Prince Harry ‘blew’ his relationship with Queen Elizabeth II as he prepared to marry Meghan Markle, who also upset the monarch by refusing to reveal what her wedding dress looked like, it was claimed today.
Her Majesty was said to have been ‘very worried’ about her ‘besotted and weak’ grandson and became aggrieved about some of their decisions about the ceremony at Windsor in May 2018.
The Queen apparently confided in her first cousin that Harry was ‘rude to her for ten minutes’ in one meeting and that ‘Meghan and William and Kate were not working well’ together, adding that it was ‘particularly…the two girls’ who didn’t get on.
The ‘jury was out’ on whether the Queen really liked her grandson’s then bride-to-be, it was claimed today, and she felt ‘left out’ of the planning for the wedding by Harry who tried to ‘patch up’ their relationship in the weeks before walking down the aisle.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s up and down relationship with the late Queen has been revealed by journalist and royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith in her Substack ‘Royal Extras’, after her conversations with Her Majesty’s late cousin Lady Elizabeth Anson.
Born in Windsor Castle, Lady Elizabeth, a great-niece of the Queen Mother and a goddaughter of King George VI, was a high-society party planner known as Liza to friends.
The Queen’s first cousin, who arranged the Queen’s 80th birthday party, allegedly said just days before Meghan and Harry’s wedding: ‘We hope but don’t quite think she is in love. We think she engineered it all.’
She died five years ago at the age of 79 and was the Queen’s confidante later in life, affectionately calling the monarch ‘Jemima’ and her ‘Number One Lady’.
Ms Bedell Smith has revealed what Liza claimed Queen Elizabeth II herself thought of the Sussexes and their behaviour.
Meghan was apparently ‘full of charm’ and appeared ‘natural, intelligent, and thoughtful’ after she became engaged to Harry in 2017. But as the wedding approached, Meghan allegedly became increasingly ‘bossy’ and Liza said the Queen was privately ‘very worried’.
Ms Bedell Smith wrote: ‘When we spoke two weeks before the May 19 wedding, Liza had just heard from the Queen. “The Number One Lady—I call her Jemima—says the jury is out on whether she likes Meghan,” said Liza.
“My Jemima is very worried.” In Liza’s view, “Harry is besotted and weak about women. We hope but don’t quite think she is in love. We think she engineered it all.”
Liza apparently said: ‘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’.
The cracks apparently appeared in February 2018. Liza claimed Harry wrote to her and said that his grandmother was ‘content’ with the way the wedding plans were coming along.
But Sally Bedell Smith wrote that Liza had said: ‘When I spoke with the Queen, she said she is not at all content’.
Ms Bedell Smith wrote: ‘According to Liza, the Queen was dismayed that Harry had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform the wedding service in St. George’s Chapel without first requesting permission from the Dean of Windsor.
“Harry seems to think the Queen can do what she wants, but she can’t,” said Liza. “On the religious side, it is the Dean of Windsor’s jurisdiction.” As a result, Liza said that “Harry has blown his relationship with his grandmother.
She said she was really upset. I was shocked when the Queen told me this, how she was so saddened. I had no idea about the conversation, that he was rude to her for ten minutes. They had tea with her the day before yesterday. She was trying to find out about the wedding dress, and Meghan wouldn’t tell her.”.’
Liza at this point predicted that Meghan could ‘turn into nothing but trouble’, remarking that the Suits actress ‘sees things in a different way’.
Following these February rows, towards the end of April, Liza claimed that “the Queen and Harry have patched things up’.
Harry apparently visited her alone to smooth things over and later wrote to with more wedding details.
Sally Bedell Smith wrote: ‘Liza also said that Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, was “frightened of coming to the wedding.” I asked her if Meghan was being bossy. “So I gather,” Liza replied, “Very much so.”
‘My Jemima is very worried’, Liza apparently added.
She also said ominously: ‘The wedge between the brothers is really too bad’.
Thomas Markle did not attend the wedding due to health problems. Harry’s father walked her down the aisle. Meghan threw herself into royal duties with her husband and then fell pregnant.
Sally Bedell Smith wrote on her Substack: ‘By late February 2019 when Liza and I spoke on the phone, she said “I don’t trust Meghan an inch. To begin with, she was not bad—a straightforward starlet, used to public speaking and charity work. The wedge between the brothers is really too bad.”.’
At that time the Queen would visit her cousin for dinner at her London home but an increasingly frail Prince Philip would stay at home.
Liza became ill with lung cancer but continued to work despite breathing problems and spent time with the Queen, who made her a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order – an honour only given to those who have given outstanding personal service to a British monarch. She died in November 2020.
MailOnline has asked a spokesman for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to comment.
Lady Elizabeth Anson was born at Windsor Castle during World War II and with King George VI as a godfather, she grew up surrounded by, and on first name terms with, the royals.
Lady Elizabeth was also royally connected (her mother, a Bowes-Lyon, was a niece of the Queen Mother) but she was also one of the Queen’s closest friends.
When she married, the then 20-year-old Princess Anne was a bridesmaid, and her society cameraman brother Patrick (the Earl of) Lichfield, who gave her away, was — along with the Earl of Snowdon — the royals’ go-to photographer.
For almost 60 years she presided over London’s party scene with a ruthless efficiency. From royalty to celebrity her business, Party Planners, organised the capital’s best and most lavish celebrations.
She first decided to be a party planner when she was 17. She was working as a receptionist at the Hyde Park Hotel in London, but she fell down a flight of stairs and injured herself.
The fall meant she needed to find a job that would enable her to work from home, and was inspired at having to organise her own debutante party when she realised she could make a living from planning celebrations.
Her first event was for the late Queen Mother. ‘She was hosting a party for one of her godchildren,’ Lady Elizabeth previously told Mail on Sunday. ‘I remember charging very little and receiving a letter from the Queen Mother telling me to double the invoice.’
She hosted bashes for everyone from Baroness Thatcher and Sir Mick Jagger, to Tom Cruise and Bill Clinton. Weddings were a speciality: there was pop star Sting’s to Trudie Styler to the slightly more reserved nuptials for Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece (to heiress Chantal Miller).
When Prince William married Kate Middleton in 2011, the Queen asked her to organise a party for all the visiting royal guests.
By then she was a veteran of royal party planning. No palace event, it seemed, was complete without input from Lady Elizabeth. She arranged the Queen’s 80th birthday party and that to mark the 50th anniversary of her coronation.
In April 2021, the Queen made Lady Elizabeth a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order as a sign of her personal esteem.
