{"id":240694,"date":"2025-07-05T18:07:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T18:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240694\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T18:07:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T18:07:21","slug":"when-queen-heard-it-was-harry-on-the-phone-there-was-stony-silence-peerless-royal-expert-richard-kay-sensationally-tells-for-first-time-exactly-how-prince-and-meghan-blew-relationship-with-his-gran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240694\/","title":{"rendered":"When Queen heard it was Harry on the phone there was stony silence: Peerless Royal expert RICHARD KAY sensationally tells for first time exactly how Prince and Meghan ‘blew’ relationship with his grandmother"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just the other day, a former Buckingham Palace<\/a> switchboard operator was reminiscing about working for the late Queen Elizabeth. One afternoon, a call had come through from Prince Harry<\/a> in the US and he wanted to speak to his grandmother.<\/p>\n

The procedure was to ring the Queen\u2019s private number and let her know who was on the line. \u2018She would always thank you and then you would connect the call and leave them to their conversation,\u2019 the operator recalled.<\/p>\n

But on this occasion, she did not. \u2018When I announced to the Queen that Harry was her caller there was just a stony silence,\u2019 she said. \u2018In fact, it was so uncomfortable that I filled the silence myself by saying \u201cThank you, your Majesty\u201d and then connected them.\u2019<\/p>\n

This incident happened during the Covid pandemic, a time of considerable anxiety for the Queen. Her increasingly frail husband Prince Philip<\/a> was nearing the end of his life and the fallout from Harry and Meghan\u2019s decision to abandon Britain for a life of pampered exile had triggered a series of royal crises.<\/p>\n

Even so, the telephonist has never forgotten the moment, telling me: \u2018It was memorable because the Queen would never not acknowledge you.\u2019<\/p>\n

To this longstanding and loyal servant, the absence of the usual courtesy was a direct result of the tensions and discord sewn by the prince and his wife.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this highly unusual behaviour of a monarch who was rarely \u2013 if ever \u2013 abrupt with her staff by an extraordinary insight into the Queen\u2019s attitude towards her grandson and the former Meghan Markle, which emerged this week from an American historian who befriended one of the Queen\u2019s close confidantes.<\/p>\n

In an at times explosive intervention, Sally Bedell Smith revealed what she claimed was the high emotional cost to the Queen of Harry and Meghan\u2019s departure. She painted a picture of a monarch not just heartbroken but also wounded, saddened and, at times, uncomprehending.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Queen’s initial joy at Harry’s happiness is said to have steadily dissipated, writes Richard Kay. Pictured in 2015 at the Chelsea Flower Show<\/p>\n

Her initial joy at Harry\u2019s happiness is said to have steadily dissipated in the face of the couple\u2019s overbearing behaviour, rudeness and lack of respect. At one stage the Queen was reported to be \u2018really upset\u2019.<\/p>\n

The source for Bedell Smith, who has written several well-regarded royal biographies, was Lady Elizabeth Anson, party-planner extraordinaire and a cousin to the Queen, who died of emphysema in 2020.<\/p>\n

In a blog on the online publishing platform Substack, Bedell Smith, daughter of a US Army general, writes that she had known Lady Elizabeth \u2013 always addressed by the Queen as Liza \u2013 since 1998.<\/p>\n

\u2018We had many conversations over the years that informed my books about the Royal Family,\u2019 she notes, adding: \u2018I was lucky to have her as a friend.\u2019<\/p>\n

It is perhaps fortunate, too, that the businesswoman who organised the post-wedding party for the royals at Claridge\u2019s that followed then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana\u2019s 1981 wedding, as well as gatherings for Sir Mick Jagger, Sting and Baroness Thatcher, is no longer among us and so not in a position to dispute any of Bedell Smith\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

\u2018She was rightly proud of her closeness to the Queen,\u2019 one of Lady Elizabeth\u2019s personal assistants told me. \u2018But she was also very discreet and highly respectful.\u2019 Nevertheless, it is that closeness \u2013 and the Queen\u2019s reported views about the troublesome Sussexes \u2013 which is crucial.<\/p>\n

