by Dylan Howard
Biographer Katie Nicholl wrote: “According to one of the princes’ mutual friends, there was a fallout [at] Christmas when Harry told William he didn’t think his older brother was doing enough to welcome Meghan into the family. Harry felt William wasn’t rolling out the red carpet for Meghan and told him so. It was only resolved when Charles stepped in and asked William to make an effort. That’s when the Cambridges invited the Sussexes to spend Christmas with them.”
Nicholl wrote that tensions between the brothers had been growing in the run-up to Christmas. “Kate and Meghan are very different people,” she said, quoting a source. “While they don’t have a lot in common, they have made an effort to get along. But any issues are between the brothers.”
Royal commentator Angela Mollard also observed the delicate tensions at the heart of William and Harry’s relationship at this time: “William is a very dutiful man. He himself, in his relationship with Kate, when that had been going on for many years, he had to question himself, whether or not this relationship was going to last the distance. Now, we’re always very protective of relationships, particularly in that phase that we call the limerence phase in the first three years when we’re deeply infatuated. It takes three years for it to soften out to a normal relationship. They haven’t got to that point, and in a sense, they didn’t have the time to get to that point.”
But William’s advice only served to get Harry’s back up. Meghan’s rebel persona meant that he was always alert for any implied or explicit disrespecting or snubbing of his beloved. And as the Christmas period, with all the significance it entailed for the newly engaged couple, progressed, William’s sense of unease and worry at Harry’s increasing hostility continued to fester.
Meanwhile, Christmas was looming. The three-day celebrations at Norfolk’s Sandringham House kicked off with the Royal Family assembling on December 20 for a family lunch. Meghan had to quickly figure out who should be bowed and curtsied to in the prelunch frenzy of greetings. For what seemed like hours, everyone genuflected or bowed as tradition and rank dictated. Meghan had to curtsy to the Queen, Kate, and the Countess of Wessex. That ordeal done, she was seated between Charles and Peter Phillips, with whom she “pulled crackers” and, per tradition, shared the corny jokes hidden inside of the holiday confections’ packaging. “She was obviously a bit nervous at first, but soon relaxed, with Harry’s help as he introduced her to everyone and then she really enjoyed it,” a source said.
For Harry, Meghan, Kate, and William, Christmas day itself started with a light breakfast at Anmer Hall before everyone headed off to St Mary Magdalene church for the morning service. A crowd had gathered to wave to the Royals, in freezing cold, wind, and rain. Of course, Meghan was the focus of attention, and she managed to wave, smile, and stiffly curtsy when the Queen arrived by car. Back at the main house, the Christmas feast was served and eaten in ninety minutes flat, as tradition dictates: everyone has to stop eating the moment the Queen is finished, then, rather surreally, they troop into the living room to watch the Queen’s speech at 3 p.m., like any other family up and down the land.
During the days that follow, the men of the family usually stride forth to the Norfolk fields, where specially bred pheasants wait to be massacred during the traditional Boxing Day shoot. William and Harry loved shooting, but this year, one of the brothers was conspicuously absent. The press cheekily wondered if a foreign influence was exerting some subtle pressure here. As it turned out, Harry was in London, where he was guest-editing the BBC’s morning radio news program Today. The broadcast had been arranged before the engagement was announced, and naturally his impending marriage had ramped up anticipation among listeners and BBC producers. The show was a success: Prince Charles, boxer Anthony Joshua, and former president Barack Obama were interviewed in between items on climate change, youth violence, the military, conservation, and a topic that Harry would become increasingly vocal about, mental health issues, especially for young men.
Despite the success of the show, Harry inadvertently offended the Markle family when, in the interview with Obama, he described the festivities he’d just enjoyed at Sandringham with Meghan and the Royals. “She’s getting in there,” he said of Meghan’s success with the family. “I suppose it’s the family she’s never had.”
