Meghan Markle Was Determined to ‘Tell the Queen How to Modernize It All,’ Says Royal Expert
A leading royal author and commentator has claimed that the Duchess of Sussex had plans to dive straight into her official royal duties and join the late Queen on engagements to “modernize” the monarchy.
Since she and Harry stepped back from their roles, Meghan has stated that she didn’t receive enough support or training to adjust to her new role as a working member of the world’s most famous family. However, in an interview, royal expert Angela Levin suggested that the Duchess was so keen to bring change to the Royal Family that she immediately sought a more active role.
Speaking with Sky News Australia, the biographer revealed: “I actually discovered that Meghan won’t be told anything. She has to win, she has to be out there in the front. I’ve been told she expected to go immediately with the Queen on engagements and to tell her how to modernize it all.
Everyone would know you don’t go into a new company yourself and expect to be running it within five minutes. You have to learn, you have to absorb, there’s a change of country, change of friends, change of job and she didn’t want to know about that.”
This view is shared by investigative journalist Tom Bower in his book ‘Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors‘. In it, he suggests that Meghan’s refusal to “learn the ropes” of royal life contributed to their decision to step back. The author wrote that the Royal Family had grown increasingly frustrated with Markle’s approach to royal duties. Unlike other members of the family, who kept their opinions to themselves and treated official duties with caution, it was felt that Markle was determined to “hit the ground running”.
Bower explained: “Kate had become irritated by her neighbor. Unlike her own cautious approach to ‘learn the ropes’ before engaging in royal duties, Meghan was running — but what was her destination? And who was she running with? Did she realize that the Royal Family ran together under the monarch, not as competitive individuals?”
Royal expert Andrew Morton expressed a similar sentiment on The Mirror’s podcast, Pod Save The King: “I realized after watching the Royal Family for all these years that it takes a long, long time to really understand what it is like to be royal. Catherine Middleton has spent ten, or twelve years coming to terms with it. So did Sophie Rhys-Jones (The Duchess of Edinburgh) and she’s got a much lower profile – or did. It just takes a long time to absorb yourself into it. Catherine was quite a shy person, so making speeches and being in public was something of an ordeal but I think she’s overcome that. She reminds me so much of Diana. She struggled for a few years to come to terms with what it is like to be a princess.”
Morton continued: “The great tragedy, I think, is that Meghan and Harry didn’t give it long enough to see whether they could give it a go. They were on the out almost before the wedding music had finished. Meghan is a natural… she had the great possibility of using her talent and her position to make a genuine change in the world. I don’t think she’s going to make such a change living in Montecito.”