There have been rumors for years that Prince Harry and his beloved grandmother Queen Elizabeth weren’t on the best of terms before the long-reigning monarch’s 2022 death, but now, we have new insight on what may have been going on behind the scenes. Apparently, Elizabeth was “very worried” about Harry before he even married Meghan Markle, and it sounds like things didn’t improve at all after that.
The royals reportedly weren’t convinced that Meghan was truly in love with Harry before they wed.
Royal author Sally Bedell Smith wrote about the buzz she’d heard from the late queen’s cousin and close friend Lady Elizabeth Anson, who was known as Liza, in her Substack newsletter, Royal Extra.
“We hope but don’t quite think she is in love. We think she engineered it all,” Liza reportedly told Sally of Harry and Meghan’s relationship, later adding, “When I spoke with the Queen, she said she is not at all content.”
Harry was already ‘besotted,’ but Elizabeth was ‘very worried.’
Sally went on to say that Liza told her Harry had “blown his relationship” with the Queen at that point.
“I was shocked when the Queen told me this, how she was so saddened,” Liza said. “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.”
Things only got worse when Harry and Meghan spoke out in their interview with Oprah Winfrey days before Prince Philip’s death.
After Sally’s newsletter went live, it prompted insiders to open up about the situation to the Daily Beast, with one former courtier saying that their famed tell-all interview was seen as a betrayal by Elizabeth.
“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,” the source said. “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.”
They were reportedly unable to patch things up before Queen Elizabeth died.
Rumors that Elizabeth was suffering from bone cancer have circulated, though they were never confirmed by the palace. As one friend of the royals told the Daily Beast, the situation with Harry and Meghan only made things worse for her at the end of her life.
“You have to remember [that] the queen was seriously ill for several years with bone cancer. She knew she was dying, she could hardly see, she could hardly stand, she could hardly move,” the friend shared. “And then she was completely let down by her grandson. It was utterly devastating for her.”
