Faceless and anonymous, they work tirelessly in support of the monarchy, ever loyal, flawlessly discreet, always there when needed, and yet somehow almost invisible. But there is one member of the royal household whose special relationship with Her Majesty transcends the normal rules of Palace life. In a world where flunkies come and go, and one false move can see you out on your ear, the Queen’s dresser Angela Kelly seems virtually untouchable – something Prince Harry found out to his cost when he demanded she break the rules and produce Meghan’s chosen wedding tiara at the drop of a crown.
His 2018 Tiara-gate confrontation with Mrs Kelly made headlines again this week after Harry and Meghan’s biographer Omid Scobie claimed Harry had phoned his grandmother and demanded: “I don’t know what the hell is going on. This woman needs to make this work for my future wife.”
Despite the fact the Queen backed her dresser, it is claimed, and not her grandson, Mrs Kelly is said to be unhappy that she has been dragged into the controversy over the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
One royal source said yesterday: “The sad thing is that Angela is not allowed to give her side of the story. There are all these rumours but the Angela I know is not someone who would do anything to upset any of the royal family. Her loyalty first and foremost has to be to the monarch. I am sure she is really upset to be at the centre of what is being said.”
Of course, as a royal prince and sixth in line to the throne, the Duke of Sussex might have been forgiven for thinking his will would prevail over a mere servant, but those who know Mrs Kelly better would have told him to save his breath.
It may seem to outsiders that this 62-year-old divorced, council house-born Liverpudlian daughter of a fork-lift truck driver would be an unlikely confidante for the monarch, but it is her complete unwillingness to bend the rules to which she now owes her position.
Meghan Markle stands at the altar during her wedding (Image: Jonathan Brady – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
She and the Queen first crossed paths by chance 28 years ago when she was housekeeper to the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Christopher Mallaby. When the Queen and her entourage came for a royal visit, Mrs Kelly was in charge of ensuring the smooth running of the household.
Before taking their leave, the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh asked to meet the staff who had helped ensure their visit was a success. But when Her Majesty stopped to speak to Mrs Kelly and politely inquired as to who the team was expecting next at the Embassy, she was met with almost unprecedented stonewalling.
“I replied that the information was confidential,” Angela would recall of the 1992 meeting with the monarch. “The Duke asked, slightly incredulous, ‘Surely you can tell Her Majesty The Queen?’ Again, I explained that I could not disclose the information as I had signed the Official Secrets Act.”
The housekeeper was apologetic – even offering to give back a picture of the royal couple, which all the staff had been given as a souvenir of their stay – but unrelenting.
At the end of that short and awkward audience, she told the Queen: “I will remember this for the rest of my life.”
The Queen replied: “Angela, so will I.”
Angela Kelly with the Queen (Image: Nina Duncan/thelicensingproject.com)
And Her Majesty was as good as her word. Just a few weeks later, the housekeeper was contacted by the royal dressmaker, asking if she would be interested in a job as her assistant. The offer had come following a special request from The Queen. In the years that followed, she has risen to become the Queen’s dresser, stylist, curator and personal assistant, but also her companion, confidante and occasionally her tame rottweiler. She is known as the Queen’s “gatekeeper” or, less flatteringly as AK-47 by some colleagues – a play on her initials and the firepower of the Soviet-era assault rifle.
Their relationship was cast into the spotlight again recently after publication of the unofficial biography of Harry and Meghan, Finding Freedom, apparently sanctioned by the now California-based Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Mrs Kelly, who is also now in charge of the Queen’s jewellery vault, was accused of deliberately ignoring phone calls from Meghan who wanted to try on a certain tiara with her hairdresser. Buckingham Palace aides responded that, as Mrs Kelly was in Windsor with the Queen, she couldn’t go to Buckingham Palace at such short notice. The book claims Harry saw something more insidious.
“Harry didn’t believe that Angela was truly unavailable,” write authors Scobie and Carolyn Durand. “Instead he thought she was purposely ignoring Meghan. A senior Palace aide insisted Harry was simply being, ‘oversensitive when he accused Angela of trying to make things difficult for his fiancée’.”
