Buckingham Palace officials will meet with aides to Prince William this week for critical talks in how to deal with the fallout from accusations of racism after the publication of Omid Scobie‘s book Endgame.
The gathering of the two households will see them discuss all how to respond, with ‘time and care’ to be taken before any decisions are made, one source told the Sunday Telegraph.
All options are believed to be ‘on the table’, including legal action, after claims King Charles and the Princess of Wales remarked on the skin colour of Prince Archie, the son of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in the Dutch edition of the book.
Charles, who flew back to the UK after several days at he COP28 environment summit in Dubai last week, is said to be taking the furore surrounding the book ‘very seriously’.
It is reported that during the week Charles will discuss the situation with senior advisers, while also carrying out his duties with aides telling the Mirror it will be ‘business as usual’ with royals to be seen as ‘rising above’ the row.
King Charles and cheery Queen Camilla ignore Scobie race row fallout
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King Charles was pictured this morning heading to Sunday Church service at Sandringham
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Buckingham Palace officials are set to meet with aides of Prince William this week. Pictured: King Charles at the COP28 sumit in Dubai on Friday
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Sources have said it will be ‘business as usual’ for the Royal Family as discussions take place on how to respond to the race row claims. Pictured: The Prince and Princess of Wales arrive at the Royal Variety Show on Thursday
Scobie swears ‘on family’s life’ naming royals not publicity stunt
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Author of Endgame, Omid Scobie (pictured on Newsnight last week) has been accused of acting as a ‘mouthpiece’ for the Sussexes, an allegation he has denied, writing on X, formerly Twitter: ‘I’m not ‘Meg’s pal’
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A copy of Endgame which was released last week. In the book author Omid Scobie made a number of bombshell claims about the Royal Family, including that letters between Meghan Markle and King Charles named two people who allegedly remarked about the skin colour of her son Prince Archie
He is expected to remain in Sandringham today before returning to London for a series of official engagements this week, including a ceremony at Buckingham Palace and a charity carol concert at Westminster Abbey.
A source close to the Palace told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘Discussions [have been] had and we’ll continue those discussions this week, but not in a crisis talks manner…
‘Decisions [will be] made with care and time and professionalism rather than rushed over a weekend.’
MailOnline has contacted Buckingham Palace for comment.
Meanwhile, the Mail understands that Buckingham Palace is investigating who at their end could have seen the letters between the King and Meghan Markle in which the names were allegedly mentioned.
However, it is confident the leak has not come from within, believing only a ‘tiny handful’ of people have ever seen them.
Harry and Meghan, meanwhile, have not commented publicly on the scandal. Scobie has been accused of acting as a ‘mouthpiece’ for the Sussexes, an allegation he has denied, writing on X, formerly Twitter: ‘I’m not ‘Meg’s pal’.
Sources close to the Duchess of Sussex , who allegedly wrote down the names of the two family members in letters to King Charles, have insisted to that she ‘never intended for them to be publicly identified’.
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King Charles III is said to be taking the furore over Omid Scobie’s book Endgame ‘very seriously’
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Harry and Meghan (pictured in Dusseldorf in September) have not commented on the scandal publicly
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Sources close to the Duchess of Sussex (pictured with Harry in 2017) have insisted she ‘never intended’ for the alleged ‘royal racists’ to be identified
Moment Wills and Kate get standing ovation at Royal Variety Show
They insist that the contents of the letters were ‘not leaked to Mr Scobie by anyone in her camp’, the Telegraph reports.
But one source close to the Royal Family has now called on Harry and Meghan to speak out publicly on the issue.
The source told the paper: ‘For the couple that talked about ‘death by a thousand no comments’, the silence at this point is deafening.’
Another insider added that the decision not to respond was ‘interesting’ given the Sussexes’ previous complaints about not being supported against negative press stories.
Boris Johnson, writing in his regular Daily Mail column, has suggested that asking questions about a baby’s skin colour could not be construed as racist.
He said: ‘To ask such questions, in anticipation of a happy event, is simple human nature.
‘It is one of the greatest joys and mysteries of life that we have no real idea, in utero, what our children will look like.
‘That, I expect, was exactly the kind of ruminative debate that the so-called royal racist was having.’
