How Meghan lost her hat but found a bond with the Queen
LESS than a month after her wedding, all eyes were on the newly ennobled Duchess of Sussex as she walked a few paces behind the monarch for a series of engagements in Chester, close to the border with Wales.
Without the reassuring presence of Harry, who’d been constantly at her side on previous public occasions, it was quite a test.
In fact, Meghan passed this nerveshredding introduction to royal life with flying colours. Not even a mix-up over who should be first into the royal limousine spoiled the rapport between the two women, who laughed together and exchanged whispered asides.
What commentators were unaware of was that, behind the smiles for the cameras, there had been an awkward incident over the younger woman’s choice of headgear.
The Queen’s aides had, on instruction, advised the Duchess that the Queen would be wearing a green hat (in honour of those who had died in the Grenfell Tower fire disaster). Meghan, still new to the intricacies of Palace protocol, didn’t realise that this meant she was expected to follow suit. The Queen was therefore a little baffled when her granddaughter-in-law turned up bare-headed.
‘I don’t think the Duchess fully understood,’ one senior figure close to the Queen said. ‘This was not a request. They are for others to make, not the Queen.’
In the end, the Duchess, showing the stubborn streak her father claims that she inherited from her mother, ran the gauntlet and went without a hat. Her lack of deference, even respect, had been duly noted, particularly by the Queen’s senior staff.
The Queen has continued to take a keen interest in Harry’s bride. As he said in his engagement interview, even his grandmother’s corgis love Meghan — they trot over to lie at her feet.
A shared love of dogs, it must be said, has gone a long way to cementing the relationship between the two women. This means that Meghan certainly learned never to pet the royal corgis.
Visitors who try to get into the Queen’s good books by stroking her dogs are sharply told: ‘Don’t do that — they don’t like it.’
Or as an insider said: ‘What she really means is she doesn’t like it.’