With the release of Prince Harry’s memoire Spare, several members of the Royal Family – as well as a former butler – got their fair criticism.
Harry pulled no punches in detailing new revelations about how his life was within the royal sphere. Moreover, the prince also shed light on Meghan Markle’s relationship with Kate Middleton, and how at one point the two women shared a deal of animosity.
It’s previously been reported that Meghan had made Kate cry on her wedding day over the dresses for the flower girls. Later, though, Meghan contradicted those claims, suggesting that it was Kate who had actually had made her cry.
Suffice it to say that Meghan and Kate were never best friends. In Spare, Harry’s now revealed another time when Kate lashed out at Meghan.
Apparently, when young Princess Charlotte, who was to be a flower girl at Meghan’s wedding, tried on her dress without a fitting, she was left in tears. A furious Kate is said to have contacted Meghan – ending with Harry finding his then-soon-to-be-wife “sobbing on the floor.”
Meghan and Kate didn’t become best friends from the off, but neither were they enemies in the beginning. Indeed, people held hopes that the two would eventually find their rhythm and click, yet there always seemed something that wasn’t quite right between the two.
For her part, Meghan has not been too outspoken regarding her and Kate’s relationship. Of course, on those occasions where she has divulged information, things have been fairly explosive.
Meghan & Kate’s relationship
In Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary, which aired in December, Meghan revealed that her first ever meeting with Kate could’ve ended better.
“When Will and Kate came over, and I met her for the first time, they came over for dinner, I remember I was in ripped jeans, and I was barefoot,” Meghan recalled.
“I was a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger, I didn’t realize that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.”
She continued: “I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside. There is a forward-facing way of being, and then you close the door and go ‘You can relax now’, but that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”
Following their royal marriage, Harry and Meghan lived at Kensington Palace for a short while. The residence was Prince William and Kate Middleton’s home at the time (Harry and Meghan moved into their own place soon after).
It was supposed to be a happy period for the couples, though things turned ugly quickly.
Harry and Meghan moved to Nottingham Cottage, not far from William and Kate. It was then that the relationship between the two couples soured. According to Tom Quinn, this happened for several reasons.
Meghan didn’t want Kate to take the first picture of Archie
Meghan reportedly had difficulty reconciling with the fact that Kensington Palace was reserved solely for William and Kate. At the same time, a senior royal aide told her she’d never be “in the first division.”
“It was being pointed out to them in no uncertain terms that they weren’t in the first division because that place is held by William and Kate. Inevitably that led to friction,” Quinn claimed.
“In Meghan’s world, if you’re determined enough, you can get to the top. But Meghan can’t, she can’t get to the top whatever she does.”
Harry and Meghan’s royal duties officially ended on March 31, 2020. By then, the Sussexes’ had welcomed their firstborn child, Archie. The family of three would later become four with the arrival of their daughter, Lilibet.
Royal expert Neil Sean once claimed that Kate offered to take the first newborn pictures of Archie. However, Meghan is said to have turned down her approach, instead wanting to “hire a photographer” for the job.
“This was a very special gesture from the now-Princess of Wales to Meghan Markle when she had her first child, Archie,” Sean said in a Youtube video, as reported by Express. He added that Kate offered to “take the personal picture of baby Archie” after other professional photographers had “commended” her portfolio.
These days, Meghan’s relationship with several members of the Royal Family is strained. As stated, Kate Middleton was one individual in particular whom the former actress had a hard time with from the beginning – and vice-versa.
‘Kate didn’t make an effort to welcome Meghan in royal family’
Authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand claim in their book Finding Freedom that the two women weren’t exactly feuding from the off, but rather, the two royals simply didn’t know each other well enough.
“Meghan would agree with the assessment that the duchesses were not the best of friends,” they wrote. “Their relationship hadn’t progressed much since [Markle] was Harry’s girlfriend.”
Moreover, Durand and Scobie add that Kate didn’t make a significant effort to welcome Markle into the family, at least not in the way people might have expected.
Meghan had hoped that Kate would take her under her wing and guide her through all the new things that someone coming from “outside to the Firm” should know about. But that, the authors claim, never happened.
“Meghan was disappointed that she and Kate hadn’t bonded over the position they shared, but she wasn’t losing sleep over it,” Durand and Scobie wrote in Finding Freedom, adding that “Meghan would far rather have had Kate check in on her during the most difficult times with the press.”
Then, in the build up to Harry and Meghan’s wedding, things heated up.