After all, it is the question we all want to know the answer to \u2013 what did Elizabeth (and indeed Philip) really think of Harry\u2019s bride? Did she even like her and how did her affection for a grandson to whom she was once devoted end up souring to the point where Lady Elizabeth confidently described the relationship with his grandmother as \u2018blown\u2019?<\/p>\n

Accounts of the dramas surrounding the couple\u2019s Windsor Castle wedding, their subsequent departure and the fallout between Harry and his brother Prince William are not new.<\/p>\n

And Harry, of course, has written a version of these events in his memoir Spare, which conveniently skates over suggestions that his relationship with his grandmother (and her staff) was anything less than serene.<\/p>\n

What has been missing have been the views of those they left behind amid the wreckage of \u2018Megxit\u2019. Thanks to convention and a reluctance to play the couple at their own game, the Windsors have largely concealed their hurt behind a grim-faced royal rectitude.<\/p>\n

Not completely, however. William exploded with barely controlled anger after his brother and sister-in-law\u2019s Oprah Winfrey showdown in which unnamed royals were accused of racism. It provoked William to declare: \u2018We\u2019re very much not a racist family.\u2019<\/p>\n

The views of Lady Elizabeth, however, are those of the closest royal family intimate to have spoken out so far, whether she intended her comments to be published or not.<\/p>\n

\"Lady <\/p>\n

Lady Elizabeth Anson was not only Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin, but one of her closest friends\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"I <\/p>\n

I too knew Lady Elizabeth, says Richard Kay, and how valued she had become as a sounding board and friend for the monarch<\/p>\n

They mirror what many were privately saying in the Palace at the time. As a royal writer over many decades, I too knew Lady Elizabeth and how valued she had become as a sounding board and friend for the monarch \u2013 especially after the Queen suffered the double loss of her sister Princess Margaret and her mother within six weeks in 2002.<\/p>\n

The chain-smoking Liza and I had our run-ins too \u2013 of which more later.<\/p>\n

So, who was Lady Elizabeth Anson and why should her reported views be so significant? To the royals, she was very much \u2018one of us\u2019, almost a family member. Born in Windsor Castle in 1941, she was not only the daughter of a princess of Denmark\u2019s royal house but a great-niece of the Queen Mother \u2013 her mother was, like the Queen Mother, a member of the Bowes-Lyon family \u2013 and a god-daughter of King George VI.<\/p>\n

As a child, she recalled playing in the royals\u2019 private grounds at Windsor, Frogmore Gardens. When she married in 1972, the then 20-year-old Princess Anne was a bridesmaid, and her society-photographer brother Patrick (the Earl of) Lichfield gave her away to baronet and fellow photographer Sir Geoffrey Shakerley.<\/p>\n

It is these impeccable credentials which would have given her a ringside seat to the turmoil created by Harry and Meghan and make her such a credible witness.<\/p>\n

Although 15 years separated Elizabeth the party queen and Elizabeth the monarch, late in life the two women spoke at least once a week \u2013 sometimes more but never less. They were so close, in fact, that it was said they could finish each other\u2019s sentences.<\/p>\n

There were discreet dinners at Lady Elizabeth\u2019s Notting Hill townhouse, where they would exchange the latest gossip. She always invited Prince Philip to these get-togethers but the Queen would often come alone.<\/p>\n

Despite once suggesting that she and Princess Diana had much in common \u2013 both children of divorced parents who suffered from an eating disorder \u2013 the aristocrat, with her bouffant of immaculately coiffed auburn hair, was no fan. She took Charles\u2019s (and the royals\u2019) side in the subsequent marriage breakdown dramas. She was also the family\u2019s fiercest defender. When, in 1996, I revealed secret plans for a surprise party to mark the Queen\u2019s 70th birthday \u2013 a riverboat trip on the Thames to a fashionable restaurant \u2013 Liza was furious with me. \u2018You\u2019ve ruined it for the Queen,\u2019 she shouted down the phone.<\/p>\n

