Would you believe that there’s a brand new book about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their brief time as a married couple in the UK? You would think that every story had been told, every meeting dissected, every lie amplified ad nauseum by now. But you can always trust these people to find brand new ways of crying about the two years Meghan spent in the UK. The latest book is called Yes Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants by Tom Quinn. It’s not solely about the Sussexes, although the bulk of the Times’ exclusive excerpt is obviously about them. Surprise! There’s a lot in this excerpt, so I’m splitting it up into two posts.
Meghan expected Harry to be a billionaire! Meghan Markle had a typically American view of the royal family before she joined it — for her, life was all about castles, glittering balls and limitless wealth and ease. As one royal staff member put it, “She expected a billionaire and she got a millionaire.” When Meghan discovered that Harry was only worth about £20 million, she realised she needed to reassess other assumptions she’d made about this strange new family. Harry, it seemed, had spent little time explaining exactly how strange and demanding his family really are. But then, having everything done for you throughout your life by staff gives you a complacent air, something several of Harry’s former Kensington Palace advisers have noted.
William & Charles’s tantrums: Protocol means suits must be pressed and laid out after a period of consultation the night before; shoes must be polished, ties chosen. Baths must be run at precisely the same time each day and both King Charles and the Prince of Wales, Prince William, are prone to tantrums if things are not done to their liking. “They both get irritated very quickly,” one former member of staff said. “They are very picky. It comes naturally to them.”
Kate calms William: The source added, “I don’t know where William would be without Kate — she hasn’t had everything done for her throughout her life, so she calms him down when he gets a bit fractious. She said he sometimes has to be treated as her fourth child.”
Meghan hated the courtiers & hierarchy: “Meghan really disliked the hierarchy,” a member of her former team said. “Many of the rules do seem pretty pointless and exist only so that the relative status of each senior royal is protected. And the senior royals are such a sensitive bunch — if one gets a gold pen or a new car, they all want one. Meghan thought they behaved like babies.”
The old guards hated Meghan right away: Meghan was a moderniser by nature. She was someone who wanted to get things done and change the status quo. She was actually very good at persuading some of the staff, even the junior staff, to be on her side. According to my sources, Meghan became especially friendly and close to one particular member of staff, who was really quite junior, and this was seen as inappropriate by the senior royals. A former member of the Kensington Palace staff said, “When someone arrives from the United States and tries to change things, the old guard really don’t like it. And the old guard are terrific snobs. They have to be less obviously snobbish today, but it’s still there.
What a bizarre statement: “I can tell you that if William had wanted to marry Meghan Markle, it would’ve been a step too far… [But] Harry was never going to be king. The courtiers and ladies-in-waiting and communications teams thought Meghan would keep Harry out of trouble; give him something to focus on.”
William & Kate liked Meghan at first! It’s easy to forget that when Harry first started dating Meghan, both William and Kate found her delightful — “They thought she was a breath of fresh air,” one staffer remembered. A junior member of staff explained that in the early days when the Fab Four were still getting along, she once came across Meghan and William doing a jokey parody of Fifties jiving together. William was apparently very good at it.
William hated Meghan’s tactile, friendly nature: But problems began to arise fairly early on. Tension developed between William and Harry as a result of Meghan’s warm, friendly, hug-everyone approach. Kate, William and Charles tended to flinch when she moved in for a hug. Meghan was understandably hurt, as everyone apparently hugs everyone in California. Meghan even tried to hug a singularly stiff Old Etonian equerry. He too flinched as if she’d tried to poke him in the eye, as another member of staff put it. This tactile manner made William uncomfortable because Meghan hugged him virtually every time they bumped into each other; the hugging and cheek-kissing fuelled gossip among the staff that Meghan was flirting with William, which she was obviously not, but the tense atmosphere caused by all the touchy-feeliness (and the resultant gossip) deepened the rift between the brothers.
William is awkward: In fact, William’s rather awkward, even inhibited personality — an inheritance from his father — was baffling for the more spontaneous Meghan. A member of staff once recalled Meghan asking, “ ‘Why do William and Charles sound so serious all the time?’ She used to make jokes about Harry not having the same parents as William as, she insisted, ‘Harry isn’t pompous at all. He’s chill.’ ”
The rewrite and reimagining of all of this is bonkers – it’s like a make-your-adventure soap opera where you have the same cast of characters and people just keep going back to the same timeline and trying to create new storylines for why everything fell apart. People were not talking about how Meghan was somehow too friendly or tactile with William – that wasn’t a conversation at the time, and Meghan and William only greeted each other warmly a handful of times in public. For the most part, William and Kate looked and acted absolutely miserable in Meghan’s presence, like they thought her woke Americanness was airborne and they might catch it. How much of this is William’s creepiness about and towards Meghan? Ugh. Also: Meghan didn’t expect to marry a “billionaire.” She clocked it right away, that Harry didn’t understand money and he also didn’t realize how his family profoundly neglected him.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, WENN, Cover Images.
