It’s hard to know.

Everyone involved has been sworn to secrecy or something.

But not Thomas Markle, Jr.—not yet.

And Thomas knows that the Markle clan is not “royal,” not so photogenic, and can be a bit outspoken and eccentric at times, but…so what?

Just like Prince Harry, all the Markle men (and the honorary Markle men, like Trevor Engelson) are all gingers. Just like a Sherlock Holmes story—“The Red-Headed League.”

Wow! Is that so British or what?

So now, you know a secret—Meghan’s got a type.  She likes red-headed guys. It’s a different theme we’ll return to, later.  That’s one big reason she’s attracted to Prince Harry.  He’s got the same face contours and hair coloring as her father.  That’s why Meghan was attracted to Trevor.  But of course, Meghan didn’t stay with Trevor.  Will it be enough that Prince Harry is Meghan’s type?  I mean, it helps that he’s a prince and all. But Trevor was a producer, and that’s like Hollywood royalty, only probably a bit more fun.

Meanwhile, Thomas, Jr. asks a very good question: “Why can’t we be treated like the Middletons?”

Kate Middleton, commoner wife of Prince Harry’s older brother, Prince William, has a few things in common with Meghan. Apart from looking almost identical—long, flat-ironed dark-dyed hair, subtly-sculpted plastic surgery noses, emaciated torsos, million-dollar wardrobes-- Kate and Meghan also have in common the phenomenon of the dodgy relatives.

But how dodgy are Meghan’s dodgy relatives?  Her father protested being categorized that way, and he defended himself in the right.  Her Uncle Michael, a retired U.S. State Department employee who pulled strings to get Meghan her six-week internship at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina, has lived an exemplary life. Her other Markle uncle, Frederick, is a reclusive bishop in the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church.

Tom had some emotional trouble and did something a little bit gangsta which involved pulling out a gun and menacing his fiancé, for which he was quickly arrested.  And then, he drank a bit too much, then scuffled and yelled at his fiancé, for which he was quickly arrested. And then his fiancé drank a bit too much, and then scuffled and yelled at him back, for which she was quickly arrested.

Then, there’s the nephew out in Oregon who’s a professional marijuana grower, and who named a new pot variety “Markle’s Sparkle” after the lovely Meghan in honor of her wedding with Harry.  In Oregon, pot is legal, so there’s nothing illicit about being a cannabis tycoon, whereas Uncle Gaz’s chopping up cocaine in his kitchen and sending hookers out around the world, well, that’s not legal stuff.

So, are the Markles any worse than the Middletons?

So far, so…not terrible, really.

But still, despite being…not so terrible, really, Meghan dissed everyone in her family and failed not only failed to invite them to her wedding (except her mother, Doria), but also “ghosted” them—which is far more serious than simply giving someone the silent treatment.

No telephone. No texts. No emails. No communication.

Why has Meghan ghosted everyone in her family, and also most of her pre-Prince Harry friends?

Thomas rightly observed that Kate Middleton never openly cut her family off when her blood turned blue.

Not even her dodgy brother, James.

James Middleton, who has failed at every business enterprise he’s undertaken, failed to finish university, failed to make a go of his cake baking business, failed to make a go of his marshmallow painting business, and failed to keep up appearances with his blonde bombshell girlfriend, got everyone’s attention early on by dressing up in his sister’s dresses.  Really!  Now, you may say, “Oh, well, that’s just such an English thing.  It means nothing.”

But the photos that appeared on the internet of James in polka dot ecstacy, and people began to wonder.  Was James gay?  Was he transsexual? Was he confused?  Did it have anything to do with cake-baking and marshmallow-painting?

Not that there's a thing wrong with any of that.  And there are plenty of charities in the U.K. addressing just those issues.

Then, more photos appeared of James dressing up in dresses with boys…who were…friends.  And then, other photos appeared of James being buck nekkid.

Carole, the Middleton matriarch, responded by forcing James to grow a beard that made him look like a double for the unlucky Tsar Nicholas Romanov, and made his start dating blondes.  As in women.

While James’s blondes haven’t lasted, Tsar Nicholas’s beard is still with him.

Meanwhile, Carole was seen at Wimbledon guzzling wine from a small bottle she’d hidden inside her purse.

