Queen Camilla wasn’t missing Meghan Markle on her big day.
The 75-year-old and her husband, King Charles III, were crowned on Saturday at London’s Westminster Abbey. While Prince Harry attended the ceremony, the Duchess of Sussex was noticeably absent. The former American actress stayed behind in California with the couple’s two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
The May 6 date of the coronation falls on Archie’s fourth birthday.
Queen Camilla departs from her coronation at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023, in London, England. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
British royals expert Hilary Fordwich claimed to Fox News Digital that the new queen and the duchess were never close, and therefore her absence wasn’t felt during the festivities.
“Before Prince Harry’s tell-all autobiography, denigrating his own family, and particularly Camilla, she and Meghan Markle didn’t exactly have a budding friendship, to say the least,” Fordwich alleged.
“Camilla went out of her way to assist Meghan when she was experiencing difficulties with her own father,” Fordwich claimed. “Charles is said to have also offered Meghan help. Fast-forward, post Oprah interview, Netflix documentary, ‘Spare’ and numerous interviews, Meghan has been labeled ‘that minx’ and ‘ungrateful’ by Camilla who was suspicious from the get-go of Meghan’s motives.”
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Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Queen Camilla are seen during The State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey on September 19, 2022, in London, England. (Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
“Many say they actually never enjoyed a close relationship,” Fordwich continued. “The suspicion is Camilla had been finding it tough to believe Meghan would sacrifice her ‘career and independence’ to serve silently behind her man as a team player devoted to the monarchy.”
Fordwich pointed out that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have repeatedly aired their grievances, while the king and queen have “remained tight-lipped.” And unlike their cousins, Archie and Lilibet haven’t grown up with a close bond with the royal family.
“What will Archie’s memory be?” asked Fordwich. “How sad to strip him of the chance to be with his grandfather and extended family. He’s a similar age to Prince Louis – what great cousins they could have been? . . . That has been denied to Archie, not by the royal family, but by his own parents and their actions.”
Meghan Markle, an American actress, became the Duchess of Sussex when she married Britain’s Prince Harry in 2018. (Jonathan Brady – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Royal author Angela Levin previously alleged that Markle was “unresponsive” to Camilla’s advice when she first joined The Firm.
Levin first met the queen in 2015. In 2018, she wrote “Harry: A Biography of a Prince,” which was based on her exclusive conversations with Harry before he married Markle. In 2022, she wrote a book about Camilla, which was based on interviews with the queen’s pals, staff and former colleagues and other palace insiders.
“Camilla warmly greeted Meghan when she came to London,” Levin wrote. “[The former] Prince Charles enjoyed talking to her, especially about the theater and arts. Camilla felt the experience she had from coping with public abuse, press insults and frostiness from the Royal family put her in a good place to help Meghan adjust to the restrictions of royal life and was equally keen to help Meghan find her feet.”
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Royal experts have claimed that Queen Camilla and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex never formed a close bond. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back as senior royals in 2020 and moved to North America. (Chris Jackson/Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
“They had lunches together, and Camilla spent a lot of time offering advice on how to handle the pressure,” Levin shared. “She tried to be supportive, was happy to be her mentor and took her out for private lunches. A source at the time told me: ‘She doesn’t want to see anyone struggling, and she is fond of Meghan.’ Meghan, however, seemed bored, was unresponsive and preferred to go her own way, with the result that the Queen Consort’s advice landed on stony ground.”
Levin alleged it wasn’t the first time Camilla attempted to show the Duchess of Sussex her support after she married her stepson in May 2018.
“Meghan had a reputation for being a hard worker,” Levin wrote. “Her first solo project since joining the royal family was contributing to ‘Together: Our Community Cookbook,’ showcasing more than 50 recipes from women from the Grenfell community, published a year after the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017.”
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex is seen here visiting the Hubb Community Kitchen in support of ‘Together: Our Community Cookbook’. (Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
“The Queen Consort and King Charles wanted to show their support and invited the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, plus their friend Lucia Santa Cruz, to lunch at Highgrove,” Levin continued. “Lucia recalls: ‘As a surprise, Camilla went out of her way to make sure the lunch consisted only of recipes from Meghan’s cookbook, and that included a very hot salsa. It was a really nice gesture.’ One that made no impact.”
Levin claimed that “it was a shock” for Camilla after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced they were stepping back as senior royals in 2020. However, she “avoided talking about it” publicly and instead, chose to focus on supporting her husband.
Levin also alleged that Harry’s relationship with Camilla became strained.
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Royal author Angela Levin claimed that Queen Camilla attempted to offer Meghan Markle a helping hand as she navigated royal life. (Anwar Hussein/WireImage)
She wrote: “A reliable source has told me that Prince Harry has recently been very negative about Camilla, but believes it ‘could be part of his therapy process to relive certain things, and he may want to blame someone else for his own mistakes. As I understand it, his father and stepmother have become hateful in his mind. I’ve also been told that Meghan has been horrible about her, too.’
“Another source added: ‘What has happened and how [Prince Harry] has behaved has been very upsetting for her. There have been a lot of hurt feelings all around, but like all families, you have to embrace it all and hope it will improve.'”
In January of this year, Harry’s memoir “Spare” was published. In it, he accused his stepmother of leaking private conversations to the media to boost her public image.
Prince Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’ was published on January 10, 2023. (Angela Weiss/Getty Images)
In interviews to promote the book, Harry accused members of the royal family of getting “into bed with the devil” to gain favorable tabloid coverage, singling out Camilla’s efforts to rehabilitate her image with the British people after her longtime affair with his father, now King Charles III.
“That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press,” he told CBS. “There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street.”
“Spare” explores Harry’s grief over the death of his mother in 1997, and his long-simmering resentment at his role as the royal “spare,” overshadowed by the “heir” — older brother Prince William. He recounts arguments and a physical altercation with William, and alleges that both he and his brother begged their father not to marry Camilla, worried she would become a “wicked stepmother.”
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Queen Elizabeth II (center) Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, passed away in September 2022 at age 96. Her eldest son, King Charles III, was officially crowned king on Saturday. Meghan Markle stayed behind in California with her two children. (Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
Writing about his father’s 2005 wedding to Camilla, Harry says: “I had complex feelings about gaining a stepparent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar.” Still, he says he wanted his father to be happy. “In a funny way, I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.