The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced they were pursuing a new independent life outside the Royal Family that would be split between the US and the UK back in March. Their surprising move shocked royal fans across the world as it came a mere two years after they tied the knot in the grounds of Windsor Castle. But royal biographer Robert Lacey has claimed the royals may have been able to prevent Meghan and Harry’s sudden departure if they had treated the Duchess not as a routine royal or wife of the “spare” second-born.
He said: “There is only one self-made millionaire in the Royal Family and that is Meghan Markle.
“If they had sat down with her at the start and said, ‘Let’s talk about the things you are interested in’, things might have been different.
“They just sent her off to watch the Queen opening the Mersey Bridge.
“There is nothing wrong with that, but they made the mistake of dealing with the spare’s wife thinking she was just a routine royal.
“She was never going to be a routine royal.”
Mr Lacey added he believed the Royal Family could have treated the Duke and Duchess of Sussex more fairly, as he claimed they didn’t know what to do with Meghan.
He wrote in his new biography Battle of Brothers: “The Palace got this very wrong, as it always does with the second-born.
“They always treat the second-born badly, not to say cruelly.
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Mr Lacey also wrote the Royal Family’s legacy may be in jeopardy over the direction Princes William and Harry are heading in.
He told The Daily Mail: “There is time to change things in a positive direction, but at the moment the Palace is not working in that direction.
“If this breach between the brothers is not healed in some way, it will come to stand with the Abdication crisis and the death of Diana as one of the traumas that changed the monarchy.”
Mr Lacey’s book also shares an insight to the Queen’s thoughts behind Meghan and Harry’s move to the US.
He said the Queen felt the couple were “erratic and impulsive” over their announcement that they were making the move following months of “reflection and internal discussions”.
He added Meghan’s interview with ITV’s Tom Bradbury in South Africa was branded “miserably self-indulgent” by the Queen’s private secretary Sir Edward Young.
Meghan had revealed nobody had asked if she was “okay” in the first months after giving birth to son Archie.
