The royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle appeared to the world as a happy fairytale ending for the couple. However, according to the claims of one of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s closest confidants, the months leading up to the ceremony were one of tension, hurt feelings and growing concerns behind the palace walls. The revelations paint a picture of growing tension in the run-up to Harry and Meghan’s wedding eight years ago.According to royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, Lady Elizabeth Anson, the Queen’s cousin and trusted confidant, shared memories that suggest significant friction between granddaughter and grandmother in the run-up to the wedding. Anson, who died in 2020 aged 79, provides Smith with detailed accounts of the disagreements and miscommunications plaguing the monarch. Smith shares these memories in his Royals Extra Substack column in June 2025, published in The Times of London.
Exchange between Prince Harry and Queen Elizabeth II
Lady Elizabeth Anson tells Smith that Harry was involved in a 10-minute standoff with his grandmother over the wedding arrangements. “Harry has blown up his relationship with his grandmother,” Anson tells Smith. “She said she was really upset. I was surprised when the Queen said this to me, how sad she was. I had no idea of the conversation, that she was rude to her for 10 minutes.”
Wedding planning became a source of friction
Anson told Smith that there were several issues that kept the monarch out of the wedding planning process. One source of frustration was Harry’s decision to ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to hold the wedding in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle without the approval of the Dean of Windsor.
Relations between Prince Harry and Queen Elizabeth II improved
In late April 2018, a few weeks before the ceremony, Anson told Smith that the relationship between grandson and grandmother had improved. “The Queen and Harry have sorted things out,” says Anson. “She came to him on her own. She said she felt very left out, so she wrote him a letter about what was going on.”However, Anson suggested doubts remained about the marriage. “The First Lady says the jury is out on whether she likes Meghan,” Anson recalled, using her nickname for the Queen. Anson also said the monarch has concerns about the dynamic between the younger royal generations, particularly between Meghan and Prince William and Kate Middleton. In retrospect, Anson believed the tensions surrounding the marriage foreshadowed future problems for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, with concerns over whether Meghan would be a suitable match for Harry.
