‘Deserved more’: Meghan move behind William and Harry’s nasty royal feud

A key detail of royal life reportedly “shocked” the Duchess of Sussex – and potentially sparked the bitter feud between William and Harry.

There are some very simple things to grasp about the royal family: King, in charge; Prince of Wales, next in line; Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, not to be left near the silver.

But their finances? The differences between the Sovereign Grant and the Crown Estate and Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster and private trusts and where the revenue from Historic Royal Palaces ™ goes? It could be taught over the span of a 12 month course. (And we haven’t even talked about ownership of seabed rights …)

No wonder then that when Meghan Markle traded non-titled normie life to do good works in the name of the crown (cash-for-curtsying?) she found the money part a bit of a surprise. In fact, one question that has been raised is, was she in fact shocked when she discovered how much of it, or how little, her duke in shining TK Maxx actually had of the stuff?

The Duchess of Sussex, according to a new biography, was “taken aback” to discover that Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales had a more sumptuous life than she and Prince Harry – and she reportedly thought that Harry “deserved more materially” as a “royal prince”.

Meghan reportedly thought Harry ‘deserved more materially’. Picture: Adrian Dennis/AFP

This month, veteran royal biographer Robert Jobson published Catherine, The Princess of Wales and there, in between hundreds of pages of unerring devotion to the princess and the fact she can nearly, supposedly, walk on water, are details about the historic falling out between the Waleses and Sussexes.

Jobson reports that Meghan was a bit shocked when she first saw William and Kate’s home inside the Kensington Palace compound, a property known as Apartment 1A. He writes how the couple had popped around for a glass of chilled prosecco and a Twiglet (well, all he says is “drinks”, so I might have embellished) and that the duchess was “‘taken aback’ at the disparity between the brothers’” situations.

Said a close source to Jobson: “I am not saying Meghan was jealous, but she was really surprised how lavishly Harry’s brother was living compared to where they were living. It was perhaps the beginning of all the tensions between the two couples”.

According to the biography, Meghan “understood that William was above her husband in the royal pecking order as the heir to the throne, but she thought Harry was also a royal prince, so he deserved more materially. She was piqued by the disparity. Soon afterwards, it was announced that the Sussexes were moving to Frogmore Cottage”.

It’s a scene that Harry himself recounts in Spare and says took place in June 2018, making it a month after the wedding and more than eight months since Meghan had moved into the Palace.

“We walked over one late afternoon. I saw Meg’s eyes widen as we entered their front door, walked past their front sitting room, down their hallway, into their study. ‘Wow’, Meg said several times,” Harry writes.

It didn’t take long for the cracks to appear. Picture: Tolga Akmen/AFP

“The wallpaper, the crown moulding, the walnut bookshelves lined with colour-coordinated volumes, the priceless art. Gorgeous. Like a museum. And we both told them so. We complimented them lavishly on their renovation, though we also thought sheepishly of our Ikea lamps, our discount sofa recently bought on sale, with Meg’s credit card, from sofa.com.”

The funding part of the equation – as in how much dough then-Prince, now King Charles provided for his sons and their wives and who got what and how much – is an often neglected dimension to the long and sorry story of how things went so very spectacularly wrong.

For one thing, Charles was not exactly thrilled to have put his hand in his pocket to “feed” another mouth circa 2018. Harry writes that his father had asked him if Meghan intended to keep working after their engagement and then explained: “Well, darling boy, you know there’s not enough money to go around”.

“I can’t pay for anyone else. I’m already having to pay for your brother and Catherine.”

If His Majesty was not pleased about the financial demands that the advent of the Sussexes brought, neither was the new duchess, reportedly.

In Valentine Low’s superlative Courtiers (a must-read, friends) he writes that during the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s highly successful October 2018 tour of Australia, when they were doing walkabouts and shaking hands, “[Meghan] was heard to say on at least one occasion, ‘I can’t believe I’m not getting paid for this’.”

Low also explores the money question and what role it might have played in the San Andreas Fault line fracturing that was taking place around this time.

“An insider wondered if one of Meghan’s concerns was whether she was going to be able to earn money for herself given her position in the royal family,” he writes.

“During the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s highly successful October 2018 tour of Australia, when they were doing walkabouts and shaking hands, [Meghan] was heard to say on at least one occasion, ‘I can’t believe I’m not getting paid for this’.” Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP

“Although Meghan was not making money out of the deals she was negotiating at the time – she did the voiceover for a Disney wildlife documentary in return for a charitable donation – some suspected that in the end she wanted to make money. And the only way she could do that was by leaving her royal life behind and going back to America.”

Consider the numbers here.

Back in 2018, when the King was twitching over having to find the not-so-hard-earned money to keep Meghan in Aquazurra and avocado toast, he was spending around $8 million combined on his two sons and their families.

And based on Harry and Meghan’s shock and awe over the Waleses “crown moulding”, it would appear that it was not equitably split down the middle.

Contrast that to only a couple of years later when, in 2020, they signed deals with Netflix and Spotify reported to be worth a total of more than $190 million. (Though quite what slimmish portion of that figure they have actually ended up seeing is another question entirely).

With the benefit of hindsight and having written about a million words on Megxit such that my fingers are but calloused nubs these days, Charles’ reticence to pay for Meghan might be the worst bit of financial decision-making from a monarch since George III thought “sod it” and let that pesky George Washington and the rebellious American colonies have their infernal freedom. It wasn’t like that dry bit of far-off soil would ever amount much now would it?

If only the King had, say, ponied up the cash to let the Sussexes enjoy a bit more of the “lavish” lifestyle they saw the Waleses enjoying, then Crown Inc might not be in quite the deplorably shorthanded and starved for HRHs place it is now – and WME’s Ari Emanuel might not have an actual duchess on his books.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles

Originally published as ‘Deserved more’: Meghan move behind William and Harry’s nasty royal feud