Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were seen as "very difficult to deal with" by the royals and some family members "quietly welcomed" their decision to quit, a new book says.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex fell out with the royals after asking for help dealing with negative media coverage of them and after Meghan was accused of bullying her staff by a palace aide.
Their shared household at Kensington Palace with Prince William and Kate Middleton was split in 2019 and they announced their departure from royal life in January 2020.
Andrew Morton, who wrote a famous biography of Princess Diana with her help in 1992, has re-released a biography of the duchess.
In new chapters of Meghan: A Hollywood Princess, he wrote: "It was clear that Meghan had ruffled feathers in the family and that they felt she and Harry were very difficult to deal with.
"For her part, Meghan found some of its members—not the Queen or Prince Philip—unfriendly and jealous.
"At a personal level, then, their departure from Britain was quietly welcomed by some in the Windsor family and their courtiers, but on an institutional level it was a heavy blow."
Morton also suggested Prince William welcomed their decision to take a break at an earlier stage, when they spent Thanksgiving and Christmas 2019 in Canada.
Meghan and Harry began negotiations to quit royal duties while they were on that trip, staying at a rental property on Vancouver Island.
Morton wrote: "Like many others, Prince William breathed a sigh of relief when Harry and Meghan announced that they were stepping back from royal duties for six weeks or so and spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in North America.
"The couple ended up in a remote luxury mansion on Vancouver Island loaned to them by a patriotic Canadian businessman. Palace aides, who had been urging the couple to slow down, were pleased to see them take a breath."
Harry and Meghan performed their final royal duties in March 2020 before moving to California, initially living in Los Angeles while they bought a house in Montecito.
Relations with the royal family remained frosty, however, and in November 2020 a request from Prince Harry for a war wreath to be laid on their behalf at Britain's Remembrance Sunday service was declined by the palace.
A series of honorary titles and patronages, including Prince Harry's role as captain general of the Royal Marines, were stripped from them in February and then in March they did their Oprah Winfrey interview.
Meghan said an unnamed royal expressed concern about how dark her unborn child's skin might be and said she experienced suicidal thoughts amid negative press coverage.
The prince told the CBS prime time special how his family cut them off financially after their exit and his father stopped taking his calls while he was trying to negotiate his way out of royal life.
Then in May Prince Harry told his Apple TV docuseries The Me You Can't See how his family had been neglectful over his requests for help dealing with the media.
He said: "It went to a whole new depth with not just traditional media but also social media platforms as well. I felt completely helpless.
"I thought my family would help but every single ask, request, warning, whatever it is, got met with total silence or total neglect.
"We spent four years trying to make it work. We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job, but Meghan was struggling."
Uncommon Knowledge
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About the writer
Jack Royston is Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent based in London, U.K. He reports on the British royal family—including King Charles ... Read more
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