If you were a dutiful royalist who made your living embiggening the left-behind royals, you’d think that the biggest story of the week would have been the Princess of Wales’s mysterious absence from the diplomatic reception on Tuesday night. You would think that all of the royal reporters would be eager to complain and explain about how dire it is that Kate couldn’t wear a tiara and make small talk with diplomats. Instead, there’s been almost complete silence. And now this: Richard Eden’s latest column in the Mail is all about how Queen Elizabeth II secretly hated Meghan Markle. In this piece, Eden selectively regurgitates a half-dozen old stories about sh-t that went down in 2018. Some highlights:
Meghan spent Christmas 2017 with the Windsors: While other women who had married into the Windsors, such as Kate Middleton and Sophie Rhys-Jones, had to wait until after their weddings to be invited to spend Christmas at Sandringham, Meghan was allowed to join Harry in 2017, five months before the big day. It was an unprecedented and highly personal gesture by the Queen. Courtiers say the Queen believed that Meghan – a divorced, mixed-race American actress – would be a breath of fresh air and a great asset to the Monarchy.
Fast-tracking Meghan: The Queen fast-tracked her entry into the Royal Family, inviting Meghan to join her at a service to mark Commonwealth Day – her first official engagement with the Queen – two months before the wedding. It was another clear indication that Her Majesty valued Meghan and wanted her to be seen as a part of the family without delay.
Meghan’s wedding behavior! However, as the couple prepared for their wedding, the Queen began having concerns about Meghan’s behaviour and approach. First, she was said to be surprised that the new arrival rejected her suggestion that Prince Edward’s wife, Sophie, offer her guidance on joining ‘The Firm’. Her Majesty was also taken aback at the divorcee’s choice of a white bridal gown for what was her second wedding – but it was Meghan’s attitude towards her headwear that gave the Queen more serious cause for concern. She had offered Meghan access to her collection of tiaras and, during what Harry later described as an ‘extraordinary morning’, allowed her to try them on in front of her, her devoted dresser Angela Kelly and a royal jewellery expert in her private dressing room.
Angela Kelly is still trying to cause drama: Something later went badly wrong, however, when Meghan tried to arrange a fitting with Kelly, who, it seems, did not like the manner in which she was being treated by the bride and groom. Perhaps accustomed to ordering around underlings on a television shoot, Meghan may not have been used to dealing with someone such as Kelly, who – although a servant – was also a confidante and friend of the Queen.
Choice of bride: Despite all the pre-wedding strains, and perhaps a growing apprehensiveness about Harry’s choice of bride, the Queen made sure that Meghan felt welcome in the royal fold. She gave her the Duchess of Sussex title, and invited her granddaughter-in-law to accompany her on a solo visit to Chester just weeks after the nuptials, prompting Meghan to tell Oprah Winfrey in 2021: ‘The Queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me.’
Meghan threw it all back in the queen’s face! How did Meghan repay that generosity and kindness? By announcing, via a statement on the Sussexes’ Instagram page in January 2020, that they would be stepping back as senior working royals. Meghan then attacked the Royal Family in the most damaging way in that Oprah interview and later, in one of the most cringeworthy moments in her and Harry’s Netlfix ‘docu-series’, appeared to mock the deep curtsy that she had performed in front of the Queen at their first meeting.
Meghan wanted to be treated poorly! I have spoken to staff who worked at the Palace when the Sussexes were working royals, and some of them have told me that they formed the impression from the start that Meghan may not have wanted to make a success of her life in Britain. She appeared to be actively seeking reasons to be unhappy or resentful, and encouraged Harry’s long-standing bitterness at being the ‘spare’ and not the heir, the courtiers claim.
This whole storyline of “it was all in Meghan’s head, she was looking for a reason to get mad and quit” has been around for a few years. I remember someone – maybe Robert Lacey – throwing the theory out there. It feels like that comes straight from Prince William and his Kensington Palace courtiers, all of whom are trying desperately to deflect blame and avoid the very real accusations of racism and violence. As for the larger narrative that QEII was first welcoming and then suspicious of Meghan… they’re rewriting the history. QEII did like Meghan. Her courtiers did NOT. Charles’s courtiers did NOT. William’s courtiers did NOT. There was a widespread conspiracy across multiple households to push out Meghan or cause a divorce.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.