Meghan Markle unearths the specter of Lady Di at Buckingham Palace

London – For a whole generation of Britons Diana of Wales is little more than a photo, a pop icon or, if anything, the outgoing actress of a TV series. This generation is shocked today by the revelations of Meghan Markle, which nevertheless sound familiar to many.

In the turbulent recent history of the House of Windsors, few events have caused more reputation problems than the interview Lady Di gave to the BBC in 1995.

In it, he opened a channel to acknowledge that in his marriage “there were three people” (in reference to Camilla Parker Bowles) and to confess that he was self-injurious out of sheer despair.

First of all, if that conversation showed anything, it was the frost of Buckingham Palace, the impossibility of developing “normal” emotional relationships within it.

From this point of view, certain excerpts from Meghan’s words this Sunday on American television seem to be a copy of those uttered by Lady Di 26 years ago.

“I no longer wanted to live, and that was a very clear, real, constant thought that was frightening,” the Duchess of Sussex told an Oprah Winfrey who was watching her revelations with her mouth open.

“You’re in so much pain inside that you’re trying to hurt yourself on the outside, because you want help, but it’s the wrong help you’re asking for,” Diana admitted to journalist Martin Bashir in 1995.

Meghan: “I went to one of the highest ranking people to seek help. (But) I was told I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.”

Diana: “I was asking for help screaming, but it was giving the wrong signals, and people used my bulimia as an excuse: they decided this was my problem, that it was unstable.”

Lady Di, who would die less than two years later in an accident in Paris when she fled the paparazzi with her boyfriend Dodi at the Fayed, was protesting that the postpartum depression she suffered after giving birth to William allowed everyone place a “wonderful label” on it: that of unstable and unbalanced.

This perception, she said then, was shared by her husband, Prince Charles.

And this is where the Dukes of Sussex, Henry and Meghan, mark the true differentiating point between two tales that sometimes look like drops of water.

Because in the ordeal of the former American actress appears on this occasion a husband who, warned of so much suffering, manages to save his wife the fate of his mother.

“I think he saved us all. In the end, he made the decision to find a way out for us and for (his son) Archie,” Meghan pointed out, before turning to Enrique to say- to him, “You made a decision that certainly saved my life. And that of all of us.”

In case there is any doubt in this search for contrast, Enrique himself later admits to being very disappointed with his father “because he went through something similar.”

Few will now be surprised to find that Buckingham is an ice palace. Diana of Wales made it clear before she died, and not even those who had not been born then harbored many doubts.

Courtiers and the pro-Queen Elizabeth II press allege that Meghan Markle could not ignore the restrictions involved in entering the Signature (as she is known in the UK in the Royal House) when she decided to marry the prince.

And even less so with the precedent set by Diana, who, all things considered, was far more popular and beloved than Meghan.

But the reality is that the palace is once again facing an earthquake, in conditions perhaps more precarious than in 1995.

Prince Philip, the queen’s husband and her great emotional pillar, is hospitalized and about to turn one hundred years old, Elizabeth II herself, despite enjoying good health, is now 94 years old, and her son and heir, Charles , does not seem to have gained much popularity since his then wife shook the foundations of Buckingham.