Queen Elizabeth II was left upset by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in the run-up to their 2018 royal wedding, according to her cousin and closest confidante.
Lady Elizabeth Anson, who died in 2020 at age 79, divulged how the late monarch felt about the Duchess of Sussex in an interview for the Times of London, published posthumously, with royal author Sally Bedell Smith.
Ahead of their lavish nuptials at Windsor Castle, Anson — who from the get-go branded Markle “nothing but trouble” — detailed the dispute the couple had with Elizabeth, who died in September 2022 at age 96
“[Prince] Harry wrote to me and said they were going another way. He said, ‘I am close to my grandmother, and she is content with this,’” Anson told Bedell Smith, referring to the Sussexes’ wedding planning.
“When I spoke with the queen, she said she is not at all content. Meghan could turn into nothing but trouble. She sees things in a different way.”
Anson said the queen was “dismayed” that the Invictus Games founder, 40, had asked the archbishop of Canterbury to perform the ceremony in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle without first getting permission from the dean of Windsor.
“Harry seems to think the queen can do what she wants, but she can’t,” Anson said. “On the religious side, it is the dean of Windsor’s jurisdiction.
“Harry has blown his relationship with his grandmother. She said she was really upset. I was shocked when the queen told me this, how she was so saddened.”
According to Bedell Smith, who spoke to the royal two weeks before Harry wed the “Suits” alum, 43, Anson said at the time that “the jury is out on whether she likes Meghan.”
“My Jemima is very worried,” Anson said, using her loving nickname for the late queen. “Harry is besotted and weak about women. We hope, but don’t quite think she is in love. We think she engineered it all.”
After the pair tied the knot, Anson claimed that they gradually started distancing themselves from Prince William and Kate Middleton.
“Meghan and William and Kate are not working well,” Anson told Bedell Smith. “That is what the queen said, particularly about the two girls. It’s 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,” she added.