Flowerpot
Of course the woman that the OP overheard was using the term. "English Rose" as a synonym for White/Caucasian. She was implying that a Black/mixed race woman was not a fitting spouse for white/Caucasian Prince Harry. There is, unfortunately, a section of people in this country who are racist and who would genuinely agree with this view. Why do you find it so extraordinary that the OP ran into one of them?
You say that ^The speaker didn't obviously mean Caucasian, they obviously meant English Rose ... a specific look familiar with English Culture and add, to me, I know you desperately want to see racism everywhere you look.
It is not me desperately wanting to see racism everywhere - but, on the contrary, you trying, for some reason, to deny it when it's quite obviously there. The OP, who started this thread and who heard, not only the words spoken but also the tone in which they were spoken said the following:
saying that a couple don't look right because she is not an English Rose like Kate Middleton, is implying that they don't look right because she's not English or white.
That is the OP's own interpretation which was supported by almost every poster commenting on the thread apart from you and perhaps two others. As you are so fond of statistics, you may want to go through the thread and check this for yourself. Are you seriously saying that the OP and the vast majority on the thread are desperately trying to see racism where it doesn't exist and only you, the enlightened one, see "the truth"?
You say, of the speaker - If they meant Caucasian, they would have said white. Nonsense - very few people, no matter how strong their racist views, would actually say out loud, in a public place, Meghan and Harry don't look right together - she's not white like Kate Middleton. She would obviously cloak it in euphemism, like most racists have learned to do, in public, to avoid a possible adverse reaction.
The implication of this racist remark is that inter-racial marriage is undesirable and not "right". The regimes I quoted, including the apartheid regime in South Africa, also held this belief (amongst others) and I think it's salutary to remind ourselves that societies, founded on racism, actualIy have existed not that long ago. I very much doubt that reading this really "made you laugh out loud".