By the time Meghan Markle walked behind the Queen's coffin in September 2022, the split was already complete. The Sussexes were long gone to California, Oprah had been and gone, and the idea of a 'fab four' had dissolved into aPR fantasy everyone was slightly embarrassed to remember.
Yet, if one new royal book is to be believed, there was at least one person in the family who never really bought the fairy tale in the first place.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, 'always knew' Meghan would not stay the course, according to royal author Robert Hardman. In his telling, Kate saw from the outset that her new sister‑in‑law's uncompromising streak would eventually collide with an institution that still runs on hierarchy, compromise and tight‑lipped endurance.
It is, to put it mildly, not the version of events you get inHarry & Meghan.
Hardman's new book,Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story, digs into the early years of the Sussex experiment. Buried amid the palace intrigue is a striking claim: thatKate privately viewed Meghan as 'abrasive, brash and bossy,'someone 'bullish' enough that palace aides began resigning in what came to be dubbed, with grim humour, 'the Meghan effect.'
The reporting leans heavily on unnamed insiders and former staff, the same ecosystem of courtiers and friends that has fed royal biographies for decades. According to those voices, Meghan arrived at Kensington Palace with a very American sensibility about work and status, direct, ambitious, impatient with woolly protocol, and expected both her title and her workload to reflect the importance she believed she now held.
Kate, presented here as the cool‑headed counterweight, is said to have predicted that this simply would not last. A woman who had spent years learning to move within the system, often by biting her tongue, apparently recognised early that Meghan was unlikely to do the same.
One anecdote in particular is doing the rounds. Meghan reportedly bristled at the idea that her public role would remain secondary to her sister‑in‑law's, telling aides that 'if it wasn't going to be number one, it was just 'not a big enough role'.'
To royal watchers, this will sound familiar: ambition meets centuries‑old pecking order, sparks fly.
There is, of course, a heavy dose of palace perspective in all this. Where Meghan and Prince Harry see a woman pushing back against snobbery and racism, Hardman's sources see a newcomer who expected to rewrite the rules by sheer force of personality.
Source: International Business Times UK
