Knauf, Cohen and Case is incredible too – “They were very private and tended not to share stuff with others.” But… but… I thought Meghan was terrorizing Kensington Palace staff 24-7? I thought she was marching through the offices every day, making staffers sob on a regular basis by looking at them? And now the story is that Meghan was super-discreet, if not completely secretive… and yet she also wanted to go public with the accusations in the letter? Make it make sense from Kensington Palace’s perspective. Granted, KP has always been a clownshow full of incompetent Tory hacks, but I can’t believe it took them nine days to come up with this!! “We didn’t know, Meghan kept to herself, the letter appeared as if by magic and no one read it but Meghan and one of her bodyguards!” GMAFB.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.