After a bombshell interview with the Duchess and Duke of Sussex, watched by millions in America and throughout the Commonwealth, the question is this: is Meghan Markle the Little Mermaid or the second coming of Wallis Simpson?

The Duchess, who seems to get much of her knowledge of the world from television, may not have watched the episodes of The Crown that deal with Simpson, the American socialite and divorcee who won the heart of King Edward VIII, causing a constitutional crisis that led to his abdication. Simpson was a strong woman and Edward was putty in her hands and they went on to live a life of leisure as celebrities, shuttling around those places in the sun for shady characters and hanging out with pals such as British fascists Diana and Oswald Mosley.

As we discovered in the interview, Meghan sees herself as Princess Ariel, from the Disney version of The Little Mermaid, a discovery she made by chance, sitting in a Nottingham cottage, watching daytime TV, as you do when you are an oppressed princess. Suddenly, The Little Mermaid came on and Meghan was stunned to discover that fish-tailed Ariel married a prince and ‘because of that she loses her voice’.

The parallels were blinding. Meghan too had married a Prince and now she wasn’t able to speak out about all her suffering. Luckily, the movie has a happy ending. ‘In the end she gets her voice back’, just like Meghan who is now free to tell the world of all her woes.

What an inspiring parable for International Women’s Day, the date Meghan chose for her prime time special with Oprah Winfrey, that champion of Wokeness and Women of Colour or Woke WOC – even if you are a rich, famous, powerful princess you will still be oppressed.

Uncharitable monarchists claim that Meghan is more like Veruca Salt, the annoying brat in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who wants everything she sees and comes to an untimely end when a machine which monitors the quality of goose ova judges her a ‘bad egg’ and disposes of her down a garbage chute.

Wishful thinking for those who hope the Duchess of Woke might go back to sleep. Meghan feels that it is her sainted duty as a victim of white royal oppression to expose the terrible cruelty and the shocking discrimination she suffered at the hands of her regal in-laws

The egregious crimes include the fact that little Archie, her first-born, will not be allowed to become a prince. ‘It’s not their right to take it away’, she said piteously. It’s the sort of abuse that any parent, indeed any person who doesn’t have a heart of stone, can understand. Who has not felt stung when their child was denied the right to be royal?

But it was worse than just the removal of the sovereign right to be sovereign. Meghan said that Harry had told her that someone in the family had had a conversation with him about the possible darkness of their progeny. Magnanimously, Meghan didn’t reveal who had made the comments because ‘that would be very damaging to them’.

Those who observe that Meghan is about as dusky as Donald Trump are missing the point. As any student of the laws of Woke knows, racism is not about skin colour. The fact that in a photo with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, poor little commoner Archie looks almost albino is neither here nor there. Undoubtedly, he will suffer vicious discrimination as a Person of Colour with alabaster skin and ginger hair.

In keeping with the superior status of Woke WOC, Meghan did most of the talking but Harry, who is cruelly referred to by some heartless souls as The Prisoner or The Hostage, explained that growing up royal, he was ‘trapped’; he just didn’t know it until he met Meghan. His father and brother were also ‘trapped’ but they didn’t get to leave and for that he had compassion.

Trouble was brewing even before the royal nuptials had been celebrated, which Meghan explained were not a fairy-tale wedding but a spectacle she nobly endured for the sake of others.

The turning point was the tragedy of the flower-girl fitting for Princess Charlotte, the three-year old daughter of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. Up to now, the understanding was that it was Meghan who had made Kate cry. Meghan didn’t divulge the details and there is no evidence to back up the rumour that she is saving them for a later interview. She only revealed that there wasn’t a confrontation, but something Kate did or said or perhaps conveyed via telepathy made her cry and ‘really’ hurt her feelings.

Whatever the contretemps, Kate seems to have behaved with characteristic sweetness, bringing Meghan flowers and a note to heal the rift. As Meghan explained to Oprah, Kate was ‘upset about “something”, she owned it, she brought me flowers and brought a note apologising’. Meghan accepted the gesture of goodwill and graciousness in the only way possible – as an expression of guilt. The soul of discretion, she told Oprah that she ‘didn’t want to be disparaging to anyone’ since Kate had apologised and she had forgiven her. ‘She did what I would do if I hurt someone’, Meghan said modestly.

If truckloads of flowers have not headed to Buckingham Palace, it is only because Meghan has not hurt anyone’s feelings, perhaps ever, and certainly not those of the royal family. It was she who was the injured party, she who had felt like ending it all when the tabloids insisted on portraying her, despite all the evidence to the contrary, as a manipulative hypocrite who was as shallow as the puddle of water in which, like a latter-day Narcissus, she ceaselessly gazed at her rightfully royal reflection.

Long before Markle was a sparkle in her parents’ eyes, Noel Coward wrote a song about Louisa, a movie queen with all the sables, pearls and ex-husbands money could buy. As Coward warbled, ‘Louisa was terribly lonely, Louisa was tired of it all… she wrung her hands, And she beat her breast, Crying, “My, my, my, I’m so depressed”. Nobody knew the troubles she’d seen, Nobody knew, but you-know-who, The tribulations of a movie queen.’

Just a thought, but perhaps it could play in the soundtrack to what is bound to be a long-running, made-for-TV saga.