Now that King Charles and Catherine, the Princess of Wales have been widely identified as the names in the race row mistakenly included in the Dutch edition of Omid Scobie’s Endgame book, how can the Royal Family respond?
It is not helped by the Dutch publisher still not explaining how it happened – on Friday now saying it would not go further than previous, not very enlightening, comments about an “error”. Is that the shadow of legal concerns?
Prince Harry and Meghan, who have stayed away from any association with the book, have yet to give their views on the trustworthiness of the allegations, stemming from their Oprah Winfrey interview in 2021.
But it is understood that they are strongly rejecting any suggestion that they or their team provided Scobie with the private letters supposedly identifying the two members of the Royal Family.
In terms of a response from Buckingham Palace, “all options are open”, was the message on Friday. That does not rule out legal action, but the spread of the story is being driven as much by social media as by mainstream news organisations, which initially did not name names.
And how could you publicly respond to a book already pulped as a mistake?
What has made the reverberations so far-reaching is because it is over one of the most sensitive possible subjects for the royals – about race and possible perceptions of racism.
