Speaker 1: Calorogus Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Palace Intrigue, am
Speaker 1: your host Mark Francis. It turns out Megan Michael might
Speaker 1: just be tuning in to what the Internet has to
Speaker 1: say about her and sending jam or at least something
Speaker 1: that is legally fruit spread. In response, podcaster Amanda Hirsch,
Speaker 1: host of the popular Not Skinny But Not Fat Show,
Speaker 1: revealed that she received a handwritten letter from the Duchess
Speaker 1: of Sussex herself after expressing concern about Meghan's Netflix series
Speaker 1: With Love Meghan back in January, Hirsch had said she
Speaker 1: was scared for Meghan of the show's potential reception. Nothing nasty,
Speaker 1: just a mix of cringe and compassion. I was making
Speaker 1: cringing faces at the trailer, she admitted, but I'm genuinely
Speaker 1: scared she'll be ripped to shreds and to Meghan stage
Speaker 1: left with a monogramm M and a pen March, Amanda
Speaker 1: received a note written in Meghan's famously legant calligraphy that read,
Speaker 1: Dear Amanda, I heard you, but feeling scared, don't be
Speaker 1: This is the fun part. Let's enjoy it. Hersh said
Speaker 1: she had to read it twice first thought, oh my god,
Speaker 1: her second weight. Did I just get a handwritten life
Speaker 1: advice from Meghan Mankle And that wasn't all After signing
Speaker 1: with WMME, the same powerhouse agency that reps Meghan, Amana
Speaker 1: says she got another surprise just two days later, a
Speaker 1: care package of jam and t straight from the Duchess.
Speaker 1: Amanda tells page six she believes Meghan's gesture was sincere.
Speaker 1: I think it was genuine from her. I think she
Speaker 1: was like, don't be scared, Amanda. She explained friends that
Speaker 1: Meghan reportedly confirmed the note was the Duchess's idea and
Speaker 1: that Meghan had told her team we should start sending notes.
Speaker 1: She's got good press out of it. Hirsh said. People
Speaker 1: thought it was snarky, funny, that she has a sense
Speaker 1: of humor. She gets it. She's tuned in her advice
Speaker 1: to Meghan keep it casual. Meghan recently spoke candidly about
Speaker 1: her marriage to Prince Harry, describing the couple of being
Speaker 1: in their honeymoon period just weeks before their seventh wedding anniversary.
Speaker 1: On May nineteenth, on the Jamie Kern Lema Show, Meghan
Speaker 1: revealed h which is secret cove Harry. That man loves
Speaker 1: me so much, and you know what we've built. We
Speaker 1: have built a beautiful life and we have two healthy,
Speaker 1: beautiful children. I always think about it when you get
Speaker 1: to the end of Super Mario Brothers, the final final level,
Speaker 1: and what's the goal. It's to slay the dragons, to
Speaker 1: save the princess. It's my husband. He is just out
Speaker 1: there and constantly doing whatever we can to make sure
Speaker 1: our family is safe, protected, that we are uplifted, and
Speaker 1: still make time for date nights. However, a source told
Speaker 1: Okay magazine that some of Megan's remarks surprised listeners. Megan
Speaker 1: wants everyone to move on from the talk of divorce,
Speaker 1: but some of what she said wasn't particularly relatable, and
Speaker 1: that's probably why a lot of people were shocked. She
Speaker 1: and Harry love each other and would love to put
Speaker 1: an end to the speculation once and for all, because
Speaker 1: it's hurtful and they've been through so much together. Meghan
Speaker 1: wants to tell everyone how close they are, and she
Speaker 1: speaks passionately because because that's her personality, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: always land the way she wants it to. Harry is
Speaker 1: dealing with quite a few difficult things, so hearing her
Speaker 1: say they're in a honeymoon period was quite surprising. Megan's
Speaker 1: words could well have the opposite effect of what she wanted.
Speaker 1: Some of it seemed pretty over the top, but other
Speaker 1: parts came across as quite flippant, especially her comparisons with
Speaker 1: a Super Mario game. But she's a very positive person
Speaker 1: and understandably doesn't like the negative rumors. In the same interview,
Speaker 1: Meghan spoke about her own sense of self and personal
Speaker 1: growth over the past year. I know that I'm a
Speaker 1: great friend, and I know that the kind of mum
Speaker 1: I am, and I know the kind of human being
Speaker 1: I am, and I know how I show up. And
Speaker 1: I love being able to be that person with the
Speaker 1: people that I love. There have been so many major
Speaker 1: storylines lately that we didn't get to share this gem
Speaker 1: about Meghan from Claire Cohen in Vogue. It's like something
Speaker 1: out of one of my nightmares. An inbox over which
Speaker 1: you have no control and to which you have no access,
Speaker 1: steadily filling up with emails that you can't read, file
Speaker 1: or delete screen for eternity. So Sparrah thought for Prince
Speaker 1: Archie aged five and Princess Little three in a podcast
Speaker 1: interview with her friend, beauty entrepreneur Jamie Kerne Lima, Meghan
Speaker 1: explained that she is putting together a time capsule for
Speaker 1: her children with Prince Harry, sending photographs and anecdotes daily
Speaker 1: to email addresses that she's created on their behalf so
Speaker 1: that they may enjoy them later on. They won't be
Speaker 1: able to open the inboxes until they're sixteen or even eighteen,
Speaker 1: hopefully along with the trust fund, or, as Meghan put it,
Speaker 1: here's everything, every moment that I wanted to tell you
Speaker 1: how much I love you and like how proud I
Speaker 1: am of you. She emails them most nights before bed,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't have to be a heavy lift, which
Speaker 1: former members of her staff, who claimed in The Hollywood
Speaker 1: Reporter that Megan would fire off regular five am emails
Speaker 1: might find all two familiar. Aside from how overwhelmed I
Speaker 1: now feel on behalf of two children under six, I
Speaker 1: think of the heavy lifting they're going to have to
Speaker 1: do reading all whose emails as teenagers when they'd rather
Speaker 1: be up with their friends. Meghan's Letters project says so
Speaker 1: much about millennial parenting. Turns out it's not all that
Speaker 1: different whether you're in Montecito or Mile End. I thought
Speaker 1: it was such a great time capsule to create for
Speaker 1: them because I used to have scrap books and photo albums.