And while Meghan’s sister, Samantha, gets bashed for threatening to write a tell-all book and negotiating for a reality show, the Middletons have ostensibly made their fortune by selling tacky party tat. Since marrying into royalty, they’ve now augmented their party tat fortune by exploiting royal events such as Prince George’s and Princess Charlotte’s baptisms, the Queen’s own jubilee celebrations, and even Meghan’s new marriage.  It’s a breathtakingly bold exploitation of royal names and royal connections.

But the royals do not complain, and the Middletons do not explain.  At least, not in public.

And then, there’s Pippa.  Pippa, Kate’s younger sister, was accused of riding on Kate’s royal credentials when she landed a deal for a million dollars to write a cookbook, or is it a party book?  Anyway, it was filled with ridiculous advice and culinary pointers like, how to put a tea bag into a cup and pour hot water of it, and how to make ice. People laughed their heads off, Pippa’s book, “Celebrate,” ended up in the dollar bin at Walmart, and that was that until Pippa went to Paris, partied with millionaires and dwarves dressed up like the unlucky Marie Antoinette and French King Louis XVI in powdered wigs and silk waistcoats, and then they all got into a convertible car, drove down the Champs Elysees, and pointed a gun at other drivers for fun.

Even though the gun was said to be fake, it was still a gun and…well, you’d think it would be the kind of thing that the Markles might be accused of doing, since guns are so “American” and all.

Anyway, Pippa got defensive and started prancing around town and, oddly, there always seemed to be a cameraman photographing her shopping, snapping her eating, filming her riding her bike, showing off her new handbags and her ropey espadrilles and various dresses and hats—always with the price tags available, so that we could all look just like Pippa.  Assuming we wanted that.

Then, Pippa married James Matthews, son of David Matthews, who is presently accused of raping an underage girl at his lavish St. Bart’s hotel, and then again in Paris.  We were all prepared to just ignore it as the jealous musings of someone who envied Pippa and her rellies, but then, another young woman came forward and informed police that she, too, had been raped by Pippa’s father-in-law.

I am pretty sure that nobody in the Markle clan has ever been accused of raping a juvenile.

Pippa’s brother-in-law, Spencer Matthews, is famous for being in a British reality television show, “Made in Chelsea.” He’s also famous for bragging about how he’s had sex with over a thousand women—something like that.  He recently got a model pregnant and married her at his parents’ Scottish estate, where the accused child rapist carries the landed title, Laird of Glen Afric.

There’s some chitter-chatter that, someday, Pippa may be able to finally be Lady Glen Afric, after her hubby’s folks have kicked the bucket.

But the most notorious of the Middleton dodgy rellies is Kate’s paternal uncle, Gary Goldsmith.  Just before Kate’s wedding to Prince William, a group of enterprising journalists headed to Spain’s decadent island of Ibiza, where Uncle Gaz (as we call him) has a palatial mansion with pool that he calls “Casa de Bang Bang.”  Although Gaz claims that “Bang Bang” refers to Ibiza’s lively, unique island music, in Ibiza lingo, Uncle Gaz’s house’s name means “House of Screwing.”

And reporters were especially interested because, prior to their engagement, Kate and Prince William had spent a vacation (or two or three) at Casa de Bang Bang with Uncle Gaz.

What had gone on there?

Reporters got a little taste of Uncle Gaz’s hospitality when Gaz invited them into his kitchen, where he was chopping up a huge mountain of white powder which was obviously cocaine.  While energetically cutting up the chunky stuff, Gaz offered to send the reporter a bunch of very beautiful hookers—and bragged that he could send these sex-girls to anyone, anywhere in the world because his business connections were so vast.  A bit later, over glasses of champers, Uncle Gaz identified himself as Kate Middleton’s uncle, agreed that he was “bloodline” to the throne now, and said that they would keep a suite of rooms for him at Kensington Palace.  Gaz called himself “The Duke of Sloth.”

It was pretty mind-boggling stuff!  And it was all on film!

And yet, Kate and Prince William’s wedding still went forward. And Uncle Gaz was invited, along with all of Carole Middleton’s other rellies.  The only really dodgy one Carole excluded was Katrina Darling, a professional stripper.  But Katrina was undeterred, posed for Playboy and picked up a handy sum!

