THE NEW BATTLE ROYAL
PALACE: We gave top courtier to help Meghan
PALACE staff watched Harry and Meghan’s interview in horror as they claimed she was left completely unsupported when she joined the Royal Family, it emerged last night.
The Daily Mail can reveal there is genuine hurt that the couple have perpetuated the image that Meghan was cut adrift and left to fend for herself.
In fact, sources say, the duchess was given a string of the Queen’s most senior staff as ‘mentors’ after the couple became engaged, as well as being allowed to handpick her own 15-strong team of loyal and talented private office staff.
‘It is very disingenuous to make such a sweeping generalisation,’ one insider said. ‘There was a brilliant team of very experienced and loyal aides to help them. Sadly, she and Harry were willing to listen to no one. And that is the honest truth.’
The Queen even personally persuaded her long-standing and extremely popular former deputy private secretary Samantha Cohen, who had just handed in her notice after working for the Royal Household for the best part of two decades, to stay on and work for the couple. She was their first joint private secretary, running their private and public lives rather like a chief of staff. One of her main roles was to help navigate Meghan through the wedding and prepare her for royal life. These included regular tutoring sessions on everything from royal etiquette to diplomatic protocol at Kensington Palace.
Australian-born Mrs Cohen, a mother of three, was considered the safest pair of hands possible. Having begun her career in the press office, rising to press secretary, and then moving to the Queen’s private office in 2010, she was the most senior woman in the household and one of the Queen’s key advisers, seen in the palace corridors as belonging to a more modern breed of royal executive.
‘The Queen gave her Sam, her most trusted, her safest set of hands,’ a source said. Yet Meghan told Oprah Winfrey that while the Queen had personally been ‘wonderful’, she hadn’t received any guidance on how to behave as a royal – leaving her forced to google the National Anthem.
‘Unlike what you see in the movies, there’s no class on how to... how to speak, how to cross your legs, how to be royal,’ she said. ‘There was none of that training that might exist for other members of the family. That was not something that was offered to me.’
‘Nobody prepares you?’ asked Miss Winfrey. Meghan confirmed this adding: ‘I’m sorry, but even down to, like, the National Anthem. No one thought to say, “Oh, you’re American. You’re not gonna know that”. That’s me, late at night, googling... I don’t wanna embarrass them. I need to learn these 30 hymns for church. All of this is televised. We were doing the training behind the scenes ’cause I just wanted to make them proud.’
She also revealed that on the first occasion she met the Queen, at Royal Lodge, Prince Andrew’s Windsor home, his ex-wife the Duchess of York – with whom he still lives – had to teach her how to strike a ‘deep curtsey’ as she had no idea what she would be required to do that in private.
Harry backed up his wife’s claims, saying one of the main reasons for their decision to quit royal duties was a ‘lack of support and lack of understanding’. But several sources have told the Mail that their account ‘is not one anyone recognises’.
‘No one wants to get into a tit-for-tat but it is important to stress that this idea the duchess wasn’t helped with protocol, that no one taught her to curtsey, she had to google the National Anthem herself, isn’t true,’ said one. It was alleged last week that Mrs Cohen was one of those members of staff who experienced bullying at Meghan’s hands, which has been denied by the Sussexes’ lawyers.
As well as being given the services of Mrs Cohen, Meghan was also put on speed dial to the Queen’s equerry, Ghanian-born Lieutenant Colonel Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah of the Household Cavalry. Equerries are senior officers who help organise the Queen’s diary and official functions, often appearing at her side.
The Mail also understands that Meghan was able to lean on one of the Queen’s most senior ladies-inwaiting, Lady Susan Hussey, the widow of former BBC chairman Marmaduke Hussey and one Prince William’s godparents.
She has been the loyal friend and companion to the Queen since she joined the court in 1960 following the birth of Prince Andrew.
Like all ladies-in-waiting, Lady Susan accompanies Her Majesty on engagements and organises her diary, as well as dealing with
‘They had a brilliant team of loyal aides’
‘They just didn’t want to listen’
her correspondence. She is not paid for her services.
‘Like Sam Cohen, there couldn’t have been a safer sounding board for the duchess to use,’ said a source. ‘Lady Susan is very approachable, as are all the ladiesin-waiting, and would have wanted to help in any way they could.
‘In fact it was said that all of the ladies-in-waiting came over to Kensington Palace to have tea with Harry and Meghan’s team... as a getting-to-know-you session.’
The calibre of the team made available to Meghan was, sources say, a sign of how committed Buckingham Palace was to supporting her.
‘The intimation from the interview was that Harry, and particularly Meghan, were on their own,’ one insider explained. ‘Of course no one could ever understand what it must be like being plunged into that world so quickly.
‘But that’s why this team was assembled. Contrary to what has been suggested, Buckingham Palace has learnt from the mistakes of the past and were determined to help them in any way they could. They wanted to make Harry and Meghan a success.
‘Unfortunately they didn’t want to listen.
‘Harry was intrinsically distrustful of the institution and Meghan just really didn’t want to know.’