Why Meghan Markle had Buckingham Palace 'really worried,' staffer reveals

A royal author has claimed that Meghan Markle’s independent approach as a working royal sparked significant concern inside Buckingham Palace, with fears she could overshadow more senior members of the family.

In Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants, author Tom Quinn writes that Meghan, who married Prince Harry in 2018 and became a working royal shortly after, left Palace staff alarmed because she appeared determined to “do her own thing”, an approach at odds with royal tradition.

“Buckingham Palace became really worried when they became aware that Meghan had plans for her life as a working royal that were not going to be part of a general strategy agreed with the staff,” Quinn writes. 

“She just wanted to do her own thing. Which is fair enough if you're not a member of a tightly controlled institution, but it was never going to be acceptable that Meghan should outshine Princess Anne, Prince Charles [as he then was] and Elizabeth the Queen."

A former Palace insider reportedly told Quinn that Meghan struggled to understand the rigid hierarchy: “Elizabeth always had to be the centre and focus of everything the Royal Family did and I don't think Meghan understood why that meant she had to do things she didn’t want to do."

"She didn’t understand that when you join the Royal Family, you don’t do as you please, you do as you’re told. In a sense, you become a servant of the family.”

One former employee is quoted as saying: “Many of the rules do seem pretty pointless and exist only so that the relative status of each senior royal is protected. And the senior royals are such a sensitive bunch - if one gets a gold pen or a new car, they all want one. Meghan thought they behaved like babies.”

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