It’s widely believed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have maintained friendships with the York princesses, Princess Eugenie and Beatrice. One could argue that Prince Harry and Eugenie have always been especially close friends, and Eugenie and Meghan reportedly get along pretty well. The Sussexes allowed Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank to sublet Frogmore Cottage back in the day, and I believe the Sussexes spent a week or so in Portugal with the Brooksbank family over the summer. Well, funny story? Apparently, Meghan gave Eugenie and Jack a copy of her children’s book, The Bench, and inscribed it to them personally. That copy is now for sale on eBay.
Meghan Markle was facing a new humiliation on Friday morning after a personally inscribed copy of her much mocked children’s book, The Bench, apparently abandoned by Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank, turned up for sale on eBay with a £19,999 ($26,400) price tag.
The seller is Drive Easy’s Signed Books, a London-based dealer in signed and inscribed copies. Buyers unwilling to front up the full amount are invited to spread the cost over 24 monthly payments of £943.29 via PayPal. Ten percent of the proceeds will go to a charity supporting disadvantaged children in education in Thailand. This has internet sleuths trying to figure out who might be trying to salve their conscience. The listing has now gone – potentially sold. Unsigned copies of the book can be bought online for around £2.
What makes this one special is the handwritten message inside. Dated 2021 and addressed to “Eug and Jack,” it salutes the bond between a father and his son, declares “I wrote this poem at Frogmore,” hopes that Eug will feel “the same love there with her guys,” and is signed off with Meghan’s looping signature.
The seller claims the book was a personal gift to the couple following the birth of their first child (August was born in February 2021), and describes it as a presentation copy that has been read but not heavily, with only minor scratches and creases. Sounds about right. The listing does not undersell the artefact, saying it is “an extraordinary, undeniable record of modern royal history,” of interest to collectors and museums alike.
Eugenie and Jack moved into Frogmore Cottage in November 2020 and left in 2022. So it seems likely this was a housewarming present from the absentee landlady.
The Bench, which, according to its carefully curated origin story, began as a Father’s Day poem for Harry and was published in June 2021, was panned when it came out. The Telegraph called it a “semi-literate vanity project.” The New York Times headline called its rhyme “tortured.” And the Irish Times went to town on the final line, in which “alone” is chopped down to “’lone” to make it fit. “The book ends with a word that isn’t a proper word,” its reviewer wrote, adding that this was fitting for something that wasn’t “a proper picture book either.” The Daily Mail reports that it sold just 3,212 copies in its first week in Britain.
The rumor mill has gone into overdrive. There are three explanations. The first, and to be fair probably the least likely, is that Eugenie decided to sell it herself. Even by the standards of the venal and grasping Yorks, that would be pretty shocking stuff.
The second is forgery. The inscription has not been independently verified, but it seems very unlikely. Why would a forger include the stuff about Frogmore? And the flourishes and the signature match handwritten notes Meghan has previously published
The third, and most likely, is that the book was simply left behind at Frogmore Cottage when Eugenie and Jack moved out, and was picked up by a staffer when the place was cleared. There is a long history of royal knickknacks finding their way to market.
This is embarrassing for all involved, right? It’s also sort of funny – this kind of sh-t happens in families all the time, regifting or selling someone’s gift. It’s the most “the royals are just like us” thing to happen in a minute. Meghan gave them a copy of The Bench and hoped they would enjoy it. Instead, Eugenie and Jack barely read it to their kids and (most likely) left it behind as they switched houses a few times in 2022-23. I agree that it sounds unlikely that Eugenie would sell it to a dealer or personally give it away. It was probably misplaced and Eugenie just forgot that the book even existed in the first place. Or it was stolen? Which is a solid possibility, in my opinion.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Eugenie’s Instagram and Archewell.
