The South Pacific leg of Harry and Meghan’s trip was a smashing success. Huge crowds showed out to watch them, and the Duchess’s refreshingly casual style was winning over the audience.
But behind the scenes, things were very different. Meghan didn’t understand the purpose of all those Royal walkabouts, shaking hands with innumerable total strangers, despite the fact that she adored the attention.
She was overheard saying, “I can’t believe I’m not being paid for this,” at least once during the 2018 tour, according to numerous staff employees.
There was a lot riding on Meghan Markle, as palace officials were aware. They couldn’t afford to make the same errors they did with Princess Diana because of her ethnic origins (she has a black mother and a white father) and her successful acting career.
The Palace hadn’t gone far enough back then to make Diana feel welcome or to recognize her requirements. Lessons had been learnt, however, and possibly more individuals than Meghan has acknowledged sought to assist the newest member of the Royal Family.
She spoke with William’s private secretary Miguel Head before her wedding to Harry, who assured her that the Palace would do all in its power to support her.
He said that there was no need for her to assume her new position in a certain manner. She didn’t need to be restrained.
They discussed other related employment Meghan may do, such as work as a producer, director, or writer, as well as if she would work in the nonprofit sector, since she had previously made it obvious she had no desire to continue her acting career.
Head explained to Meghan that nothing in this is locked off. We can discuss it.
Meghan expressed her gratitude to him and said that she wants to focus on her charitable and humanitarian activities while also supporting Harry as a member of the Royal Family.
According to one insider, “the whole place was bending over backwards to make sure every option was available because of everything about her, and because of what Harry’s prior girlfriends had gone through.”
Since then, it has been said that the moment Meghan and Harry began experiencing difficulties was the only time their advisors felt the need to act quickly to find a solution. No, top courtiers were making thoughtful and creative efforts to guide them through the next years well before there was any kind of crisis.
Before Harry and Meghan were married—indeed, before Manning had ever met her—proposals were being made by Sir David Manning, the former ambassador to the US who served as William and Harry’s advisor on international matters.
He believed that apart from their royal responsibilities, they should have time to pursue their own humanitarian and other interests. It would be wise to include Harry’s passion for Africa and his great commitment to conservation into the curriculum. Additionally, Meghan need to have some alone time to stay in touch with her American heritage.
So far, so maybe apparent. Manning, though, had another idea.
While William and Kate had begun their married lives on Anglesey, the Queen and Prince Philip had moved to Malta not long after their wedding. Manning said that Harry and Meghan could take a trip. It seemed natural to spend a year in South Africa.
The pair was said to have liked the notion of spending a year in Africa in a document describing their alternatives.
But ultimately, the concept fizzled out. Its two biggest issues, likely money and security, were what ultimately killed it.
It flowed into the sand, Manning said. Although there was a need for resources, the challenges were genuine.
The Queen was also eager to assist. The most senior member of the household, Earl Peel, the Lord Chamberlain, met with Meghan at her request to go through how the Palace operated. Manning, Head, and others were doing their best to assist her even though it seemed unlikely that this Royal tuition would be very helpful.
What they hadn’t anticipated, however, was Meghan and Harry’s mounting dissatisfaction and mistrust of the Palace hierarchy.
The Sussexes believed that even in 2017, the efforts of well-intentioned courtiers just weren’t enough. It seemed clear that this trend would keep happening.
Samantha Cohen, the Queen’s former assistant private secretary, was named as Meghan and Harry’s temporary private secretary by Buckingham Palace a few days after their wedding.
Cohen had been working at the Palace for 17 years and had been considering leaving, but the Queen, who held Cohen in high respect, had urged her to remain on to assist the newlyweds.
They weren’t being subjected to the Queen’s stooge. Instead, she was stepping in to save the day by encouraging one of her most cherished employees to assist the couple through their first six months of marriage.
Sam Cohen was someone Harry and William both had a good relationship with. She received the same sensation in return, and she was motivated to make her new career successful.
But she quickly realized that it was harder than she had thought to make Harry and Meghan pleased. Cohen, according to one account, was bullied.
They mistreated her, another person alleged. Nothing was ever sufficient. “She doesn’t understand, she’s failing,” was the statement.
In fact, the insider said Cohen was “a saint” and the greatest tour manager ever for the Royal family.
She traveled with the Duke and Duchess to Australia, Fiji, Tonga, and New Zealand on official business in the fall of 2018. One source said that Cohen had an especially difficult time on the flight from Tonga to Sydney. Sam had been yelled at both before and throughout the trip.
Cohen then issued a warning to the rest of the employees to avoid Harry and Meghan for the remainder of the day. Her coworkers also made an effort to make sure she didn’t have to see the pair any more than was absolutely necessary that evening.
One report claims that Sir David Manning, who was often consoling on tours, would comment, “You are dealing with a really tough woman.” He wasn’t talking about Cohen.
The Duchess’s attorneys denied Cohen had been victimized in a statement released in February 2021. They said the pair had always appreciated her commitment to them and that she’remains extremely close’ to them.
