Queen Elizabeth II refused to take Prince Harry’s phone calls without another person present in the room following his 2020 exit from royal life, writer Hugo Vickers sensationally claims in his new book.
After Harry and wife Meghan Markle gave a bombshell interview to Oprah Winfrey and started work on his tell-all memoir, “Spare,” Vickers, a longtime friend of the royal family, revealed, “Whenever Prince Harry called his grandmother, she asked her lady-in-waiting to stay with her.”
“The distress the Sussexes caused the Queen in the last years of her life cannot be overestimated,” he adds of Harry and Meghan in his new book, “Queen Elizabeth II: A Personal History.”
Harry, 41, moved his family to California in 2020 after his plan to be “half in, half out” as a working royal was scuppered by his grandmother. He then went on to make millions from selling tales of his life as the youngest son of King Charles and Princess Diana.
When Markle accused unnamed royals – later reported to be King Charles and Kate Middleton – of racism during her time inside palace walls during the Winfrey interview in March 2021, the Queen famously released a statement saying, “some recollections may vary.”
Once Harry was ensconced in the multi-million home he bought in Montecito, Page Six is told the Queen would remain “monosyllabic” during their calls.
“There were lots of one word answers, ‘yes’ and ‘no’,” said a well-placed palace insider.
Not forgetting the Sussexes had also spoken out on their Netflix documentary, “The Queen clearly wanted some kind of protection,” the insider said, adding the monarch kept her lady in waiting with her during Harry’s calls for “moral support and protection… to ensure there was a record of what was said.”
“I think the Queen was also on her guard with Harry because she was so hurt by what he had done,” the insider added.
Vickers also writes the late monarch, who died in September 2022, had refused to see the couple by herself when they brought their daughter, Princess Lilibet, to meet her for the first time during the celebrations for the Platinum Jubilee in June 2022.
“Prince Harry was at [his then-residence] Frogmore Cottage with his wife and two children, the gate adorned with balloons to celebrate baby Lilibet’s first birthday. They visited the Queen with the children, again with a lady-in-waiting present,” Vickers said.
As previously reported, the Queen had refused to let them bring their photographer to capture the moment she met Lilibet, fearing the publicity-hungry pair would release the photo.
And it appears the Queen was dismissive of her grandson’s new life in the US, telling a friend, “And now Harry has opted out, and for what? To be a carer for [his son] Archie?” Vickers said.
In his book, out in the UK April 8, Vickers alleged the Queen had advised Harry to wait before marrying Markle, a one-time actress and a divorcée.
He writes, “Prince Harry would never have been allowed to marry such a girl at an earlier time in the reign for obvious reasons, but the union was welcomed by a younger, more tolerant generation. Staff at Windsor Castle surrounded the young couple at the Christmas party in 2017, nicknaming the bride ‘Sparkle’.
“Prince Philip was not taken in,” Vickers writes, “He referred to her as ‘The American.’ Nor were the Royal Family entirely happy, Prince Charles taking a Mountbatten line – have fun with her, but don’t marry her. The Queen suggested that Harry should wait a year.”
Harry did not wait. He wed Markle in a lavish ceremony at St. George’s Cathedral in Windsor in May 2018.
“It was said that the Queen did not like the dress – too white and with ungainly shoulders,” Vickers added. “Someone close to the Queen said her attitude to the actual wedding was: ‘You get on with it. It’s nothing to do with me.’”
There were also issues when Harry and Markle moved into Frogmore Cottage, on the Windsor Estate, and close to Windsor Castle, where the Queen spent most of her time.
Talking to Page Six, Vickers revealed, the monarch “ticked off” Markle for being rude to a gardener at Windsor.
“When they were living there, Meghan was rude to one of the under-gardeners — there are hundreds of gardeners,” he said.
“When one of the head gardeners mentioned this to the Queen she got in her car and drove over and ticked off Meghan for being rude to the staff.”
Vickers gives a full account of the Queen’s life, from the fact that had it not been for her uncle, King Edward’s, abdication in 1936 to marry Wallace Simpson, she would never have been put on the throne at the tender age of 25.
By the time the Queen died aged 96, her grandson was torn apart from his father and his brother, Prince William, from whom he remains estranged.
“The final curtain had fallen on a golden age,” Vickers said.
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