The Markles, usually divided, came together in their indignation at Harry’s comments. First up was Samantha Markle, who angrily pointed out that Meghan “has a large family who were always there with her and for her.” Not to be outdone, once he’d emerged from his latest hangover and keen to sell another story to the press, Thomas Jr. weighed in too, with admirable sorrow: “My father made sure that she had what she needed to be successful and get to where she is today.”
The family’s internecine squabbling continued to unfold, a dysfunctional and unedifying backdrop to the carefully packaged, slick romance presented in London. Samantha had been threatening for ages to write her book, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister, but now she appeared on television, crying and begging Meghan to invite her to the wedding (Meghan relented and did so). And Thomas Sr. himself was finally tracked down by an intrepid British journalist, to his Mexican perch, where he admitted he was “delighted” by Meghan and Harry’s wedding. Rather more talkative was his son, who proudly demanded his dad attend the wedding and give the traditional father-of-the-bride speech, saying: “He has to know he is just not representing his family, he is representing America.”
More arguments ensued, with Thomas innocently passing Meghan’s phone number to Samantha, Meghan complaining to Doria, Doria reprimanding Thomas, Thomas getting annoyed with Doria as well as at Meghan’s refusal to make friends with Samantha. To complete Meghan’s migraine, Thomas Jr. got arrested for being drunk and disorderly again. To top it all off, Ninaki Priddy sold her life story to the papers. No wonder Harry and Meghan’s smiles were looking increasingly glazed as the wedding rumbled down the line toward them.
British media, deep in the grip of Meghanmania, speculated endlessly on how the wedding would play out. Rumors abounded that Meghan was planning a “very feminist wedding by turning various traditions on their head.” These reports struck icy horror into the hearts of crusty old courtiers at the Palace. “I’ve heard that Meghan wants her mother to walk her down the aisle, which would be a sweet moment,” said a friend of the couple’s, before adding menacingly: “While Meghan and Harry will always be mindful of traditions and the views of their elders, the day is ultimately about them and what they want to do.”
Samantha helpfully chimed in again too, claiming Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, had to walk her down the aisle. And then another character from the never-ending drama of the Markle family appeared: Samantha’s ex-husband warned Prince Harry and Meghan to avoid inviting her, saying that the “fame hungry” ex-model was never as close to Meghan as she claimed she was. “Harry and Meghan need to know the truth about her,” he pontificated helpfully. “She’s the last person who should be at Windsor Castle.” The papers were ecstatic.
Meanwhile, closer to home, conflicts were emerging over preparations for the wedding. Per tradition, Meghan could choose her jewelry from the Queen’s collection. She initially wanted an emerald tiara. But no one knew exactly where it came from, the likeliest source being Russia. It was vetoed, and Meghan was invited to pick out another piece.
But Meghan was insisting on the emerald tiara. This was said to have “upset” the Queen, which is Royal-speak for “the Queen hit the roof.” Despite being summoned by the Queen and told to chill his lady out, Harry allegedly told courtiers and staff before the wedding, “What Meghan wants, Meghan gets.” It was to become a familiar refrain over the next few months.
TEARS AND TIARAS
In the lead-up to Harry’s wedding to Meghan, the Royals very much recalled the chaos and trauma of Edward’s abdication and therefore made every effort to welcome the woman who, it seemed, had finally brought Harry some happiness and stability. Since his military career had come to a
n anticlimactic end, Harry had found himself without much purpose or ambition. Since childhood, he had been made to feel constantly inferior to his brother, who was groomed to be the King from babyhood. He knew he was the “spare.” The only one who seemed to love him unconditionally, unjudgmentally, for his mischief and spirit, who would always defend him from the grind and misery of constant public view and comment, was dead. In Meghan, he had found someone, at last, who would look after him, bolster his ego, curb his excessive tendencies, and allow him to find himself and a sense of purpose. And of course, this would come at a price.
The preparations for the wedding clearly showed the Royals who were in charge—and it wasn’t them. On one notorious occasion, Kate was said to have been left “in tears” during a bridesmaids dress rehearsal session with Princess Charlotte. In a moment of tension, the issue of their respective children’s titles had come up, and it allegedly unleashed a torrent of pent-up emotions.
