Meghan Markle has shared the moment the 'penny dropped' for her on the attention she was getting over other members of the royal family. In the second volume of their Netflix documentary, Meghan and Harry recall attending the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance in London only to find the next day that Meghan had made the front page of the newspapers.
Harry said: "First time that the penny dropped for her, M [Meghan] and I spent the night in a room in Buckingham Palace after an event where every single member of the family, senior members of the family, had been including the queen."
The Duchess of Sussex described how: "The next morning they'd set up breakfast for Harry and I..." before the duke interjected and said, "And on the front page of the Telegraph …Meghan." Meghan said she reacted by saying, "Oh my God" while Harry added, "She was like, 'but it's not my fault.' And I said, 'I know and my mum felt the same way.'"
James Holt, executive director at Archewell and a former palace aide, also said: "When some people in the institution around the family started to see that this new couple could destabilize the power dynamics, whether actively talked about or not, the aim was to put them in a box or make them irrelevant."
He added: "All of a sudden these tabloid stories started to appear criticizing Meghan for every little thing." The comments were made in 'Volume 2' of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's docuseries with Netflix. The final three episodes of the series, entitled Harry & Meghan, dropped on the streaming platform on Thursday (December 15).
While the first three episodes, each an hour long, revealed how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex actually met before getting into their experience with the press with Harry making a rare reference to his late mother, Princess Diana's, Panorama interview, the second focused on the couple’s decision to step back as senior members of the royal family and the intrusion they felt.
Also in the documentary, in episode five, Harry and Meghan spoke about being 'blocked' when they arranged to see the Queen. The duke shared how the couple were planning to fly back to the UK for a visit in early 2020 and the Queen told him she had no plans all week so they could go for tea and stay the night.
"Before we left I spoke to my grandmother as well and told her we were coming back on the 6th [of January, 2022] and I would love to drive up and come up to see you," Harry explained. "She knew that we were finding things hard, I had spoken to her many times about it, she told me she had no plans for the week, she said why don’t you come up, you can have tea but why don’t you stay the night, you and Meghan."
Meghan then said: "So, we’re flying back from Vancouver straight to Heathrow, and right as we’re getting on the plane, this urgent message comes through to H, saying ‘You are not allowed to go and see Her Majesty. Make sure that your principal is aware he cannot go and see her. She’s busy. She has plans all week.'"
Harry then told the camera: "I was like ‘Well, that’s certainly the opposite to what she had told me.'" He added: "Once we were back in the UK, I rang her and said 'We’re now told that you’re busy.’ And she said ‘Yes. I didn’t know that I was busy. I’ve now been told I’m busy all week. I’ve actually been told I’m busy all week.’ I was like 'Wow'."
Meghan said: "I remember looking at H and thinking ‘My gosh. This is when a family and a family business are in direct conflict because they’re blocking you from seeing the Queen, but what they’re really doing is blocking a grandson from seeing his grandmother."
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