Meghan Markle's brutal blow after Prince Harry's 'bond with late Queen soured'
They may have tied the knot more than seven years ago - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have faced new explosive claims about tension in the lead-up to their wedding.
It is well known that the run-up to their nuptials in May 2018 was not all plain sailing, with Meghan's dad dropping out of attending the ceremony at the last minute. But now a royal author has laid bare claims that behind the scenes, Harry had left the late Queen 'dismayed' with some of the wedding arrangements - even saying that he almost 'blew' his relationship with his late grandmother.
Sally Bedell Smith claims that before her death, Lady Elizabeth Anson, a cousin of Elizabeth II and a high-society party planner, told her that the former monarch had become "very worried" about her grandson and that Meghan's intentions had been questioned.
Lady Anson, who is said to have made the comments, died in 2020 - and of course, the events leading up to the wedding were more than seven years ago now. And even though a significant amount of time has passed since the nuptials, former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond told the Mirror that in a recent move, it was Meghan who harked back to the past first.
She explained: "There have been too many reports about tensions in the weeks running up to Harry and Meghan's marriage to discount them. I think the old saying 'there's no smoke without fire' holds true.
"Lady Elizabeth Anson was certainly a very well-connected and informed source for these latest reports, which suggest that the Queen felt Harry was rushing into a marriage too quickly.
"Worse than that, it seems the Queen and other members of the Royal family doubted Meghan's sincerity and found her very difficult to deal with.
"It's extremely sad to think that the situation also soured the late Queen's relationship with her very much loved grandson, Harry: a young man she had nurtured and guided through the very worst time of his life, the death of his mother.
"Is it fair that all this is being brought up so many years later? Maybe not, but then perhaps Meghan shouldn't allude to lies being told about her eight years ago, which she did in a recent podcast.
"The fact is the royal story is always a source of curiosity and will sell books and papers, especially when there is a whiff of discord or scandal."
One bombshell claim made in Bedell-Smith's Substack is that the former monarch had been left shocked that Harry had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform the wedding ceremony without asking the Dean of Windsor first and that the now Duke of Sussex thought his grandmother could just "do what she wants".
And according to Bedell Smith, Lady Anson said that due to this, Harry had "blown" his relationship with his grandmother. She writes that Lady Anson told her several months before the wedding: "She [the Queen] 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."
However, the author later claims that several weeks closer to the nuptials, Lady Anson told her that Harry and his grandmother had "patched things up" after he let her into the details of what they had planned for their wedding. Bedell Smith says Lady Anson described Harry as "besotted and weak about women."
And now Jennie believes the claims show how much of a change there had been in Harry. She added: "It does seem quite out of character for Harry to disrespect his grandmother and, if he did, it is a sorry reflection of how his relationship changed him.
"He always claimed they had something special, and that she could confide in him in a way she did not with other family members. He suggested he was in some way her protector…making sure 'she had the right people around her.'
"The late Queen was meticulous about including both Harry and Meghan in statements she made about the situation and made it clear she would always regard them as part of the family. Whether she would still feel quite so magnanimous today is something we shall never know. I just hope Harry now feels it was all worth it."
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