Snub for grandpa Thomas
But despite not being told personally of birth, he sends gracious congratulations
Mr Markle only learned about his new grandson from a friend who had heard the news on television.
But despite the royal snub, the 74-yearold declared: ‘I am delighted to hear that mother and child are doing well.
‘I am proud that my new grandson is born into the British Royal Family and I am sure that he will grow up to serve the crown and the people of Britain with grace, dignity, and honour.
‘God bless the child and I wish him health and happiness, and my congratulations to my lovely daughter Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry, and God save the Queen.’ However, last night a friend said: ‘I think it is fair to say he is not expecting them to name the boy Thomas.’
Although Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, was with her daughter for the birth, Mr Markle was ignored by the royals.
He heard the news at around the same time as the rest of the world, when it broke at 1.50pm yesterday. It was 5.50am in Mexico, where Mr Markle lives in a retirement home in the coastal town of Rosarito.
Friends sent him text messages after TV news channels began reporting that the duchess had gone into labour. In fact, she had already given birth to her son eight-and-a-half hours earlier, at 5.26am UK time.
A statement from Kensington Palace later revealed that six members of the Royal Family and three members of Princess Diana’s Spencer family had been officially ‘informed and are delighted’.
It added that Doria Ragland was ‘overjoyed at the arrival of her first grandchild’ and was ‘ with Their Royal Highnesses at Frogmore Cottage’. Mention of Meghan’s father was conspicuously absent.
Last night a friend of Mr Markle said: ‘ He got the news from me sending him a text message, which was when the news broke on every news channel. He did not hear it direct from Meghan, Doria or the palace and he is hurt at not being part of this like Doria has been.
‘But he is trying to rebuild his relationship with his daughter, and he wanted to send a very positive statement as soon as the birth was announced. He wrote it in advance, and wrote “child” in his pre-prepared statement because he did not know the gender, and then he just added in the word “grandson” once he knew. He basically wanted to send the message that he is just really, really happy for them.’ But there is a question mark over whether Mr Markle will ever meet his new grandson.
The ex-Hollywood lighting director has not seen his daughter since before her wedding last May. He missed the occasion after suffering a heart attack.
He had earlier upset Meghan after he staged paparazzi photographs. Their relationship soured further when he released a letter Meghan wrote to him exposing her despair over their rift.
Meghan would be ‘nothing’ without him, he declared in a follow-up interview, before he added: ‘I made her the duchess she is today. Everything Meghan is, I made her.’
Moaning that he had been ignored by the Royal Family, he then proclaimed: ‘ Perhaps it would be easier for Meghan if I died.’ Mr Markle then claimed that when Harry phoned him after his heart attack, the Prince had been ‘so rude’ to him about the interviews, that he was ‘forced’ to put the phone down.
Meghan was said to be so upset by her estranged father’s repeated attacks in the media, that she wrote to him begging him to stop ‘victimising’ her.
In January, five ‘ unnamed friends’ of the duchess told People magazine that Meghan had written to her father. They claimed she had said: ‘Dad, I’m so heartbroken. I love you. I have one father. Please stop victimising me through the media so we can repair our relationship’.
The friends then claimed Mr Markle responded with a long letter of his own – in which he asked his daughter for a photoshoot. ‘I think she will always feel genuinely devastated by what he has done,’ they told the US magazine.
The group of anonymous friends also voiced their concerns over his public rants about her. ‘We worry about what this is doing to her and the baby,’ they said.
‘It’s wrong to put anyone under this level of emotional trauma, let alone when they’re pregnant.’ Months earlier, Mr Markle criticised Meghan for refusing to speak to him, while hitting out at his daughter for her ‘sense of superiority’. However, Meghan’s friends insisted that Mr Markle knew how to reach his daughter.
‘He knows how to get in touch with her,’ added one friend, saying that Meghan’s phone number had stayed the same. ‘ He’s never called, he’s never texted. It’s super painful because Meg was always so dutiful. And at the same time, because she’s a daughter, she has a lot of sympathy for him.’
Harry and Meghan’s son is Mr Markle’s sixth grandchild.
His other daughter, Samantha, 54, of Virginia, is mother to Ashleigh, 33, a lawyer, Chris, 31, a pilot, and Noel, 21, a sociology student.
Mr Markle’s eldest son, Thomas Jr, 52, is father to Tyler, 26, who recently appeared on MTV reality show The Royal World and makes his living as a marijuana farmer in Oregon.
His other son, Thomas III, 27, lives in Mammoth Lakes, California, with his husband and runs a branch of Domino’s Pizza. THOMAS Markle sent a gracious message to Harry and Meghan yesterday – despite his daughter not informing him of the birth.