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Now William and Kate hit back
Greater love hath no woman than this; that she may cook vegan food for her brother-in-law’s Californian fiancée.
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Prince William and Kate Middleton have hit back at Harry and Meghan’s claims that they deliberately spurned Meghan Markle, insisting that Kate went so far as to prepare vegan meals for Meghan, but Kate has admitted that she “snubbed” Meghan at their final public royal engagement.
Proof that Meghan and Harry are not the only ones who can anonymously brief the media comes via “close friends” talking to the Mail on Sunday today.
The “friends” told the Mail on Sunday that William and Kate “rolled out the red carpet” for Meghan and did “all they possibly could” to welcome her to the royal family.
The friends point to several well-documented matters of public record, such as Kate inviting Harry and Meghan to spend Christmas 2017 with them at their home in Anmer Hall, Norfolk, where Kate, the Mail says, went as far as to personally cook vegan meals for Meghan.
William and Kate’s fight-back came on the second day of revelations published in the U.K. Times and Sunday Times from the book, Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.
The book has given a candid view of Harry and Meghan’s feelings about the royals and their departure from the Firm, and while being extremely sympathetic to them has painted William and Kate in a mostly negative light.
The Mail also says that friends say that Kate, among other gestures, asked Meghan to join her in the Royal Box at Wimbledon for two successive years.
“It’s just completely wrong to suggest they didn’t talk, and plain wrong to say the Cambridges weren’t welcoming,” a friend told the paper.
“How can you say they weren’t warm or welcoming when they hosted Meghan for Christmas, invited her into their totally private inner sanctum at Anmer Hall, and did everything they could to make her feel at home? They personally cooked her favorite vegan food, they couldn’t have been more welcoming.”
Friends of the Cambridges also dismissed claims in Finding Freedom that Kate and Meghan “barely exchanged a word” at the King Power Royal Charity Polo Day last year.
The Daily Beast has previously reported how the royals allow themselves to be photographed by the press at this annual event in apparently candid moments, so it made sense to use the day as a public show of solidarity.
“Everyone saw Kate and Meghan chatting. She [Meghan] had the baby and it was really sweet,” one friend told the paper. “George went up to Archie and gently stroked his head. Louis was larking around and making Meghan laugh—it was really positive and happy.”
However, a friend of the Cambridges acknowledged that Kate had “snubbed” Meghan at the Commonwealth Service in March this year, which marked her last appearance as a working royal.
“Although Meghan tried to make eye contact with Kate, the duchess barely acknowledged her,” Scobie and Durand write in the book.
In an interview with The Times, Scobie said: “To purposefully snub your sister-in-law… I don’t think it left a great taste in the couple’s mouths.”
The friend of the Cambridges said Kate’s actions were born “out of sheer frustration” at Harry and Meghan's behavior over their withdrawal from royal life, announced on Instagram, and on a new website.
The source acknowledged that Kate snubbed Meghan at the West Door of Westminster Abbey, but added: “That was after the Sussexes had issued that incendiary statement and website.”
Scobie and Durand add of Meghan and Kate: “The Duchesses struggled to move past the distant politeness of when they first met. Their cordial but distant rapport was apparent when they appeared with each other. The state of affairs between them was just an offshoot of the real matter at hand—the conflict between Harry and the institution.”
Allies of the Cambridges accept that the once close relationship between the brothers is now strained and say they have no plans to see each other again soon.
“William had hoped that everyone had moved on, but clearly that's not the case,” said a friend. “He’s a little sad and disappointed that it's being raked up all over again.
“He was extremely upset and hurt at the time [in January when Harry stood down from his duties] and his relationship with his brother is still quite distant.
“It’s best described as on-off and more off at the moment. He has no plans to see his brother this year, but of course COVID makes that much more difficult anyway.”
Daddy issues
In a fresh sign that the royal family is not going to take Finding Freedom in an entirely supine position, palace aides have told The Sunday Times that Harry and Meghan ignored their advice to build bridges with Thomas Markle before their wedding.
The revelation came after the paper published an extract from the book in which Meghan called her father a “victim... fully corrupted” by the media. The extract also includes verbatim text messages sent by Meghan to her father, allegedly sent when she and Harry were desperate to transport him out of Mexico to London for her wedding.
However, in a separate article, The Sunday Times reports that the Sussexes “repeatedly” ignored advice to meet Thomas Markle, before and after their engagement was announced in November 2017.
Suggestions from aides about practical ways to help Markle cope with the inevitable media scrutiny were also ignored, The Sunday Times says.
The paper says that at the time of the Sussexes’ wedding, a senior royal source told the newspaper: “We repeatedly sat down with Harry and Meghan before the engagement announcement to say this needed to be handled sensitively, but that it had to be handled. We desperately asked them to engage with Thomas, but they wouldn’t. Aides also offered to go personally and see him to try and find a way to protect him. There is genuine disbelief and bemusement in the household at the couple’s approach to him and that Harry has still not met his father-in-law.”
Another aide said: “Thomas is troubled, but Harry and Meghan would not engage in the issue of going out to see him and for Harry to meet him. It was raised before their engagement and again constantly in the months afterwards, leading up to the wedding. Everyone knew it would be a huge issue that would explode if they didn’t address it and deal with it.”
It is thought that Meghan has not seen her father since she began dating Harry in the summer of 2016 and that Harry has still never met Thomas.
Harry felt ‘torn apart’
Harry and William’s deteriorating relationship was allegedly one factor that led Harry and Meghan to go to Vancouver Island in Canada in November and December. There, the book reveals, they decided “they were going to step back from their roles as senior royals—and cut themselves off from access to the sovereign grant.”