Alexis Slifer, a presenter on the Canadian show Talko, claimed to have seen a video said to be secretly recorded by a courtier in which Meghan raged about the fact that any children she and Harry would have would be “only” bestowed a Lordship: “Meghan was going off about Prince William and Duchess Kate’s children. They’re being given His and Her Royal Highness titles while Meghan and Harry’s children are only going to be Lords. People think that she’s having a meltdown because the only reason she married Harry in the first place was to get those titles.”
“We are talking about Meghan Markle being exposed for who she truly is,” continued Slifer. “Ever since she has been involved with the Royal Family there has been drama at every corner. People act like they don’t even like Meghan—which is possibly why they created this video in the first place, because they don’t even like her.”
As tensions rose, the royal staff was thwarted and baffled by Meghan’s insistence on controlling every aspect of the big day. She ruled that the day had to reflect the sparkly “fun, laughter, and love” of their “fairy tale,” which meant Meghan was making constant demands, rejecting various solutions and plans, and ignoring traditions and customs. Harry was growing increasingly “petulant and short-tempered” in the buildup to the wedding, as writer Robert Jobson described. “Meghan had her heart set on a tiara with emeralds and Prince Harry went spare when they were told she couldn’t wear it,” said a source. “It prompted the Queen to speak to Harry. She said, Meghan cannot have whatever she wants. She gets what tiara she’s given by me.”
To staff and family, some of whom had known and cared for Harry since infancy, his words now rang like a mantra of encroaching horror, like a drumbeat of ever-increasing dread and fear: “What Meghan wants, Meghan gets. What Meghan wants, Meghan gets.” When the Queen learned that he was still acting up over Meghan’s demands, despite her earlier warning, that was that. He was summoned again to her presence and, in no uncertain terms, “put firmly in his place.” The Queen also issued a stern admonition to Meghan to behave and stop complaining about the “musty” smell of St George’s Chapel, the wedding venue. Meghan had been making a fuss about the ancient chapel’s pleasant smell of wood and dust and had been trying to order in stacks of her favorite Jo Malone candles to scent it. The Queen wasn’t having any of it. “The Queen also questioned why Meghan needed a veil for the wedding, given it was to be her second marriage,” said an insider. “The message from the Queen was very much Meghan needed to think about how she speaks to staff members and be careful to follow family protocols.”
With the reports of the upset Queen already making the rounds of royal circles, the rest of the staff at Kensington Palace was now walking on eggshells, wary of exciting Harry’s wrath. This meant they were unprotestingly contending with Meghan as she bounced out of bed each morning for her 5 a.m. spirulina smoothie (a type of cyanobacteria, often referred to as blue-green algae), her soothing morning yoga, and, as one insider described it, her email “bombardments” of staff. What is typical in Hollywood was clearly not the norm in the “household,” where there is an established hierarchy, a fixed, tried-and-true “way of doing things,” according to a source.
Meanwhile, not to be outdone, across the Atlantic the rest of the Markles were reliably doing their best to create as much mayhem as possible. As Samantha made endless television appearances, raking in plenty of appearance fees while she speculated sourly on her half-sister’s imminent entrée to the Royals, the rest of the family turned on her. “She has dogged on Meghan forever,” Samantha’s mother, Roslyn, told the Daily Mail. “She has never liked Meghan, and she’s always been jealous of her.”
Samantha was also busy tweeting her disgust that she and other family members had not been invited to the wedding, as Meghan’s parents had been the only two members of the family to have received invitations.
“Out of respect, tradition and humanitarianism, the #Markles should be invited if 2000 complete strangers are invited,” Samantha wrote on Twitter. Meanwhile, In Touch magazine carried an interview in which she criticized her half-sister for not helping their father financially. “If you can spend $75,000 on a dress, you can spend $75,000 on your dad,” Samantha hinted gently. A few days later, TMZ claimed wheelchair-bound Samantha had suffered a broken ankle and fractured knee, in what her boyfriend described as a “paparazzi confrontation” on a road in Florida. Her flourishing media career was sadly put on pause. But this was not to be the last the world would hear from the lively Samantha.
