By Lucy Caulkett-
Prince Harry & Meghan Markle convinced they were being sidelined over Queen’s Christmas speech photo omission, and this made them feel unwanted.
The Duke and Sussex were reportedly angry that a photo of themselves and baby Archie was not visible during the Queen’s speech in 2019, according to the biography Finding Freedom.
Finding Freedom authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand said Harry and Meghan felt they “had long been sidelined by the institution and were not a fundamental part of its future.”
The fact Archie was not included in the line-up of family portraits displayed on the Queen’s desk during her Christmas message in 2019 signalled to them that they were not accepted as bonified members of the royal family, and was the moment the couple reached boiling point, according to the authours.
The exclusion sent a message to the world that they were not prominent members of the royal family, which was true. The couple had reportedly been planning their departure as early as six months after their wedding.
They wrote: “One didn’t have to look further than the family photos displayed during the Queen’s Speech on Christmas Day.
“In the Green Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, where the Queen delivered her address, viewers glimpsed photos of the Cambridges and their children, Charles and Camilla, Prince Philip, and a black-and-white image of George VI.
“Noticeably absent was a photo of Harry, Meghan, and their new baby, Archie, they wrote.
Journalists note that the Queen usually gave her annual speech surrounded by touching pictures of her family members either at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. Such pictures can be seen as representing those members of her family close to her heart. It is not clear who decides which pictures go on display.
Queen’s nearest and dearest featured in 2019 Christmas speech (Image: PA)
In 2019, there were images of King George VI, King Charles and The Queen Consort, the late Duke of Edinburgh and The Prince and Princess of Wales with their three children.
Palace sources insisted that the photos were chosen to represent the direct line of succession, but for Harry and Meghan, it had been yet another sign that they needed to consider their own path,” the authours write.
Authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand say Harry and Meghan felt they “had long been sidelined by the institution and were not a fundamental part of its future.”
The authors wrote: “One didn’t have to look further than the family photos displayed during the Queen’s Speech on Christmas Day.
Although the Mirror reports that Harry and Meghan were not completely forgotten in the Christmas Day speech that year as never-before-seen footage of the Queen and Prince Philip meeting Archie for the first time with Harry, Meghan and Meghan’s mum, Doria Ragland, was included, this could not plausibly have compensated for the exclusion of their photos in a public speech by the then Head of the Monarch.
However, revelation in a biography on the Queen’s life by Gyles Brandeth called Elizabeth: ‘An intimate Portrait’ serialised in the Daily Mail that Meghan Markle had been bullying their staff and had displayed arrogance by snubbing an offer by the Queen for her daughter-in-law, Sophie Wessex to mentor her, and had displayed an intolerable level of high handedness towards her staff explains why the royal family may have wanted to make a statement to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle that they were not the most important members of the royal family.
The queen apparently told Meghan Markle: ‘Sophie can help show you the ropes,’ but Meghan made it clear that she did not feel she needed Sophie’s help because she had Harry.
”The Queen was a little concerned at that, and concerned, too, when word reached her that Meghan was reportedly occasionally a bit ‘high-handed’ with staff. The Queen put it down to pre-wedding nerve”, the author writes.
Quite a number of staff left the Sussexes’ service, including Cohen and another private secretary, two personal assistants and two nannies. Cohen, after she had left, reportedly said it had been like ‘working for a couple of teenagers’. Others called Meghan ‘an outrageous bully’ and ‘a narcissistic sociopath”, according to the authours.
Meghan Markle has denied the allegations but has never fully explained why those claims were made, neither has she taking any strong steps to refute them.
The Queen also let slip in the early days of the Sussexes’ marriage was to wonder to a friend if Harry wasn’t ‘perhaps a little over-in-love’.
Exactly what that statement meant was never elaborated upon, but the assumption is that he was tolerating a bit much of her indiscretions in relation to the bullying allegations.