Her services as London\u2019s pre-eminent party-thrower, however, meant she was always in demand with the royals: Prince Andrew\u2019s 21st, the \u2018dance of the decades\u2019 to mark the Queen Mother\u2019s 100th, Princess Margaret\u2019s 70th, Anne\u2019s 50th, Andrew\u2019s 40th at Windsor Castle and Queen Elizabeth\u2019s 80th at the Ritz Hotel. She was also asked to organise the party for the foreign royals invited to William and Kate\u2019s 2011 wedding.<\/p>\n

But she was pointedly not consulted by Harry and Meghan when they began planning their nuptials in late 2017.<\/p>\n

Initially, both Lady Elizabeth and the Queen were fans of the articulate and confident 36-year-old American actress who had won the prince\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n

According to Bedell Smith, Liza thought Meghan \u2018poised, very natural, intelligent and thoughtful\u2019, but added that she was \u2018clearly brighter than Harry [and] has to be careful not to overshadow him.\u2019<\/p>\n

Does this chime with the Queen\u2019s view? I believe it does. When Harry first took Meghan to tea with his grandmother at the Palace, a footman told me at the time that the Queen beamed at her staff, telling them how much she liked her.<\/p>\n

But when Lady Elizabeth made suggestions about the wedding, the actress, while \u2018full of charm\u2019, was unforthcoming. Harry subsequently wrote to this veteran of royal soirees explaining that they were \u2018going another way\u2019, adding: \u2018I am close to my grandmother, and she is content with this.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"On <\/p>\n

On initial meeting, the Queen had told her staff how much she liked Meghan. But as Harry and Meghan planned their wedding\u00a0failure to follow protocols had made the Queen \u2018really upset\u2019<\/p>\n

\"When <\/p>\n

When Lady Elizabeth, a party planner, made suggestions to Prince Harry and Meghan about their wedding, she was rebuffed and told the couple were ‘going another way’<\/p>\n

But Lady Elizabeth reportedly said: \u2018When I spoke with the Queen she said she is not at all content.\u2019 Plainly upset, the socialite added what turned out to be a prophetic observation: \u2018Meghan could turn into nothing but trouble. She sees things in a different way.\u2019<\/p>\n

By now, the Queen was also dismayed at developments. She was upset that Harry had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to officiate at the wedding without first obtaining the permission of the Dean of Windsor, the cleric in charge of the church where the ceremony was to be held.<\/p>\n

As a high-society event-planner herself, Lady Elizabeth understood only too well just what an embarrassing situation this put the Queen in. \u2018Harry seems to think the Queen can do what she wants, but she can\u2019t,\u2019 she told Bedell Smith. \u2018On the religious side it is the Dean of Windsor\u2019s jurisdiction.\u2019 As a result, Lady Elizabeth told the writer: \u2018Harry has blown his relationship with his grandmother.\u2019 This failure to follow protocols had made the Queen \u2018really upset\u2019.<\/p>\n

She said she was \u2018shocked\u2019 when the Queen told her how much this had saddened her. In her blog, Bedell Smith quotes Lady Elizabeth saying that Harry \u2018was rude to her [the Queen] for ten minutes\u2019. This contretemps apparently originated in a polite inquiry from the Queen about the wedding dress and \u2018Meghan wouldn\u2019t tell her\u2019.<\/p>\n

Her distress was not just at the lack of candour and bad manners of the couple, but the lack of respect shown to her as monarch.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of April, with the ceremony only weeks away, Harry and the Queen were said by her confidante to have patched things up. She told the prince that she felt left out of the wedding plans and her grandson subsequently wrote her a letter about what was happening.<\/p>\n

Asked if Meghan was being bossy, Lady Elizabeth told Bedell Smith: \u2018So I gather. Very much so.\u2019 The implication is that this must have been relayed to her by the Queen. Two weeks before the wedding, the hurt had clearly returned to Her Majesty. And, with it, the most devastating assessment.<\/p>\n

