The late Queen Elizabeth II made every effort to make Prince Harry and Meghan Markle comfortable during their time with the Royal Family, a royal butler has claimed. Despite her “unprecedented” and repeated attempts to reach out to the couple, nothing seemed to be enough for the Sussexes. A £2million property on the royal estate at Windsor, royal titles and jewels, an invitation to take Meghan to her first engagement to Chester or even giving Sophie Wessex the role of a mentor did not suffice to keep the couple in the Firm, it was said.
Listing all the Queen’s efforts, Princess Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell told Slingo: “She did so many things which are unprecedented to try and get them to fit into the Royal Family but in vain because it didn’t seem to be enough.
“A £2million property on the royal estate at Windsor didn’t seem to be enough. Royal titles and jewels didn’t seem to be enough.
“To bend over backwards and to take Meghan on her first engagement to Chester wasn’t enough, to offer Meghan the chance at having Sophie Wessex to mentor her on her royal programmes weren’t enough, to say to Meghan ‘you can continue acting if you like, if that’s what you want’, wasn’t enough.”
The Queen’s best efforts were ultimately met with the couple’s departure confirmed by the Firm in 2021. At the time, Buckingham Palace said the couple would not “continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service”.
“Nothing seems to have been enough to make them want to stay,” said the former butler, adding: “So I think to myself you can try all you like if they were so minded to leave the Royal Family, which they were, nothing was going to persuade them to stay.”
The America-based couple has since been accused of hitting out at the Royal Family with bombshells revelations in their Netflix documentary and Harry’s explosive memoir Spare.
Among the allegations branded as the most “damaging” to the Royal Family are Harry and William’s request to their father not to marry Camilla, the Duke’s physical altercation with his brother, the couple’s security being pulled during their time in Canada and racism – or “unconscious bias” – inside the Firm.
Harry mentioned the Queen in passing in a key account of detailed tense showdown talks at Sandringham Palace on January 13, 2020, in which senior members of the family met to discuss the fallout from the couple’s decision to step back from the Royal Family.
He recalled: “It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say things that simply weren’t true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in.”
He also appeared to express disappointment at the Queen who cancelled a meeting at the last minute as the Sussexes were getting on their flight from Canada to London.
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The couple was originally meant to meet the Queen who assured him she had no plans that week. But as they boarded the plane, they received news the meeting would not be happening.
Meghan recounted: “This urgent, 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 added: “I was like: ‘Well, that’s certainly the opposite to what she told me.'”
Mr Burrell pushed back against the allegations, saying the Queen “never closed the door to any members of her family”.
He explained: “I know that there is a way he could’ve addressed all of these issues in private with his family and for him to say there was no access to his grandmother the Queen at that time is nonsense.
“I know that world and I know how it works and I know the Queen never closed her door to any members of her family.”
The former butler went on to say that “if Harry wanted to”, he “could’ve walked up from Frogmore Cottage with his wife, with a bunch of flowers, walked up the wooden steps that led to the dog door, up a spiral staircase onto a red-carpeted corridor, turn right and right again into the Queen’s sitting rooms where she would’ve been.”
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