They still wanted to carry out duties for the queen. They hoped to discuss all this with the queen, Prince Charles, and aides when they returned to Britain on Jan. 6. But the meeting was delayed until Jan. 29, the couple felt again they were not being listened to.
Harry and Meghan reportedly thought about driving to see the queen directly to discuss their departure, having felt they were being blocked from doing so. Really, they felt they were not being heard by the rest of the family, and their aides, at all.
Harry felt the process of arranging his and Meghan’s departure from the royal family was “tearing him apart,” one source close the couple revealed. “He loves the Queen, but his wife feels aggrieved, and he adores his son. Harry’s whole world is Archie.”
“The drama and division is doing the most damage,” another source said as Harry and Meghan wrangled with the queen, Prince Charles, and Prince William over the couple’s initial plan for hybrid royal roles.
Harry and Meghan had been previously vetoed on a plan to run their own court within the House of Windsor. The “men in grey suits”—as Diana called the faceless power-brokers that controlled palace life—were having none of it. A friend of the couple described the old guard as “the vipers,” while a palace staffer referred to Harry and Meghan and their aides as “the squeaky third wheel” of the family.
“There has always been competitiveness between the households,” one aide said of the rival factions in Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and Clarence House. “That will never change.”
One courtier claimed to be able to place a story, positive or negative, in any publication. Another said he could “handle anything after putting up with one of Meghan’s temper tantrums.” Staff described the atmosphere inside the three palaces as “competitive,” “miserable,” and “full-on.”
Queen left ‘devastated’
The book claims Harry and Meghan were reportedly frustrated at being given lower-league billing—seeing the enormous income their wedding had generated, as well as their surging public popularity.
Harry was also frustrated at palace conversations that led nowhere, and that the royal family “doesn’t have the opportunity to operate as an actual family,” with the constant shuttling back and forth of aides rather than direct conversations between family members. “It creates a really weird environment that actually doesn’t allow people to sort things out themselves,” a source said.
All hell broke loose when the couple launched their “sussexroyal.com” website, advertising their vision to be “half-in, half-out” royals.
The book reveals: “The element of surprise, the blindsiding of the queen, for the other principals who are all very mindful of this, rightfully, it was deeply upsetting.” Several royal family members shared that both the queen and Prince Philip were “devastated.”
William reportedly told a source: “I’ve put my arm around my brother all our lives and I can’t do that anymore; we’re separate entities.”
“The family is very private and bringing it into the public domain, when they were told not to, hurt the queen,” a source said. “It was laying out what the Sussexes wanted in a statement without consulting with Her Majesty first—and she’s the head of the institution.”
After a few days of negotiations, the queen summoned Harry, along with Charles and William to the “Sandringham summit” at her Norfolk home. Charles reportedly made clear his vision of a “slimmed-down” monarchy included Harry.
But the queen kiboshed Meghan and Harry’s quasi-royal plan. “If Harry and Meghan had been semi-working royals, there would have had to have been oversight in everything they did in their independent sphere, a committee to approve events and deals,” a source said.
In the end, it was announced that Harry and Meghan would give up their HRH title, receive no public funds for royal duties, not be able to use “royal” in relation to whatever they did next, no longer carry out royal duties, or represent the queen. And they would repay the millions the public had shelled out for the redecoration of their British home, Frogmore Cottage.
What’s making Harry most unhappy
The book reveals that Harry is most pained by the stripping of his military appointments.
“That’s been a tough pill to swallow, and one that has been most painful to Meghan witness him go through,” a source close to the couple told the authors. “It’s the one that made Harry emotional.”
“It was so unnecessary,” Meghan later told a friend. “And it’s not just taking something away from him; it’s also that entire military veteran community. You can see how much he means to them, too. So why? The powers [of the institution] are unfortunately greater than me.”
Something in the air
If Meghan and Harry didn’t comment directly to Scobie and Durand, or even off the record, the book is not only sympathetic to them, it also seeks to torpedo very specific tabloid stories. The authors are told by several sources that Meghan didn’t make Kate cry at Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress fitting, pre-Meghan and Harry’s wedding.
Then there was the tale Meghan had demanded air fresheners be spritzed at “musty” St. George’s Chapel. “The truth was that the discreet baies-scented air diffusers for the chapel provided by Diptyque—much like the candles that Kate chose to scent Westminster Abbey for her 2011 nuptials—had been approved by all parties involved,” we learn.
Hmm, all very precisely sourced.
A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan told The Daily Beast on Friday: “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not interviewed and did not contribute to ‘Finding Freedom.’ This book is based on the authors’ own experiences as members of the royal press corps and their own independent reporting.”
Getting away from it all
Given all the fallout from the book, the queen must be looking forward to getting out of Dodge. She and Prince Philip have been quarantined at Windsor Castle since March, but it has been announced that they are heading to the queen’s Scottish holiday home, Balmoral, as usual next month.
“The Queen and The Duke Of Edinburgh plan to move to Balmoral Castle in early August to commence their annual summer stay. All arrangements will be in line with the relevant guidelines and advice,” a Buckingham Palace statement issued to People read.
This week in royal history
Ahhh, timing. Just as the royal family heads into another period of scandal and turmoil thanks to Finding Freedom, minds this week may turn back to July 29, 1981, when Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married—sold hard to the public as a royal fairytale that it never was.
Unanswered questions
Harry and Meghan’s unhappiness is clear in Finding Freedom. Where does the royal family go next, particularly the deeply fractured relationship between Harry and Meghan and William and Kate?
