(PA)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nIt was considered equally singular when, in the spring of 1936, as King Edward bought an American station wagon, a car almost unheard of in England. One afternoon, he suggested to Wallis that they drive to visit his brother, Bertie (then the Duke of York) and Bertie\u2019s wife, Elizabeth (the Queen Mother). <\/p>\n
Marion Crawford, the Scottish governess of the York\u2019s children \u2013 our late Queen Elizabeth and her sister, Princess Margaret \u2013 witnessed this visit to Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, where Prince Andrew now lives. Of Wallis, Crawford wrote with biting understatement: \u201cShe was a smart, attractive woman, already middle-aged, but with that immediate friendliness that American women have. She appeared to be entirely at her ease; if anything, rather too much so.\u201d <\/p>\n
Wallis later said: \u201cI left with the distinct impression that while the Duke of York was sold on the American station wagon, the duchess was not sold on David\u2019s other American interest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\nIt is almost impossible for an American to grasp how profoundly the British frown on their sunny commercialism, their gusty \u2018can-do\u2019 attitude and freedom of spirit<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
If Wallis and Meghan had been British, who knows how history might have played out? We only have to look at how Queen Camilla, also a divorcee and once reviled by the British public, has become a much-respected national treasure. Like Simpson, Camilla was also the mistress of a tenacious Prince of Wales who refused to give her up. Like Camilla, Wallis displayed iron-clad loyalty to her royal husband, yet their legacies could not be more different.<\/p>\n
George Bernard Shaw famously said, \u201cEngland and America are two countries separated by the same language.\u201d Given the experience of the last century, it seems unlikely that we will be speaking the same language any time soon. <\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>The royals on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during the late Queen\u2019s birthday celebrations (PA)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\u201cThere is reverse snobbery in the US against Brits like me\u201d, writes Flora Warshaw, who lives and works in New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the stereotype of American exclusion in English society still rings true, I will say the same goes for British exclusion on the other side of the pond. <\/p>\n
\u201cHaving lived in New York for over a year now \u2013 moving for graduate school and to work in the media \u2013 I am pretty settled. I possess not only a social security number, but American friends and an American boyfriend, much to my mother\u2019s chagrin. Yet while America doesn\u2019t grapple with the complex class system in the same way the UK does, there is still an air of superiority in their constant need for me to say \u2018water bottle\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe English snobbiness over an American accent makes sense: it\u2019s all we have to lord over them. So why, a year on, am I made to feel a constant sense of ostracism in a classless society that doesn\u2019t need the mocking upper hand like we do? <\/p>\n
\u201cOddly, Americans feel the need to justify to me the beauty of their monarch-free republic, coupled with bragging of their triumphant Declaration of Independence in 1776, because let\u2019s be honest, when tallying up who is the more successful counterpart in our special relationship, the Brits don\u2019t stand a chance, even if we do have the Beatles, Beckham, and better chocolate.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the average American, I am still the 24-year-old equivalent of Mary Poppins. Yet I find my Englishness diminishing by the day, either through subtle codeswitching demonstrated in elongating my R\u2019s, referring to it as a restroom \u2013 God forbid I say \u2018loo\u2019 \u2013 and biting my tongue when all I want to do is apologise. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I refuse to allow Americans to claim the moral superiority that they are above the social exclusion that the Brits pride themselves on. To mock a Brit in America is the cultural equivalent of a \u2018get out of jail free\u2019 card. While technically foreign, our Westernised nature leaves us exempt from real prejudice, so Americans can use this card to their full advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.independent.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the curtain comes down after 15 years of Downton mania with the release of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, there is a striking sense of end-of-an-era poignancy. The film, set in 1930, captures a fast-vanishing world before it dissolves into modern uncertainty. Yet, along with sepia-edged nostalgia for a bygone age of dignity and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2002875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2002874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Downton-snobbery-Why-Meghans-biggest-crime-was-always-going-to-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2002874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2002875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2002874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2002874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2002874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}