What Queen Elizabeth really thought of Meghan Markle

There were always rumours that the late Queen found the Duchess of Sussex difficult. Now, three years after her death in September 2022, what Queen Elizabeth II really thought - in the opinion of one of her closest confidantes - has been revealed.

Certainly Megxit, when Harry and Meghan stepped back from royal life, is thought to have caused her huge upset and stress in the last few years of her life. But according to royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, the late monarch and her innermost circle had had their doubts about Prince Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle long before 2020.

In fact, Queen Elizabeth is thought to have feared her grandson was "besotted and weak" and confided that he had been "rude" to her in the lead-up to his wedding at St George’s Chapel in Windsor in 2018.

Just days before the wedding, the Queen’s cousin Lady Elizabeth Anson had told Sally, "We hope but don’t quite think [Meghan] is in love. We think she engineered it all." She added, "It’s worrying that so many people are questioning whether Meghan is right for Harry. The problem, bless his heart, is that Harry is neither bright nor strong, and she is both."

Lady Elizabeth was one of Queen Elizabeth’s closest friends, her party planner, and spoke to her almost daily. She also said the "jury was out" on whether the late Queen even liked Meghan. The late monarch was dismayed when Meghan wouldn’t give her any details about her wedding dress, and this was enough to spark concern in the Palace that Meghan could "turn into nothing but trouble" and that - despite royal protocol - "she sees things in a different way".

Sally, who has written several biographies of the Royal Family, detailed a number of her conversations with Lady Elizabeth (who died of emphysema in 2020).

Lady Elizabeth said Meghan had initially appeared "natural, intelligent and thoughtful" after getting engaged to Harry in 2017. But as their wedding approached, tensions crept in.

Prince Harry was reportedly "rude" to the Queen "for 10 minutes" in one meeting and upset her by asking the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform the wedding service in May 2018, without seeking permission from the Dean of Windsor.

As a high-society event planner herself, Lady Elizabeth - who was born at Windsor Castle in 1941 and was also King George VI’s goddaughter - understood all too well what an embarrassing situation this put the Queen in.

She said at the time, "Harry seems to think the Queen can do what she wants, but she can’t. On the religious side, it is the Dean of Windsor’s jurisdiction." She added that as a result, "Harry has blown his relationship with his grandmother." They did later "patch things up" - but the hurt remained.

The Queen was also said to be worried about Meghan’s relationship with her new brother and sister-in-law, telling Lady Elizabeth, "Meghan and William and Kate are not working well."

As history has proven, Queen Elizabeth was right again. After Harry and Meghan’s wedding, it was widely reported that Meghan had made Kate cry over a disagreement about Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress.

Then, in Harry and Meghan’s explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Harry and Meghan claimed the "reverse" was true. Meghan said she was in fact the one in tears, adding, "I don’t say that to be disparaging to anyone, because it was a really hard week of the wedding, and she was upset about something. But she owned it, and she apologised."

Two years later, in his 2023 autobiography, Spare, Harry threw more brickbats at his sister-in-law, implying that Kate had been icy and saying she’d grimaced when Meghan asked to borrow her lip gloss. Clearly, as the Queen and Lady Elizabeth foretold, that bad blood between Kate and Meghan and their warring husbands only worsened.

One former courtier said, "Ultimately, the Queen felt betrayed by Harry, and when he and Meghan attacked the institution that she spent her whole life serving, in the Oprah interview, that betrayal was complete. It was absolutely shocking to those of us that knew him that he would do that, not least because her husband was on his deathbed."

The Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan was broadcast on 7 March 2021 and Prince Philip died just over a month later. In the interview, Meghan alleged that the Royal Family had expressed concerns about "how dark" her first child’s skin would be when he was born (allegedly said to Harry, not her).

The allegation prompted Buckingham Palace to comment that, "While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately."

The former staffer added, "The allegations dismayed [the late Queen]. To accuse an unidentified person within the family of racism, thereby casting the shadow of suspicion over everyone, was unforgivable in her eyes. It was a horrific series of betrayals at the end of her life."