Meanwhile, Sir Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, called it a ‘nonsense story’ and said the comments were ‘a mark of excitement, I suspect’.
The scandal – which Scobie has been forced to insist was not a publicity stunt – has kept Endgame in the headlines for more than a week as excerpts were published in the days before its release in a French magazine.
The most eye-grabbing extract serialised in Paris Match claimed that there was a second so-called ‘royal racist’ – after Harry and Meghan alluded to a member of the Royal Household expressing discomfort over Archie’s skin colour in 2021.
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The original ‘racism’ claim was made in the Sussexes’ infamous 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview (pictured)
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Dutch translators Saskia Peeters (left) and Nellie Keukelaar-van Rijsbergern (right) who worked on Omid Scobie’s controversial book have insisted the names of two royals at the centre of racism scandal were in the manuscript they were sent
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The inclusion of the names led to 5,000 copies of the book ¿ called ‘Final Battle’ (pictured) in Holland ¿ being withdrawn from sale on the bookshelves and pulped
King brushes off Omid Scobie race row: ‘I’m alright… just about’
They told Oprah Winfrey in their much vaunted interview a year after they quit royal duties that there had been conversations about ‘how dark’ Archie’s skin would be when he was born.
She did not name the member of the household, saying at the time: ‘I think that would be very damaging to them.’
The names did not appear in the English edition of the book when it was released on Tuesday. Scobie had written a paragraph in which he said he could not name them under UK law.
But the names appeared in the Dutch version of the book, prompting the publishers to pulp copies that were on sale.
The Dutch translators who worked on the volume maintain that the manuscript they were given featured both names verbatim.
Saskia Peeters, speaking to MailOnline, said this week: ‘The names of the royals were there in black and white. I did not add them. I just did what I was paid to do and that was translate the book from English into Dutch.’
The second translator, Nellie Keukelaar-van Rijsbergern, then told The Sun: ‘We are professionals and we’ve done this for years, both of us. It’s unfair.’
Newspapers in the UK avoided reporting the names after the allegations came to light after Endgame’s release on Tuesday, but Piers Morgan revealed them on his Uncensored show on Wednesday.
Morgan added, however, that he did not believe the allegations of ‘racist comments’.
He said: ‘Because I don’t believe any racist comments were ever made by any of the Royal Family, and until there is actual evidence of those comments being made, I will never believe it.’
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The King is said to be consulting senior advisers on the scandal next week, with all options reportedly on the table, including legal action
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It was Meghan who first alleged that family members raised ‘concerns’ about ‘how dark’ Archie would be
Debate on GMB: Should the royals respond to the race row allegations?
He then doubled down on his defence later in the week, saying on Thursday: ‘I took a view it was ridiculous that British people couldn’t be aware of this information. I also said when I named them that I didn’t believe a word of the racist allegations made against them.’
It comes as Scobie, appearing on BBC’s flagship Newsnight programme, said he was ‘hurt’ and ‘frustrated’ by the week’s events.
But he refused to apologise to the royals concerned, saying: ‘It’s not for me to apologise because I still want to know what’s happened.’
He has previously described it as a ‘translation error’ but says an ‘investigation’ has now been launched.
Although it was billed as a look ‘inside the royal family and the monarchy’s fight for survival’, Endgame’s relentlessly savage tone and attacks on the Princess of Wales has seen it roundly denounced and attracted a slew of brutal reviews.
The author first rose to worldwide fame with Finding Freedom, a book on ‘Megxit’ he authored with American journalist Carolyn Durand.
On Newsnight earlier this week Scobie took the extraordinary step on swearing on ‘my family’s life’ that the leaking of the names was not a ‘stunt’ to shift more books.
He said he was ‘hurt’ by the suggestion and dismissed it as a conspiracy theory by people who want to believe he is in ‘cahoots’ with the Duchess of Sussex.
He claimed: ‘I am as frustrated as everyone else. The book I wrote, the book I edited, the book I signed off on, did not have names in it.’
Newsnight interviewer Victoria Derbyshire told Scobie: ‘In some version you must have written the names in and the wrong version has potentially gone to the people in charge of the rights around the world, I suppose.’ Scobie did not reply to this point.
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