Funny how the only Markle to ever show any skin in public has been Meghan Markle herself, especially when she simulated sex acts while acting in her television show, “Suits.”  Well, Doria showed a little bit of skin when she wore a bikini at Meghan’s first wedding in Ocho Rios.  Thomas Markle declared that he had been present at Meghan’s wedding to Trevor but had not been photographed “frolicking” on the beach because, then in his sixties, he was not a “frolicking” kind of guy.

But Uncle Gaz is much more a showman.  He showed up at Kate’s royal wedding in top hat and morning coat, with his fetching young daughter in tow.

He obviously received an invitation.

A little while later, Uncle Gaz married his fourth wife, who’d recently been convicted of embezzling from her employer.  But the couple endeavored to mix in with an upper-crust crowd to blend in with the new royal in-laws, and it seemed to be going smoothly until one night, Uncle Gaz took his wife home in a taxi and they had quite a spat in the cab about his cocaine use, and that escalated into a brawl on the sidewalk, and then Gaz slugged his missus unconscious and the cab driver took a photo with his phone and called police for backup.  Gaz tried to slither into his house carrying his moaning, face-whacked missus but then the police came, and they arrested Gaz and took him down to the pokey.

Gaz got a scolding from a judge who then cut him loose.  He was later seen staggering drunkenly around town, leaving a pub and peeing in the street, then stumbling into a McDonald’s restaurant—which proves that Meghan’s dad is not the only person now related to the royals by marriage who likes McDonald’s.

Well, now.

Thomas Markle, Jr. raises a good point.  What’s so bad about the Markles, compared to the Middletons?

Nothing, really—except that Thomas Middleton, Jr., his sister, Samantha Markle, his uncle, Michael Markle, and his dad, Thomas Middleton, Sr., spoke up when they realized that Meghan was publicly rejecting them.  Michael said Meghan’s “indifference” to the Markle family, who’d helped her often in the past, was “uncalled for.” Thomas, Jr. said Meghan was “acting phony” and had “forgotten her roots.”  This was toned down considerably from his earlier letter to Harry in which he’d called Harry’s wedding to Meghan “the biggest mistake in Royal Wedding history,” and said Meghan was “a below C average Hollywood actress” who allegedly wheedled years of financial support out of their father, then bankrupted him and left him to live in Mexican squalor.

Sister Samantha was a bit more sassy.  After criticizing Meghan for failing to explain that Samantha was disabled and used a wheelchair, she intoned: “Humanitarians do not ignore their fathers…Meg.” And Thomas, Sr., Meghan’s father, complained: “What riles me is Meghan’s sense of superiority.” Ominously, Thomas, Sr. said” “I won’t be silenced.”

Which was an eerie echo of Princess Diana, who decades earlier said during her infamous BBC Panorama interview: “I won’t go quietly.”

Speaking one’s mind to the monarchy?

That’s not the British thing to do—but it is very, very American.

And it was a quality that Princess Diana came to share. This quality is why we now know so very much about her, and about the great unhappiness of her life in the royal fishbowl.

Americans fought a revolution so that we could all stand up and speak our minds without fear.  The Founding Fathers debated making George Washington their king, and decided against it.  Nowadays, we can all make rude jokes like “George Washington slept here, and George Washington slept here.” Even in England, Meghan and Prince Harry’s sputtering outrage has a shrill, sissified quality to it.

And yet, the British and Americans are related in so many important ways.  In their haste to usher in some new kind of wondrous invigoration of the monarchy, perhaps Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are missing the bigger picture, and no few of the details.

Apart from exercising their freedom of speech—as natural to Americans as breathing, the only difference is that none of the Markle men have put on any of Meghan’s skimpy dresses, or danced around buck nekkid in their birthday suits and then grown beards in the style of Tsar Nicholas Romanov.

They aren’t in the cake baking business, and they don’t paint marshmallows for a living.

Looking at the big picture, the Markles are not at all so bad!

At the very least, a telephone call to “The Red-Headed League” is surely in order.

And an invitation to meet and rub elbows with the royals should also be forthcoming for the Markles, just as it was for Uncle Gaz.  Thomas Markle, Sr. won an Emmy, so that’s something to chit-chat about.  And the Queen is masterful at making small talk with anyone—even U.S. President Donald Trump, as Thomas, Sr. so bitterly pointed out.

Meeting and talking will make everyone look better when Trevor Engelson makes his blockbuster movie about “the real Meghan Markle.”  Working title? Call it “The Red-Headed League.”