According to royal biographer Robert Hardman, there was more to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s dispute with Queen Elizabeth over their wedding tiara.
In her recent book, “Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story” (released May 16), Hardman provides a clearer picture of the couple’s struggles with the late king in the lead-up to their May 2018 wedding at Windsor Castle.
According to an excerpt from the book in the Daily Mail, Hardman said Queen Elizabeth invited Markle to Buckingham Palace and selected an item from her tiara collection to wear on her wedding day. It was said to be a tradition between the Queen and royal brides to wear them at weddings.
However, Elizabeth and Markle didn’t get any “bonding” time as Prince Harry allegedly showed up with his then-fiancée.
Hardman said Prince Harry wrote in his 2023 memoir, Spare, that he had been invited to select the tiara, but insiders told Hardman otherwise.
In “Spares,” Prince Harry said Markle had chosen Queen Mary’s diamond bandeau, but when he asked Angela Kelly, the Queen’s royal dresser, if Markle could try on the tiara before the wedding, Kelly remained silent.
When Harry finally contacted her, she wrote that she could not remove the tiara from the palace without “bylaws and a police escort.”
“That seemed a little exaggerated to us,” he said. “It was clear they were putting up obstacles, but why? We had no idea what their motives were.”
The Duke of Sussex said he also considered calling his grandmother, but was unsure whose side she would take.
Hardman said those involved claimed that Elizabeth sided with Kelly because she was angry that she had called Buckingham Palace after learning about the drama and wanted to give Markle a tiara right away.
“This is not a toy,” Elizabeth said at the time, according to Hardman’s book.
Sources also went on to provide further details on how Prince Harry allegedly acted when trying to obtain a tiara for his now-wife.
“Harry was telling everyone about it. We thought Angela was like the fairy godmother who gave birth,” a source told Hardman.
“But when she called Kensington Palace, she was put through to Prince Harry and all he said was, ‘Bring it here now.’ And that was the end of the conversation.”
In “The Spare”, Harry claimed that Kelly asked him to sign a license for the tiara. He then told her, “If I had given birth sooner, our lives would have been easier,” which sparked a quarrel between the two.
A staffer told Mr Hardman that during the fight, Mr Harry told Mr Kelly: “He didn’t like how she whined to her grandmother.”
But Kelly “gave it straight back” to the prince, Hardman wrote, adding that the royal dresser blamed Harry for “being pushed around by these people when he was just doing his job.”
“All Angela did was try to protect them,” a former colleague told Ms. Hardman.
Page Six has contacted representatives for Prince Harry and Markle for comment.
Markle, 44, ended up wearing Queen Mary’s diamond bandeau at the royal wedding, but the centerpiece was a 10-diamond brooch that Mary of Teck received from Lincoln County as a wedding gift in 1893.
The “Suits” alum and Prince Harry, 41, wed in front of about 600 guests at St. George’s Chapel.
Elizabeth died at the age of 96, four years after her wedding.
