The Royal Family “should have tried harder with Meghan Markle”, according to a royal reporter, as she and Prince Harry remain in California estranged from the Firm at Christmas.
Nicholas Witchell, who worked for the BBC on the royal beat for several years until his retirement, gave an interview to The Times during which he shed light on both sides of the feud.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their plans to step down as working royals in January 2020 and relocated to Montecito in the US.
Mr Witchell said of the decision: “I think probably it was always going to happen because he was looking for a way out and he perceived her [Meghan] as being the route out from a life that, as we now discover, he had never felt entirely comfortable with — a life to which psychologically I think he was not suited.
“Should the Palace have tried harder? Yes. In different hands, might it have handled things differently? Yes. I think by that stage the Queen was the age she was and would have found it difficult to understand the anguish Harry was going through.”
However the royal correspondent outright dismissed the couple’s claims that Buckingham Palace was against them from the very start.
He explained: “That team bent over backwards to accommodate them and to be in sympathy with her [Meghan]. Not one of them was the archetypal Buckingham Palace courtier and if anyone was going to carry it off, that team would have done so.
“Meghan is clearly a very intelligent, articulate, ambitious woman, and you would have thought she would have appreciated the fact that these people were working so hard to make it work.”
There had been speculation that Harry and Meghan may be at Sandringham this year for the first time since 2018, with sources claiming they would be open to accepting an invitation if it was offered.
But it seems they will once again be in Montecito, close to where Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland lives, who seems to be the only member of their extended family that they have regular contact with.
A royal expert also branded the pair’s potential return to the UK as “ridiculous” as they are too “unpredictable” and the rift between the family members is “way too deep”.
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told Express.co.uk: “The royal rift could not be deeper. William and Harry are reportedly not speaking.
“The idea of the Sussexes joining the rest of the Royal Family for Christmas, floated by sources close to them earlier, seems ridiculous.”
He added of Harry and Meghan’s reported next moves: “”It presents a challenge but the Sussexes are failing in Hollywood and unpopular in America. What, we wonder, since they are so unpredictable, happens next!”
