Britain's monarchy maintained its silence yesterday, after Meghan and Prince Harry accused a family member of making a racist remark about their son and said she had been alienated to the point of contemplating suicide. 

Oprah Winfrey's tell-all TV interview with the couple has dragged the royals into the biggest crisis since the death of Harry's mother Diana in 1997, when the family, led by Queen Elizabeth, was widely criticised for being too slow to respond.

In the two-hour show, originally aired on CBS on Sunday evening, Harry also said that his father, heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, had let him down.

"Worst Royal Crisis in 85 Years," read the front page of the Daily Mirror newspaper, while the Daily Mail's cover asked "What Have They Done?". The Sun columnist Trevor Kavanagh questioned if the interview meant the end for the royals.

Elizabeth, who is 94 and has been on the throne for 69 years, wanted to take some time before the palace issued a response, a royal source said.

British PM Boris Johnson avoided questions about the crisis, though he serves, in theory, as a servant of the crown and Elizabeth II is head of the British state as well as 15 other realms including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

New Zealand's PM Jacinda Ardern said her nation was unlikely to stop having the queen as head of state soon.

Meanwhile, a YouGov opinion poll yesterday showed Britons are divided on how the royal family treated Prince Harry and Meghan according to age, with a majority of young people saying it was unfair and half of older people saying the opposite. Some 61% of 18-24s said they were treated unfairly, but support ebbed away as respondents aged and half of those over 65 said the couple were treated fairly. 

Meghan, whose mother is Black and father is white, said her son Archie, who turns two in May, had been denied the title of prince because there were concerns within the royal family "about how dark his skin might be when he's born".

She declined to say who had voiced such concerns, as did Harry.

Meghan's estranged father Thomas Markle, who she has not spoken to since her wedding, yesterday said he did not think the British royal family was racist, and hoped that an alleged remark from a family member about the darkness of the skin of Meghan's son was just a "dumb question".