Five years after the death of Lady Elizabeth Anson, a first cousin and close confidant of Queen Elizabeth, respected royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith is sharing details from her conversation with the late noblewoman. In a three-part series on her Substack newsletter, Royals Extra, Bedell Smith has revealed that the late Queen had her reservations about Meghan Markle and was upset about how Prince Harry spoke to her in the run up to the royal wedding in 2018.
According to Anson, Harry was rude to his grandmother during a meeting before the wedding and that the “jury was out” as to whether Queen Elizabeth liked Harry’s fiancée. Bedell Smith also reveals that Prince Harry “blew” his relationship with his grandmother.
During my twenty-year long career as a royal correspondent, I spent many hours in the company of Lady Elizabeth, a professional party planner, at her Ladbroke Grove home. Over tea in her “egg room,” which had the most incredible collection of painted decorative eggs, Lady Elizabeth painted a charming portrait of the late Queen; she adored her cousin, and they would gossip on the phone like old friends. Lady Elizabeth was a wonderful raconteur, which the Queen adored. The truth is the Queen herself loved a good catch up.
Sadly Lady Elizabeth, passed away five years ago at the age of 79, and she took most of her secrets to the grave. “Lady E,” as I called her, had a wealth of stories about the countless A-list celebrities she had planned parties for. I tried many times to convince her to write a book about her incredible life and the amazing people she had worked for at her business, Party Planners. Nevertheless, she valued her relationship with her clients—particularly the royals—too much to be indiscreet.
Whenever we spoke about the Queen, Lady Elizabeth would refer to her as “Jemima” or “the number one lady,” and she told me how hurt the Queen was by Harry’s behavior in the final years of her life and how much Harry changed after he met Meghan. Now I can reveal more about how the Queen really felt about Harry and Meghan and why she was so disappointed in Harry in the twilight years of her life.
Lady Elizabeth told me that the Queen felt her once close relationship with her grandson would never be the same again. “She couldn’t understand how Harry, who had loved his military career, and been devoted to duty could change the way he did,” Lady Elizabeth told me back in 2020. “It’s so sad that at her age, having managed the most amazing reign, it has been sullied. He has hurt her beyond belief.”
She also shared that the Queen was deeply disappointed and hurt when Harry and Meghan made the shocking decision to leave Britain. They returned to Britain for a final engagement, Commonwealth Day—in March 2020. “The Queen had hoped that they would bring Archie over. She was very disappointed they didn’t,” Lady Elizabeth told me at the time. She was hurt when they left Britain, and how they left so suddenly. She added that Frogmore Cottage, the Queen’s wedding present to the couple, “was a big give. Her entrance into that garden is past their cottage. It really was in her backyard so she was giving up her solitude and privacy when she gave up the cottage. We all thought it was very big of her. Jemima said: ‘I hope they’ll respect it.’”
While the Queen never let her private feelings be known, Bedell Smith has now also shed important light on one of the most fascinating periods of recent royal history, Meghan and Harry’s royal exit. She has revealed that the Queen was deeply hurt when Harry “was rude to her for ten minutes” in a meeting and “Meghan and William and Kate were not working well together.” Bedell Smith added it was “particularly the two girls” who didn’t get on. In a conversation two weeks before the May 2018 wedding, Lady Elizabeth told Bedell Smith, “My Jemima is very worried.”
In The New Royals, I revealed how the Queen was “surprised” that Meghan had chosen to wear white, given she was a divorcée and marrying for the second time. Now Bedell Smith has revealed, “Meghan wouldn’t tell her about the wedding dress.” The monarch did not think Meghan should have worn a veil.
Like Bedell Smith, I was also told that the Queen was upset during the planning of their wedding. Harry and Meghan were intent on doing things their way, even if it came to breaking with traditions. Lady Elizabeth also told me that the Queen was upset that Harry went straight to Justin Welby, then the Archbishop of Canterbury to ask him to conduct the wedding without first going to the Dean of Windsor, which was the correct protocol for a wedding at St George’s Chapel.
I was told that the Queen had enlisted her cousin to assist with the wedding plans, in particular the flowers, given Lady Elizabeth’s excellent contacts and experience organizing weddings in palaces and royal chapels. Lady Elizabeth had planned many royal celebrations, including the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations, the Queen and Prince Philip’s 70th wedding anniversary, and William and Kate’s wedding. But after meeting with Meghan, Lady Elizabeth, was told her services were not required.
