Prince Harry & Meghan Markle left the Royal Family a little more than four years ago, difficult as that may be to believe. The couple claimed to want out of royal life in order to embark on another journey, and at first it certainly appeared as if they did indeed seek to exist outside of the spotlight.
Fast forward to today, however, and that doesn’t still appear to be the case.
The Sussexes have spilled their entire truth about royal life through interviews, television series, and a book, all of which helped to push their relationship with the British monarchy into oblivion.
While Harry and Meghan have given reasons for leaving the Royal Family, some things that happened behind the scenes have been kept in the dark. One royal expert now claims that Queen Elizabeth II was the “final straw” for the Sussexes.
On January 8, 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made the shocking announcement that they were leaving royal life.
“After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution,” they said.
Prince Harry & Meghan Markle
“We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen. It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment. We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honour our duty to The Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages.”
“This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity.”
Harry and Meghan concluded: “We look forward to sharing the full details of this exciting next step in due course, as we continue to collaborate with Her Majesty The Queen, The Prince of Wales, The Duke of Cambridge and all relevant parties. Until then, please accept our deepest thanks for your continued support.”
At the time, the BBC reported that neither Queen Elizabeth nor Prince William had been consulted before the statement was made public. Buckingham Palace was said to be “disappointed”; the senior royals “hurt.”
But the decision wasn’t made overnight.
The real reason why Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left royal life
Just days after Harry and Meghan’s wedding, Jonny Dymond, the BBC’s royal correspondent, felt something was off.
“I mean, within days, really… There were stories coming out about how Megan behaved towards staff,” he said in the BBC documentary The Prince and the Press.
Camilla Tominey – who first broke the story of Harry and Meghan’s relationship, added – “We were getting briefings that all was not well, with the relationship between William and Harry, Meghan, and Kate, and the relationship between Harry and Meghan and the royal household.”
Harry and Meghan have previously explained that they had several reasons for leaving the Firm permanently.
In an interview with The Cut, Meghan opened up about when she and Harry decided to leave the UK. British press coverage scrutinized the Duchess, affecting her health and relationship with the royal hierarchy.
As Harry and Meghan’s lives— along with the rest of the Firm’s —were taxpayer-funded, the tabloids claimed the intense scrutiny was of “public interest.” As a result, the couple suggested they could work and earn their own money instead of being taxpayer-funded.
“We were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy”
Meghan explained that “maybe all the noise would stop.”
Moreover, they appealed to the Royal Family to be able to leave the UK behind and instead move to another country in the Commonwealth, perhaps South Africa or Canada. Sadly, the answer was no.
“Anything to just … because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy. So we go, ‘Okay, fine, let’s get out of here. Happy to,’” Meghan recalled.
She added that their request wasn’t “reinventing the wheel” and that other Royal Family members had received the green light for the same arrangement.
“That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing,” Meghan said.
Harry, meamwhile, wrote in his memoir, Spare, about what they ‘fled’.
“When my wife and I fled this place, in fear for our sanity and physical safety, I wasn’t sure when I’d ever come back,” he wrote.
The safety issue – Harry claiming it would be unsafe to return to the UK with his wife and children – has been one of the main arguments for the Duke not visiting his home country with his family.
The reasons for their leaving have been many, but according to one royal expert, there was a specific moment that made Harry and Meghan decide that enough was enough.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘final straw’ with the royals
In his book Meghan: A Hollywood Princess, released in 2018, royal expert and author Andrew Morton revealed that one specific photograph made Harry and Meghan feel like they didn’t have a future within the royal sphere.
The picture, taken in 2016, portrayed Queen Elizabeth II, Charles, William, and young George. It was the first picture released with the queen and her three heirs. Two years later, another picture of the four was released, and according to Morton, the Suussexes believed that the Royal Family was “conspiring against them.”
The royal expert claimed that it was that specific picture that made Harry and Meghan decide to pull the plug as they felt ‘snubbed’.
“The royal couple suspected that the entire institution was conspiring against them. As they saw it, the evidence was all around them. The unspoken code was straightforward: the future of the monarchy was assured, with or without Meghan and Harry,” Morton wrote, as per Express.