Speaker 1: That we're past that generation now, the Dutchess continued on
Speaker 1: the podcast. There's that nostalgia again, trapping us in a
Speaker 1: parenting cycle of trying to give out digital kids and
Speaker 1: analog experience. Except there's a huge difference between sticking a
Speaker 1: few pictures into a notebook and waking up on your
Speaker 1: sixteenth birthday to your mum giving you somewhere north of
Speaker 1: four thousand emails to read. At least they won't have
Speaker 1: to reply to them all. I suppose more pounds in
Speaker 1: just a moment. A newly published study has cast fresh
Speaker 1: light on one of history's most infamous royal lineages, suggesting
Speaker 1: that the distinctive facial feature known as the Hasburg jaw
Speaker 1: was in fact a product of extensive inbreeding. The Hasburgs,
Speaker 1: who once ruled over the vast stretches of Europe, including
Speaker 1: the Spanish and Austrian empires, have long been recognized for
Speaker 1: their unusual jaw lines, most notably seen in Huls, the
Speaker 1: second of Spain, whose protruding lower jaw became a symbol
Speaker 1: of dynastic decline. Now, researchers have examined sixty six historical
Speaker 1: portraits of the Habsburgs, impaired their visual analysis with genealogical
Speaker 1: data to assess whether these facial anomalies were a direct
Speaker 1: result of close familial into marriage. The conclusion there is
Speaker 1: indeed a statistically significant link between the degree of inbreeding
Speaker 1: and the severity of mandibular prognathicism. The jutting lower jaw
Speaker 1: that came to define the dynasty. Charles the Second, the
Speaker 1: last of the Spanish Hasburg monarchs, was the product of
Speaker 1: a union between his father and his father's niece. Geneticists
Speaker 1: say his genome likely resembled that of a child born
Speaker 1: to first order relatives, with medical consequences to match. His
Speaker 1: ill health and infertility ultimately brought the Habsburg dynasty in
Speaker 1: Spain to an end. The study, led by Professor Roman Villis,
Speaker 1: analyzed eleven traits of the lower jaw and seven indicators
Speaker 1: of maximiary deficiency, such as an underdeveloped upper jaw that
Speaker 1: creates a pronounced overbite. Of particular interest were individuals such
Speaker 1: as Naximinion, the first Margaret of Austria, childs first, Phillip
Speaker 1: the Fourth and Charles Second, all of whom exhibited significant
Speaker 1: craniofacial irregularities. Mary of Burgundy, who entered the family by
Speaker 1: marriage in fourteen seventy seven, displayed the fewest science of
Speaker 1: these deformities, providing a useful control for the research team. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Philip the Fourth, who ruled Spain and Portugal in the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century, was found to possess the most pronounced features.
Speaker 1: The researchers mapped a family tree spanning twenty generations and
Speaker 1: over six thousand individuals, highlighting the sheer extent of consanguinity
Speaker 1: within the Habsburg bloodline. Across this sprawling genealogy, they found
Speaker 1: a clear positive relationship between the inbreeding and the appearance
Speaker 1: of the Habsburg jaw. Professor Villis explained, notably, the study
Speaker 1: was too explored the broader implications of inbreeding. While recessive
Speaker 1: genes often lied dormant in the general population, they can
Speaker 1: manifest in offspring when both parents carry matching copies, a
Speaker 1: risk dramatically heightened when those parents are closely related. This
Speaker 1: genetic mirroring, known as homozygosity, increases the likelihood of inherited
Speaker 1: diseases and physical abnormalities. Such patterns are not limited to
Speaker 1: the Habsburgs. The British royal family, too, has experienced the
Speaker 1: perilous consequences of intermarriage, with hemophilia, often dubbed the Royal disease,
Speaker 1: traced back to Queen Victoria and spread throughout various European
Speaker 1: royal houses. While the research has acknowledge that some degree
Speaker 1: of uncertainty remains, particularly regarding the possibility of random genetic drift,
Speaker 1: they maintain that the inbreeding hypothesis is by far the
Speaker 1: most convincing explanation for the recurring facial structure. In an
Speaker 1: interview accompanying the findings, Professor Villa's remarks that the Habsburg
Speaker 1: dynasty offered a rare opportunity to study the long term
Speaker 1: genetic effects of intermarriage with a closed population, describing the
Speaker 1: family perhaps with more candor than they themselves would have liked,
Speaker 1: as a human laboratory. Though they once ruled with authority
Speaker 1: over much of Europe, the enduring legacy of the Habsburgs
Speaker 1: may lie less in their imperial might than in their
Speaker 1: cautionary tale written into their very bones. And there you
Speaker 1: have it should like to email us addresses the Palace
Speaker 1: intriy apt gmail dot com. Please follow us Spotify, Apple
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Speaker 1: nice review. If you're enjoying the show, I'm Mark Francis
Speaker 1: My thanks to John mcdermber. This is Palace Intrigue and
Speaker 1: good terms.