A royal author has claimed that a close confidant of the late Queen questioned Meghan Markle’s relationship with Prince Harry and sent a warning about her

Prince Harry and Meghan (Image: Getty Images for 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Gala)

The late Queen’s cousin and confidant warned that Meghan Markle “could turn into nothing but trouble” and questioned her relationship with Prince Harry, according to explosive new claims.

It has been seven years since Harry and Meghan tied the knot at Windsor Castle in May 2018, in a fairytale wedding attended by the whole of the Royal Family.

But a royal author has now claimed that that a so-called close friend of the late Queen told her that she was suspicious of former actress Meghan’s motives before the Sussexes tied the knot in the grand ceremony, despite intially being impressed when she first came on the royal scene.

The Sussexes with the late Queen (Image: Getty Images)

Writing on her Substack, Sally Bedell Smith claims that before her death, Lady Elizabeth Anson, a cousin of Elizabeth II and a high-society party planner, said that just days before the nuptials: “We hope but don’t quite think she is in love. We think she engineered it all.”

She is also said to have warned: “It’s worrying that so many people are questioning whether Meghan is right for Harry. The problem, bless his heart, is that Harry is neither bright nor strong, and she is both.” And added: “Meghan is clearly brighter than Harry, but she has to be careful not to overshadow him.”

According to Bedell Smith, Lady Anson said that Meghan was “full of charm” as well as “intelligent and thoughtful” when she and Harry first became engaged in 2017.

Meghan with the late Queen(Image: Getty Images)

But as the wedding approached several months later, she claims that relations between the Sussexes and the late Queen became rocky.

The Mirror has contacted the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for comment. Meanwhile, a source close to the couple to MailOnline said the claims were “just gossip”. It comes as the author also claimed that Harry ‘blew’ his relationship with the late Queen in the lead-up to marrying Meghan Markle after making one major decision.

Bedell Smith said Lady Anson told her that the former monarch was left ‘dismayed’ about some of the arrangements being made for the wedding and had become “very worried” about her ‘weak’ and ‘besotted’ grandson.

She claims that the former monarch had been left shocked that Harry had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform the ceremony without asking the Dean of Windsor first, and that the now Duke of Sussex thought his grandmother could just “do what she wants”.

Lady Elizabeth Anson and the late Queen(Image: Getty Images)

According to Bedell Smith, Lady Anson said that due to this, Harry had “blown” his relationship with his grandmother. She writes that Lady Anson told her several months before the wedding: “She [the Queen] said she was really upset. I was shocked when the Queen told me this, how she was so saddened. I had no idea about the conversation, that he was rude to her for ten minutes.

“They had tea with her the day before yesterday. She was trying to find out about the wedding dress, and Meghan wouldn’t tell her.”

However, the author later claims that several weeks closer to the nuptials, Lady Anson told her that Harry and his grandmother had “patched things up” after he let her into the details of what they had planned for their wedding.

Lady Anson was the daughter of Thomas Anson, Viscount Anson, and his wife, Anne Bowes-Lyon, who would later become Princess Anne of Denmark when she remarried. She was a niece of the late Queen Mother and was a close friend of the Queen and responsible for arranging many of her private parties.

She founded the firm Party Planners in 1960 and went on to arrange events for a number of people in the royal houses as well as the Queen. Notable events Lady Anson planned include Sting’s wedding, Margaret Thatcher’s 70th birthday party and the Queen’s 80th birthday party.

In 2020, the late Queen made her a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, which is awarded to those having performed distinguished personal service to the monarch. Just months later she died at the age of 79.