\u2018The jury is out on whether she likes Meghan,\u2019 the Queen\u2019s cousin is quoted as saying. \u2018My Jemima [a nickname Bedell Smith claims Lady Elizabeth used for the Queen] is very worried. Harry is besotted and weak about women. We hope but don\u2019t quite think she is in love. We think she engineered it all.\u2019<\/p>\n

She added: \u2018It\u2019s worrying that so many people are questioning whether Meghan is right for Harry. The problem, bless his heart, is that Harry is neither bright nor strong, and she is both.\u2019<\/p>\n

What makes these disclosures so compelling is that the Queen was always cautious about what she said about the couple because they were so sensitive to any criticism.<\/p>\n

\"It <\/p>\n

It was to Lady Elizabeth that the Queen made her only publicly revealed remark about the wedding, which was that the bride\u2019s Givenchy gown was \u2018too white\u2019, writes Richard Kay<\/p>\n

\"And, <\/p>\n

And, says Kay, the Queen\u2019s reservations about her grandson\u2019s choice of bride continued after the wedding<\/p>\n

However, it was to Lady Elizabeth that the Queen made her only publicly revealed remark about the wedding, which was that the bride\u2019s Givenchy gown was \u2018too white\u2019.<\/p>\n

In the monarch\u2019s view, it was not appropriate for a divorcee getting remarried in a church to look quite so flamboyantly virginal.<\/p>\n

She was also uncomfortable with Charles\u2019s decision to stand in for Meghan\u2019s father, Thomas Markle, and walk her down the aisle after the retired television cameraman declined an invitation to his daughter\u2019s wedding due to health issues.<\/p>\n

The Queen\u2019s reservations about her grandson\u2019s choice of bride continued after the wedding. Stories began emerging of Meghan\u2019s alleged high-handedness towards staff and a growing rift between Harry and William.<\/p>\n

\u2018Meghan and William and Kate are not working well,\u2019 Lady Elizabeth reported to Bedell Smith. \u2018That is what the Queen said, particularly about the two girls.\u2019<\/p>\n

Meghan also had a new nickname behind Palace walls. \u2018We call her \u201cThe American\u201d,\u2019 one figure who worked for Queen Elizabeth told me at the time. This was a not-so-subtle nod, I was told, to the Duchess of Windsor, the twice-married US adventuress who provoked the abdication crisis of the Queen\u2019s uncle, King Edward VIII.<\/p>\n

In February of 2019, Bedell Smith writes that she spoke on the phone to Lady Elizabeth who unequivocally told her: \u2018I don\u2019t trust Meghan an inch. To begin with she was not bad, a straightforward starlet used to public speaking and charity work. The wedge between the brothers is really bad.\u2019<\/p>\n

Soon the dramas of Megxit were overwhelming the royals, a time when even a phone call from California was greeted with dread by the Queen, but Lady Elizabeth did not live to witness the full fall-out.<\/p>\n

As her health declined, the Queen gave her old friend a parting gift, appointing her a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. It was measure of the esteem in which she was held.<\/p>\n

There was one final gesture, a socially distanced meeting \u2013 because of Covid \u2013 in the gardens at Frogmore, where Lady Elizabeth had played as a child.<\/p>\n

We will have to wait for the late Queen\u2019s official biography to know her full, unexpurgated version of the Harry and Meghan shambles.<\/p>\n

Despite some jarring recollections \u2013 friends have no knowledge of the Jemima nickname \u2013 Lady Elizabeth\u2019s account is an intriguing first draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just the other day, a former Buckingham Palace switchboard operator was reminiscing about working for the late Queen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,92,7721,7719,7718,7720,1281,12,447,7710,519,7711],"class_list":{"0":"post-240694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-duchess-of-sussex","11":"tag-duke-of-sussex","12":"tag-harry","13":"tag-meghan","14":"tag-meghan-markle","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-prince-harry","17":"tag-royal-families","18":"tag-royal-family","19":"tag-uk-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114801963695568312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}