Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were already arguing with the palace by the time they posed for their engagement photographs in the garden of Kensington Palace on November 27, 2017. The couple had just been announced by the Prince of Wales, who said he was delighted to announce the engagement of Prince Harry to Ms Meghan Markle.
What followed was a wave of royal logistics that looked polished in public and brittle behind the scenes. St George’s Chapel, Windsor, was booked for May 19, 2018, Princess Charlotte was asked to be a bridesmaid, and a television interview that day showed Harry and Meghan speaking excitedly about the Commonwealth and their shared passion for change. The image was one of momentum. The reality was messier.
Harry had first introduced Meghan to the Queen the previous year, when Meghan was based in Toronto and working on Suits. That first meeting took place at Royal Lodge, the Windsor home of the Duke of York, and Sarah, Duchess of York, gave Meghan a quick crash-course in curtseying in the garden before she went in. The Queen and Meghan then had a 20-minute chat that was widely deemed a great success on all sides, and the Queen was said to have been pleased that Meghan was living and working in a Commonwealth country.
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Robert Hardman’s new retrospective book on Elizabeth II says the inside story of what has come to be known as tiaragate was among the more revealing pre-wedding dramas around Harry and Meghan’s marriage. One row centered on the bridesmaids’ dresses and left both Meghan and the Duchess of Cambridge in tears. Another concerned Meghan’s choice of tiara. The Queen much enjoyed lending a piece from her own tiara collection to a royal bride when needed, but she had not done so for Diana, who had wanted to wear the Spencer family tiara.
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That detail matters because it shows how quickly the wedding ceased to be just a family celebration and became a test of old royal habits against new expectations. Meghan was a divorced American actress, Harry was pitching a marriage built around change, and the palace was trying to make the two fit inside traditions that had already survived plenty of strain. The wedding went ahead. The arguments did not disappear with it.