Such reports of an angry phone call to the Queen have this week been strongly denied by Harry. But whatever happened, it clearly did nothing to change the astonishing closeness between the Queen and Mrs Kelly, who in 2012 was granted the grand title of Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order for “distinguished personal service to the Sovereign”.
The two share a love of star gazing, the countryside and plain talking. The Queen likes to pop in on her dresser for a giggle and a gossip while at Windsor, where Mrs Kelly has a grace-and-favour home.
Her Majesty, a talented mimic, apparently does a good impression of her aide’s Liverpool accent.
Throughout lockdown, the dresser has stayed where she has been for nearly 30 years – at the Queen’s side, ensuring she always looks her best.
She is the only royal servant to be given permission to write not just one but two books about her life with the royals and she has already started her third. The first was just about the Queen’s outfits, but eyebrows were raised at the release of her second, The Other Side of The Coin: The Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe, last year. The irony of being accused by Harry of being part of the Palace establishment is probably not lost on the woman who had to overcome tremendous prejudice when she first started working there.
She is the first to admit she struggled to fit in. While divorcees were once banned from the Royal enclosure at Ascot, Mrs Kelly has three marriages behind her.
Her first husband was shopfitter Frank Wylie who she married in 1971, a month after her son Frank was born. A year later she gave birth to Paul and then daughter Michelle.
By the early 1980s their newsagent business and marriage were both over and she found a catering job with the Army, leaving her husband to raise the children (although she saw them regularly). A brief marriage to a German followed and, in 1989, she met husband number three, Irish Guardsman Jim Kelly.
They married in 1992 just before she started working for the Queen but split three years later. Jim later said of the woman who still bears his name: “What she lacks in education she makes up for in her ambition. She left school as a girl and never had any formal training, but has risen to the top of her profession.
She has always wanted to work for the Queen and has sacrificed a lot to do so.” But it was far from easy. “In those early years at Buckingham Palace, I remember feeling very aware that some people might look down on me,” Angela wrote in her second book. “I was, after all, from Liverpool and had a Scouse accent, not to mention that I was divorced with three children.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leaving St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle after their wedding (Image: Ben Stansall/PA Wire)
She considered getting elocution lessons but the Queen gently dissuaded her. She too came up against the grey men in suits who Harry likes to rail against. “Back then the Royal Household was very male-dominated. It had long been a place where traditions were upheld and routines followed. On one occasion, I was told that only after 12 years as a staff member would I be allowed to have an opinion.”
In fact, it appears to be Mrs Kelly’s refusal to rein in her opinions that the Queen most appreciates. She started asking her to attend meetings with clothes designers. While the monarch hated to offend anyone by saying she didn’t like something, her dresser had no such compunction.
Over the years she has started creating many of the Queen’s clothes herself, alongside couture designer Stewart Parvin.
“She has an almost instinctive knack for getting the Queen’s clothes right,” says a Palace insider. “She pays immaculate attention to detail and always makes sure that the Queen is comfortable as well as elegant.”
Mrs Kelly is also now in charge of the Queen’s jewellery vault (Image: Indigo/Getty Images)
She even “breaks in” the Queen’s new shoes by wearing them, as they are the same size. The two are said to have become particularly close when the Queen faced the loss of both her mother and Princess Margaret in 2002.
“We could be sisters,” the Queen once told her. A friend of the family, Lady Anne Glenconner, also observed that when the two are together “there is lots of laughter”.
A Palace insider says she has a similar sense of naughtiness to that of the late Princess Margaret, which the Queen badly misses. “I don’t know why the Queen seems fond of me because I don’t give her an easy time,” she has said. “Years ago the Queen kindly invited me to listen to her conversations with her designers and give my opinion. Well asking a Scouser to give an opinion is dangerous so I told her straight.”
But she has always taken great pains to never get above her station. She still calls the Queen “Your Majesty” and admits to getting emotional when dressing the Queen in her ceremonial robes, while the monarch simply laughs.
“I hope the Queen and I get old together,” she has said.
All in all, it seems unlikely anything Prince Harry can say or do will stop that happening.
