The Duchess of Sussex did her "desperately unhappy" husband the "greatest kindness" by showing him a way out of the royal family, a new book has claimed.
While Meghan was largely blamed as the reason she and Prince Harry chose to step down from their roles as senior working royals, a source says the duchess ultimately saved the duke by "taking him out" of the role.
The claim was made in the new book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown, by The Times royal correspondent Valentine Low.
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It was made by "a surprising source – someone who knows Harry well but remains upset about what Harry and Meghan did".
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced they were stepping back in January 2020, leaving their royal roles for a life of financial freedom in North America.
The couple did a farewell tour of sorts, completing their final engagement with the royal family at the Commonwealth Day service in March that year.
Just under 12 months later, the late Queen Elizabeth II finalised the arrangement after a one-year trial period came to an end.
Before then, Prince Harry had to defend his wife after much of the criticism over their decision was levelled at the duchess, with the moved dubbed "Megxit".
But now, Low's book says Meghan did Harry the ultimate favour.
"There is a part of me that thinks Meghan did Harry the greatest kindness anyone could do to him, which was to take him out of the royal family, because he was just desperately unhappy in the last couple of years in his working life," the source says, in Courtiers.
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"We knew he was unhappy, but we didn't really know what the solution would be. She came along and found the solution."
Low adds that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex felt "cornered" by the "ridiculous rules" over what they could and couldn't do within the royal family because of the palace's "inflexibility".
There was a series of rushed meetings between Harry and his family, headed by the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William which ultimately laid out the rules for the Sussexes exit.
They had originally wanted a half-in, half-out approach – to continue with some royal duties while being able to earn an income – but that model was rejected by the Queen.
Low's source says the palace's handling of the situation was "incompetent beyond belief," adding, "it just required the decision-makers to sit around a table and say, 'OK, what are we going to do about this? What do you need to feel better? And what can we give?'"
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Five scenarios were suggested during the early days of the exit negotiations "which ranged from Harry and Meghan spending most of their time being working members of the royal family, but having a month a year to do their own thing, to them spending most of their time privately, but doing a select number of royal activities".
Low says that at one point Charles' private secretary Clive Alderton "made the point that if they could get this right, they would be solving a problem for future generations of the royal family who were not in the direct line of succession".
However, according to a source in the book, "In Meghan and the household, you had two worlds that had no experience of each other, had no way to relate to each other, had no way to comprehend each other.
"And Meghan was never going to fit in that model and that model was never going to tolerate the Meghan who Meghan wanted to be."
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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiqQFodHRwczovL2hvbmV5Lm5pbmUuY29tLmF1L3JveWFscy9tZWdoYW4tbWFya2xlLWRpZC1wcmluY2UtaGFycnktdGhlLWdyZWF0ZXN0LWtpbmRuZXNzLWJ5LWdldHRpbmctaGltLW91dC1vZi1yb3lhbC1mYW1pbHktYm9vay1jbGFpbXMvOGE0MmNhMjctN2U3Zi00MDI5LTlhZTUtYTAwZGI1MDU5NWMw0gEA?oc=5
2022-09-26 19:14:46Z
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