Unsurprisingly, the Mail’s Richard Eden devoted his weekly column to the Thomas Markle situation, or rather, the situation around Roslyn Loveless’s letter to the Met Police regarding her child-abuser ex-husband. Surprisingly, Eden doesn’t seem to be toeing the palace line, possibly because it doesn’t look like the palace actually *has* a line. From the outside looking in, it appears as if the Windsors simply want to distance themselves entirely from the Markle family saga, all while pretending they never used Thomas to bully and abuse Meghan. Eden picks up on the line of questioning asked by other Mail columnists: was the royal household informed about the Loveless letter and when? Interestingly, Eden’s sources posit that of course the palace knew.

The sordid allegations against Thomas Markle are a tragedy for his three children, including the Duchess of Sussex. It is also a controversy that threatens to spread to the Royal Family. I hear there is growing concern at Buckingham Palace about what will emerge from the Metropolitan Police’s review into its handling of a letter it received in January 2019 that contained serious claims against Mr Markle.

The letter was written by Mr Markle’s first wife, Roslyn Loveless, and accused him of being a [PDFile] – which Mr Markle denies. Scotland Yard gave a copy of the letter to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ‘for their awareness’. Meghan says she was given ‘assurances’ at the time that the revolting allegations were being investigated. However, the Met admits that it failed to share the claims with other global law-enforcement agencies. Mr Markle, an American citizen, was living in Mexico in 2019.

The police force is reported to have misplaced the letter and had to ask Meghan for a copy. She had kept the letter and was able to share it with them. Its review now aims to discover why it failed to pass on serious claims of illegal behaviour to authorities in countries overseas who may have been able to prevent more children being abused.

A royal source tells me it’s ‘unthinkable’ that the Royal Household was not told about the letter.

‘Harry and Meghan would not have received a copy of the letter in isolation,’ the source says. ‘It was the police’s duty to make the Palace aware of the claims, and they will have done so.’

The review will try to establish who made the decision to take no further action about the claims or keep the letter. Certainly, both the police and Palace officials will have been acutely aware of a desire to avoid a scandal involving Meghan’s father just eight months after the royal wedding. It’s easy to forget now, after all the acrimony caused by Harry and Meghan’s attacks on the Royal Family, that they were once warmly embraced by the British public.

The month the Met received the letter was the one in which Queen Elizabeth handed Meghan two of her royal patronages, of the National Theatre and the Association of Commonwealth Universities. Meghan was also announced, amid great fanfare, as the patron of two charities, Smart Works and Mayhew. The last thing that the Palace would have wanted was a seedy scandal involving allegations concerning the new duchess’s father and under-age girls. It may have been convenient for both the police and the Palace to ‘bury’ the letter and take no action.

Meghan’s subsequent unhappiness in the Royal Family could well have been worsened by the failure of anyone in authority to act over the claims. But how strange of Meghan and Harry to go on to blame the popular Press for her rift with her father when it now seems she cut ties because of the claims in the letter.

Buckingham Palace has so far refused to comment on the scandal, with a spokesman saying it’s a matter for the Markle family. That is no good. It needs to confirm whether it was told about the letter in 2019 and what it did about the claims. It would be deeply damaging for the police and the Palace if they gave higher priority to avoiding a scandal than protecting children at risk of abuse.

[From The Daily Mail]

“How strange of Meghan and Harry to go on to blame the popular Press for her rift with her father when it now seems she cut ties because of the claims in the letter…” What are we doing? Going back and accusing Meghan of lying about how the British media manipulated Thomas Markle is never going to end well for the British media. Meghan was clearly upset about both issues, but she could only publicly discuss one. And Meghan cut her father off before January 2019 – that’s the whole reason she sent him a letter in 2018, a letter which he later sold to the Daily Mail. She was upset that British media people were “running” her problematic, disturbed, abusive father in a larger operation to destroy her. Finding out that her dad also abused children just added to an already horrifying situation.

As for the argument which Eden seems to be making, I think this will soon become the palace line: yes, we covered up the accusations against Thomas Markle, but we did so to PROTECT Meghan. That excuse will fall apart like a cheap suit.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.