Harry and Meghan stayed in Fiji for 48 hours while on tour. They went to the president’s state dinner the first night, when the Duchess donned a striking set of diamond earrings. Although Kensington Palace said they were a loan, it would not specify from whom. This was unnecessary unhelpful to reporters covering the visit, even by Palace norms.
When I announced that the chandelier earrings were a wedding present from the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, more than two years later, the reason for my hesitation became clear. The present wasn’t contentious when it was given during the wedding. Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent dissident journalist, was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, where he was killed and mutilated before his corpse was disposed of. The murder made headlines throughout the world in the weeks before the Sussexes’ trip.
Four days before to the commencement of the trip, on October 12, there were mounting rumors that the Crown Prince had personally ordered the death. Three days before the dinner in Fiji, on October 20, Saudi Arabia finally acknowledged that its authorities were to blame for his death.
It was unexpected, to say the least, that Meghan would knowingly wear earrings presented to her by a guy who is said to have blood on his hands at a state event. Given her prior public support for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, Meghan’s team in particular was perplexed that she should wear them. Therefore, the Kensington Palace briefing that said the earrings were on loan was false. But who was in charge?
At the time, Sam Cohen disclosed to colleagues that Chopard, a jeweler, had loaned him the earrings. One might assume that this is the case since she had been informed about it. But that wasn’t accurate.
They were discovered to be pieces from the Butani collection by a keen-eyed reader of the site Meghan’s Mirror a few months after the event.
Therefore, neither Chopard nor borrowed from the jeweler. Was it an innocent, albeit startling, error? Or did anybody lie? In that case, why?
Three weeks after the Fiji trip, Meghan wore the earrings to the Prince of Wales’ 70th birthday celebration at Buckingham Palace on November 14.
Cohen still seemed to believe that Chopard had loaned them to him at the time. But others were aware of the reality.
When the earrings initially emerged in pictures, Kensington Palace was informed by London-based officials who are in charge of recording information about all Royal presents. We decided not to approach Meghan and Harry about it because we were worried about their response, a source said.
After the Duchess donned the earrings a second time, a staff member spoke with Harry about the situation. Although the Sussexes’ attorneys dispute that he was ever questioned about the earrings’ history, he is reported to have been “surprise” that others knew where the earrings originated.
Later, Schillings, Meghan’s attorneys, stated: “At no point did the Duchess inform employees that the earrings were “stolen from a jeweller,” since this would have been false and any implication that she urged them to lie to the media is absurd.”
Schillings clarified two days later: “It is probable that she claimed the earrings were borrowed, which is true, since gifts from heads of state to the Royal Family are gifts to Her Majesty the Queen, who may then decide to lend them out to family members.”
However, it is not persuasive since servants would have mentioned it if the Queen had leased the earrings. They were Meghan’s wedding present, which she was free to use as she pleased; no one would ever have referred to them as being borrowed in everyday speech.
Additionally, Meghan’s legal team said that she was unaware of Prince Mohammed’s alleged complicity in Khashoggi’s death. But by the time she wore the earrings a second time, it was even more difficult to back up this assertion.
Meghan was not a slacker princess; she followed current events. She previously admitted to reading The Economist in order to find “journalism that’s actually reporting subjects that are going to have an effect” during an event celebrating International Women’s Day.
At least two pieces about Mohammed bin Salman’s involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi were published in The Economist between mid-October and early November of last year.
The Duchess’s issues in Fiji didn’t stop there. She made an official visit to a market the day following the state banquet to check on the work of Markets For Change, an initiative managed by UN Women.
Meghan was scheduled to spend fifteen minutes there chatting with female merchants. However, she was hurried out after just eight minutes.
The decision to depart early was first attributed to “security” concerns, which instantly caused the Kensington Palace press office to go into a frenzy. Later, such worries were replaced with worries about “crowd control challenges.”
Two years later, when I was informed that Meghan had been worried about the presence of UN Women, an organization that supports the empowerment of women and with whom she had previously collaborated as an actor on the TV series Suits, the actual reason for her hasty departure became clear.
The Duchess had informed her aides before to her visit that she would only visit the market provided there was no UN Women branding. Staff thus tried their utmost to minimize the organization’s prominence before to Meghan’s arrival.
She is, however, surrounded by women wearing blue shirts with the UN Women insignia in the video clip of the visit. The Duchess may be seen at one point whispering to a staff member, who grimaces, while maintaining a fixed grin.
I can’t believe I’ve been placed in this predicament, Meghan allegedly told her assistant. She was escorted out shortly after that.
Sam Cohen had to take the backup vehicle because of the ensuing pandemonium, and Meghan had to go alone to the next engagement. At the moment, a staff member said, “That’s absurd. She is crazy,
We were all extremely eager to meet her, one stallholder added, so it’s a pity. Three weeks ago, we began planning for the visit… nonetheless, she didn’t even say goodbye.
The staff worker Meghan had spoken to at the market was later observed crying as she sat in an official vehicle.