Only two days after the picture was released, Harry and Meghan officially revealed they were leaving the Royal Family. Moreover, Morton claims that Harry and Meghan had already had plans on leaving royal life far earlier, and had discussed it as early as six months after their wedding.
“Harry was having conversations in a London hotel with Oprah Winfrey back in November 2018, just six months after they’d been married. So they were thinking about a different direction of travel pretty early on,” Morton wrote.
Queen Elizabeth was ‘deeply hurt’ that they left
While Harry and Meghan felt happy about leaving royal life behind, not everyone was pleased with their call. According to author and royal expert Katie Nicholl, Queen Elizabeth was sad that the Sussexes had decided to step down from their senior royal roles.
In her book The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy and the Future of the Crown, she claimed that Queen Elizabeth actually wrote a letter to Harry and Meghan after they had left – and she was deeply hurt by their decision.
“She was very hurt and told me, ‘I don’t know, I don’t care, and I don’t want to think about it anymore,’” an insider told Nicholl.
Moreover, Nicholl claimed that the Queen was angry about not being able to spend more time with Harry and Meghan’s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. One of her big disappointments was that the couple hadn’t brought their children to Balmoral, where she used to arrange sleepovers with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“It was a source of sadness to the Queen that she got to see so little of Archie and Lilibet and that Harry and Meghan were not able to join her for a weekend at Balmoral in August when the Queen used to host a ‘sleepover’ for all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” Nicholl wrote in The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy and the Future of the Crown.
Harry didn’t leave his beloved grandmother out of his book, Spare, writing about the terrible moment he found out about her death.
Prince Harry’s final words to the late Queen Elizabeth
Harry had gotten a call from his father, then Prince Charles, who said her health had worsened. Harry traveled to Balmoral – where he was asked not to bring Meghan – but when he touched ground in Scotland, he found out that his grandmother had passed away through the BBC News website.
“When the plane started to descend I saw that my phone lit up. It was a message from Meg: ‘Call me when you get this,’” Harry wrote.
“I looked at the BBC website. My grandmother had died. My father was King.”
Harry continued by describing how Princess Anne welcomed him to Balmoral and took him upstairs to where Queen Elizabeth lay. He then revealed the last words he ever told her.
“I advanced with uncertainty and saw her. I stayed still, watching her carefully for a good while I whispered that I hoped she was happy and that she was with Grandfather now,” Harry wrote.
He added: “I said that I admired her for having carried out her duties until the end – the jubilee, the welcoming of the new Prime Minister.”
Harry might have made a fortune by speaking out about the royals and revealing many things about them, but his family members have become increasingly frustrated. Frankly, members of the public have also taken ill with his claims, one of which was about Queen Elizabeth II.
Royal aids claimed Harry was “tasteless” with Queen Elizabeth claim
In an interview with ITV’s Tabloids on Trial, Harry claimed that Queen Elizabeth had “supported” his legal battles regarding getting his own security while in the UK, even though he was no longer a member of the Royal Family.
“We had many conversations before she passed, and this is very much something that she supported,” the Duke claimed. “She knew how much this meant to me and she’s very much up there saying ‘See this through to the end.’”
According to the Daily Mail, Buckingham Palace courtiers were “unimpressed” by Harry’s claim. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail’s royal expert, Richard Eden, claimed many had found the comment inappropriate. In a column for the newspaper, he wrote that royal aides were upset about the Duke’s “tasteless” attempt to convince Queen Elizabeth to support his “crusade.”
There have been talks about Harry and his future, and some experts suggest that he is missing his old life in the UK and all that comes with it.
If it came down to it, there could even be a way back for him into royal life, but according to royal expert Hilary Fordwich, that would never happen as long as Prince William was present.
“Prince William has laid down an absolute ban on Harry returning”
Speaking to Fox, Fordwich said William had banned his brother from ever returning.
“It is widely known within the family that Prince William has laid down an absolute ban on Harry returning in any way, shape or form into his former royal family fold,” Fordwich told Fox.
“If anyone will relent, it would be King Charles III, whom, of course, Prince William won’t challenge, who still misses his ‘darling boy’ and would like to see more of Prince Harry,” Fordwich added. “However, to this day, after the release of ‘Spare’ and the Netflix serial, as well as with everything else Harry has said, done, and not done, it’s Prince William who adamantly refuses to even speak to his brother.”
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