THE WEDDING WALK THAT WASN’T
Perhaps it was a newfound sense of fraternal concern and family unity that caused Thomas Markle Jr. to return to the royal fray. Whatever the case, he felt the need to express sadness and surprise that somehow he hadn’t been invited to the wedding of the half-sister with whom he had barely been in touch with for years. After some thinking, Markle Jr. decided to eschew the usual means of reaching out to new family members ahead of a wedding and instead penned a discreet open letter to Harry, via global media.
“It’s not too late,” he wrote. “As more time passed [sic] to your Royal Wedding, it became very clear that this is the biggest mistake in Royal Wedding History. Meghan’s attempt to act the part of a princess like a below C average Hollywood actress is getting old. My father will never recover financially from paying Meghan’s way, nor emotionally from disavowing him. Meg is showing her true colors.”
A week later, baffled at Harry’s lack of reply to his earlier letter, Thomas Markle Jr. penned a second billet-doux, this time a conciliatory one to his half-sister. Again, just in case the mail to Kensington Palace was slow, he published it on an international media platform. “Meg, I know that I’m not perfect, nor is anyone else in our family, as I’m sure you have read by now,” he wrote in the letter, published by In Touch. “But good, bad or perfect, we’re the only family that you have. It does hurt my feelings not getting invited to your wedding, along with the rest of the family. But it’s not too late to send me an invite along with your entire family.”
Unbelievably, even this heartfelt appeal failed to penetrate Kensington Palace. Meanwhile, the charm offensive continued, when in another public appeal for their half-sister’s attention, Samantha said she had a present she would love to give Meghan. “I searched the world for something that I thought was really sentimental, and I’d like to give it to her in person. But if not, I will certainly send it,” she told gossip website TMZ. Pressed to divulge what present she had bought, Samantha replied coyly, “Well, then it wouldn’t be a surprise—right?” Any hope that Meghan might tune into TMZ to witness this heartwarming message and respond with squeals of “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” was dashed with more silence from London.
While all this drama was unfolding, Meghan and Harry were apparently close to a breaking point, which explains why he went to such great lengths to ensure his bride-to-be could have everything she wanted on her big day. But below stairs at Buckingham and Kensington Palaces, staff were merciless in their private mocking of Meghan.
A sou
rce said: “Some of the staff don’t seem to want to give Meghan a chance. Harry is besotted and understandably extremely protective of her.”
Commenting on the drama in the countdown to the wedding, a very well-placed source said: “Understanding the Palace way, the deference, the politics and the fact that there’s a pecking order, is taking a while for Meghan to get her head around. She is quite opinionated, and Harry has got very dictatorial of late, which hasn’t made things easy at times.”
The final blow to Meghan came when her father, torn apart by his family and his own conflicted feelings for his daughter, participated in a bizarre stunt, orchestrated by none other than Samantha. In the days leading up to the wedding, a surreal drama of Shakespearean dimensions was played out that threatened to sink the good ship Markle once and for all in the world’s eyes.
The drama began on May 4, when Kensington Palace issued a statement announcing that Thomas would be at the wedding to walk his daughter down the aisle. “Mr. Markle will walk his daughter down the aisle of St. George’s Chapel,” it read. “Ms. Markle is delighted to have her parents by her side on this important and happy occasion.” The statement also revealed that Thomas and Doria would arrive in the country on the week of the wedding, allowing time for the Royal Family to meet them.
But a few days later, disaster struck. On May 12, London’s Mail on Sunday revealed that photographs of Thomas apparently preparing for the wedding were in fact staged. The pictures, which showed Thomas engaged in activities such as being measured for his suit or googling Harry, had been carefully choreographed. At Samantha’s urging, Thomas foolishly worked with a paparazzi agency to set up the pics, something the confused and beleaguered man subsequently told TMZ that he did in an attempt to “recast” his image, after photographers “ambushed” him several times and took “unflattering” shots of him.