A royal insider account alleges Prince Harry had a tense 10-minute blow-up with Queen Elizabeth II over wedding arrangements in the months before his 2018 wedding to Meghan Markle, alongside claims the queen felt excluded from planning and later left the door
For months before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2018 royal wedding, one royal confidante says the mood behind palace walls wasn’t calm—it was strained, bruised, and increasingly tense.
The claims resurface through royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith. who shared recollections from Lady Elizabeth Anson. a cousin and longtime trusted confidante of Queen Elizabeth II. Smith reported the material in her Royals Extra Substack column in June 2025. and excerpts were reprinted in The Times of London.
Anson—who died at 79 in 2020—described being told by the queen that Harry had blown their relationship. As Smith wrote. Anson said. “Harry has blown his relationship with his grandmother. ” adding that she was “really upset. ” and that Anson was “shocked” by how saddened the queen was. Anson also said she “had no idea about the conversation. ” and that she learned Harry “was rude to her for 10 minutes.”.
The newly spotlighted account also reappeared in a report from RadarOnline.com. which cited a royal source alleging Harry had a “10-minute meltdown about his wedding arrangements” during a tense meeting with Queen Elizabeth II. That source claimed the monarch “did not tolerate those sorts of histrionics well at all” and viewed that behavior as “a sign of weakness.”.
Even with differences in how the events are described, both versions point to the same pressure point: the queen felt strained with her grandson over decisions made for the wedding.
A wedding planning process the queen felt shut out of
Lady Elizabeth Anson told Smith there were several issues that left Queen Elizabeth II feeling excluded from the wedding-planning process. One friction point. Anson said. was Harry’s decision to ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to officiate the wedding at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle without first obtaining approval from the Dean of Windsor.
As Anson put it, “Harry seems to think the queen can do what she wants, but she can’t,” and she explained that while the monarch is the ceremonial head of the Church of England, “on the religious side, it is the Dean of Windsor’s jurisdiction.”
Anson also claimed the queen was disappointed by a lack of communication around other parts of the ceremony. “She was trying to find out about the wedding dress, and Meghan wouldn’t tell her,” Anson recalled to Smith.
There was also a moment, Anson said, when Harry told her that he and Meghan had decided to move in “a different direction” with their wedding plans. “He said, ‘I am close to my grandmother, and she is content with this,’” Anson told Smith.
But when Anson later spoke with the queen, she said she received the opposite message. “She said she is not at all content,” Anson recalled.
Smith’s Substack account describes the queen coming away with the impression that the wedding plans were moving forward without the level of communication and deference she expected. That account mirrors the RadarOnline.com report’s framing. too: a separate source told RadarOnline.com that “What troubled [the queen] wasn’t necessarily any single issue. but the feeling that events were moving forward without the level of consultation she had expected.”.
The early impression—and the shift
Anson’s perspective on Meghan began more warmly. She said that after watching Harry and Meghan’s engagement interview in November 2017—following their engagement announcement on November 27. 2017 and photos taken in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace—she viewed Meghan as “poised. very natural. intelligent and thoughtful. ” and said. “You can feel a very loving connection.” Anson added that it seemed “Meghan is clearly brighter than Harry. but she has to be careful not to overshadow him.”.
After meeting Meghan in person, Anson described her as “full of charm,” but later concluded, “Meghan could turn into nothing but trouble. She sees things in a different way.”
By late April 2018, Anson said relations between grandson and grandmother had improved, with weeks remaining before the ceremony. “The queen and Harry have patched things up,” Anson said. She added that Harry “came to her on his own. ” and that the queen “felt very left out. ” so he wrote her “a letter about what was happening.”.
Still, Anson suggested doubt lingered. “The Number One Lady — I call [the queen] Jemima — says the jury is out on whether she likes Meghan,” Anson recalled. “My Jemima is very worried.”
Within-family tension and “dynamics” that concerned the queen
Anson also claimed Queen Elizabeth II had concerns about the dynamics between the younger generation of royals before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding. “Meghan and [Prince] William and Kate [Middleton] are not working well,” Anson shared. “That is what the queen said, particularly about the two girls.”.
Looking back, Anson believed those wedding tensions foreshadowed future problems for Harry and Meghan. “Harry is besotted and weak about women. We hope but don’t quite think [Meghan] is in love. We think she engineered it all,” Anson told Smith.
Her unease sharpened as the wedding drew nearer. “It’s worrying that so many people are questioning whether Meghan is right for Harry. The problem, bless his heart, is that Harry is neither bright nor strong, and she is both, ” Anson told Smith.
By the time the calendar turned toward the ceremony, the story told by Anson to Smith was clear: a relationship already under pressure, a planning process the queen felt left out of, and doubts that didn’t simply disappear—only temporarily softened as the weeks tightened around April 2018.
Prince Harry Meghan Markle Queen Elizabeth II Lady Elizabeth Anson Sally Bedell Smith Royals Extra 2018 wedding St. George’s Chapel Dean of Windsor Archbishop of Canterbury Kensington Palace