Why the Duchess felt so strongly about UN Women is unclear. She agreed to become a UN Women Advocate for Women’s Political Participation and Leadership in 2015. However, by 2018, she seemed less delighted to be linked with them.
In 2021, Meghan’s attorneys declared: “This is entirely incorrect.” The Duchess has never objected to UN Women’s branding and is a strong supporter of the organization. The Duchess was only removed from the [Fiji] event because of safety concerns.
Sam Cohen was still having a hard time in the meanwhile.
Jason Knauf, the couple’s communications director, sent an email to his immediate superior on the day before Harry and Meghan took a flight from Tonga to Sydney. Knauf had been in regular touch with the couple’s employees from London.
He described the visit as “extremely tough” and said that the Duchess’ actions “made it worse.” Sam Cohen was another subject of worry for him: “I mentioned the very real prospect that she would be dealing with serious stress and might have to resign from her post.”
Accusations that Meghan had harassed servants and the developing gap between William and Harry hastened a major reorganization at Kensington Palace to break up their combined home.
First, a choice had to be taken on the structure and location of the Sussexes’ dwelling. It was a struggle, and it would come to represent how the couple and Buckingham Palace interacted. The Palace sought to establish an office for them within Buckingham Palace. They believed they were being rather kind. One senior Palace official said, “We went over ourselves to try to accommodate them.” We gave them more than half of what was formerly the Master’s Corridor so they could run a highly efficient office.
But Harry and Meghan didn’t want it that way. They wanted to have their own set-up close to their new residence of Frogmore Cottage, most likely at Windsor Castle.
They desired total autonomy. They wouldn’t be any more superior to other less important Royals like the Duke of York or the Earl and Countess of Wessex if they were confined to Buckingham Palace and subject to the whole Palace apparatus.
The Palace, however, had no intention of providing funding for the construction of a totally independent satellite operation. In addition, the Queen and the Prince of Wales, who were both acutely conscious of the need to avoid undue luxury, made this choice.
Despite being disappointed by this, the Sussexes at least received a sizable staff, which included a new communications secretary who was recruited in early 2019. Sara Latham was a smart, courageous redhead who had both US and British citizenship. She was totally in line with the principles that Harry and Meghan uphold.
The luster was gone in a short time.
In the spring and summer of 2019, Meghan and Harry engaged in a number of public spats and scored some stunning own goals.
Initially, the Palace released a statement claiming that the Duchess had entered labor, only for it to turn out that she had really given birth eight hours earlier. When Archie was baptised later, the couple insisted on keeping the godparents’ identities a secret, which further alienated their supporters.
According to a friend, Sam Cohen “was at her wits’ end.” She endured frequent conflict on Harry and Meghan’s behalf while also being abused by them.
Cohen also saw that she was becoming far more engaged in planning their personal life than would be proper for a private secretary, who, despite the title, is only responsible for managing their professional lives.
She had remained longer than the six months she’d promised, and it was obvious that she was happy to leave her work. Sam constantly made it apparent that it was like working for a pair of adolescents, according to a source. They strained her to the breaking point and were impossible. She was depressed.
Harry and Meghan traveled by private aircraft four times in less than a week to visit Ibiza and the South of France that summer, after his barefoot speech on the need to protect the environment.
As a result, Sara Latham, who had counseled Harry against using private planes, became the target of charges of hypocrisy and disagreements. The couple’s relationship with their media adviser grew more tense. Close associates started to ponder whether Latham would see the year out at all.
The Sussex family’s situation was “terrible and stressful” by August 2019. The presence of Meghan’s business manager, attorney, agent, and US publicist in the background was becoming more and more obvious to the staff.
The American team had been working hard on agreements for Meghan, including one with the now-defunct streaming site Quibi as well as one with Netflix for an animated series about strong women.
Her Los Angeles team also handled Meghan’s voiceover for a Disney elephant movie and Harry’s deal for his mental health series on Apple+ with Oprah Winfrey.
According to a source within KP (Kensington Palace), “the team in America did raise issues for personnel.” The couple’s interactions with the US were always shrouded in considerable secrecy.
Some individuals would be aware of what was happening with things like Quibi, while others wouldn’t know anything about it.
Discussions would suddenly move underground, into the “private” space, after being quite public. At times, it was very challenging to manage everything.
Relationships between Meghan and her top advisors were now rapidly deteriorating. They believed their advise wasn’t being taken into consideration and that their only purpose in being there was to carry out plans that they had not helped to develop. There was mistrust rather than openness and trust.
Harry and Meghan’s team would refer to themselves as the Sussex Survivors’ Club by the time the marriage had completely deteriorated. Sam Cohen, Sara Latham, and the assistant press secretary Marnie Gaffney, who make up the core group, coined the damning term “narcissistic sociopath” to describe Meghan.
They would remark, “We were played,” again.
2022 Valentine Low
Adapted from Valentine Low’s book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown, which Headline will release on Thursday for £20. Before October 15, place a £18 order at mailshop.co.uk/books or by calling 020 3176 2937. Orders over £20 qualify for free UK shipping.