With one emoji, Meghan Markle is seen as endorsing Charles Spencer's critique of king

In the days after Earl Charles Spencer plunged the British monarchy into its biggest crisis in years by alleging in a forthcoming book that King Charles said bitter things about Princess Diana after her death, Meghan Markle chose an interesting way to promote the pantry items on sale through her lifestyle company, As Ever.

The American wife of Prince Harry, who is dealing with his fraught relationship with his father, shared an image of As Ever jams, honey and tea on Instagram. And the image came with a caption punctuated with an unusual emoji: the figure of a swan.

The name of Spencer’s book, is “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister.”

Just a coincidence? That’s what a representative for Meghan claimed to royal journalist Tom Sykes after he asked why the influencer posted a figure of a swan “in the days after Earl Spencer released a vitriolic attack on the royal family called ‘Swan Song.'”

The representative said the post “basically had nothing to do with Meghan, that it was the marketing team in California that put it in and we shouldn’t read to much into it.” Other sources close to the Duchess of Sussex similarly told Sykes, “Nothing to see here. Nothing to see at all.”

But Sykes went on his The Royalist YouTube channel to accuse Meghan’s team of trying to gaslight the public, and he said the timing of her emoji says quite a bit when the imagery of a swan “figures into the biggest royal story on the planet.”

“This is trolling — straightforward trolling,” Sykes said. “I’ve had commenters all over my Substack pointing out that Meghan has never used a swan emoji before. They read into it that Meghan is showing solidarity with Earl Spencer against the king. I mean, what else can you read into it?”

Sykes said that Meghan’s “emoji thing” is not normally something he would report on but he thinks it’s worth discussing as at least the Sussexes’ “subtle endorsement” of Spencer’s book — especially if it turns out that Harry privately endorsed the book or cooperated in its writing.

Sykes joins a number of other royal experts and people online who have begun to “connect the dots” between Harry and Meghan’s sudden return to the United Kingdom and the release of Spencer’s book. It was officially published Tuesday, with critics asking why Diana’s brother felt the need to revisit her 1997 death or to air his grievances against Charles three decades later. Similarly, experts have asked why the Sussexes abruptly moved back to the U.K. after six years in the United States.

Wherever people land on Spencer’s book or on the theory that he’s “colluding” with Harry and Meghan to undermine the king’s authority, royal biographer Andrew Lownie told the BBC that the palace is worried about the fallout from the book. He said, “I think this is a very damaging moment for the monarchy.”

Another royal expert, Richard Fitzwilliams, advanced the collusion theory, especially as the couple are pushing to have their costly British taxpayer-funded police security reinstated.

A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan has rejected these claims, according to the Daily Express. But Fitzwilliams said: “(Harry and Meghan) will be absolutely thrilled by the fact that this has gone viral, that the palace put out an angry statement denying that King Charles has said his ex-wife should be forgotten soon enough. In my opinion there was collusion between them (Harry and Meghan) and Earl Spencer because they’ve been close for a long time.”

During their U.K. visit in July, Harry and Meghan stayed at Althorp, Spencer’s country estate and Diana’s ancestral home. Meghan also publicized images of their children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, carrying bouquets of flowers to Diana’s grave at Althorp. Spencer confirmed to People magazine that he told both Prince Harry and Prince William about his book. “And I can say that Harry is completely fine about it,” Spencer said. “He said, I hope there’s nothing embarrassing about him in it. I said, ‘There isn’t.'”

Excerpts from “Swan Song” seized global headlines after they were published Thursday and Friday in the Daily Mail. In those excerpts, Diana’s younger brother said he had several tense conversations with then-Prince Charles in the days after her 1997 death in a Paris car crash.

In one conversation, Spencer alleged that a petulant Charles offered a “giddy” reaction to news of Diana’s death, as if he was relieved that his global superstar ex-wife would no longer be alive to take the spotlight from him or to overshadow his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. In another conversation, Charles allegedly told her brother, “Rest assured. We’ll forget her soon enough.”

In response to Spencer’s book, Buckingham Palace issued a rare rebuttal, “His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss.”

In the days since, Spencer’s claims have divided the public and even pro-monarchy royal experts. Daily Mail columnist Richard Kay, a close confident of Diana before she died, has confirmed that Spencer told him about a “furious row” he had with Charles as they were discussing his sister’s funeral arrangements. Spencer objected to Charles’ plans to have his sons, William, then 15, and Harry, then 12, walk behind the coffin.

But other experts have pointed to contradictory statements Spencer has made about Charles, such as when he told CNN’s Larry King in 1997 that Charles “was perfectly polite” to him at Diana’s funeral.

Meanwhile, Meghan and Harry’s return coincides with reports about their push for police security, which was taken away from them when they left royal duties and moved to the United States in 2020. Upon their return, Charles declared that his son and daughter-in-law are to be treated as “private citizens” and would not be returning to royal duties.

Sykes and other royal reporters have raised concerns that the Sussexes are looking to set up their own “rival court” — a quasi-royal center of power in England. News also broke Tuesday, confirming that Harry is “in talks” to work on a documentary for Netflix about the life of his mother, ahead of the 30th anniversary of her death, as The Telegraph reported.

In promoting his book, Spencer has echoed some of Harry and Meghan’s grievances about the lack of police security, their treatment by the U.K. media and the royal family’s alleged neglect of Harry’s emotional well-being after his mother’s death. Observers have seen Spencer’s sympathetic statements about Harry and Meghan as another sign of possible of cooperation between him and the couple.

On the security issue, Spencer told the BBC, “From a security aspect, as an uncle who’s seen his sister die in very, very preventable circumstances, I would veer towards protection.” In his book, Spencer also said he noticed a lack of affection for a grieving 12-year-old Harry, according to Victoria Ward, The Telegraph’s deputy royal editor. She reported on the Daily T podcast: “He said that perhaps if there had been a bit of nurture and a bit of care, a hand of care extended to Prince Harry at this time, things might have been different for him.”

Ward imagines that Harry and Meghan will “be pleased that he’s commenting on their security arrangements.” Ward also noted, “He hasn’t really had a bad word to say about the Sussexes, has he? He’s been quite positive.”