Hugo Vickers says Prince Harry and Meghan Markle caused “unforgivable” stress for Queen Elizabeth II in the final years of her life, reviving scrutiny of the royal family’s most damaging break in recent memory. The author makes the claim in his new book, “Queen Elizabeth II: A Personal History.”
Vickers said the distress the Sussexes caused the queen “cannot be overestimated,” placing the blame on a chain of events that began with their marriage in 2018 and deepened after they stepped back as senior royals in 2020. The couple said they left their official roles because of unbearable intrusions by the British press and a lack of support from the palace.
The dispute widened further after Harry and Meghan settled in California and gave a televised interview to Oprah Winfrey that aired allegations about the royal family and was watched by nearly 50 million people worldwide. In that 2021 interview, Meghan alleged that remarks about Archie’s skin color had been made by the inner circle of the royal family, a charge that intensified the fallout around the couple’s departure.
Vickers’s book, which draws on sources close to the palace, adds another claim to the long-running feud: he said Queen Elizabeth II refused to take Harry’s phone calls after the Oprah interview unless another person was in the room, and would not speak to him unless a lady-in-waiting was present. He said the queen was “obviously feeling rather cautious whenever he got in touc,” underscoring how far the relationship had cooled by the end of her reign.
The latest account is less about one interview than about the damage it left behind. Harry and Meghan have long cast their departure as a response to press pressure and palace neglect; Vickers’s version puts Queen Elizabeth II at the center of the cost, and suggests the breach was not just public but personal.
