This week, royal reporters have not been able to shut up about Sally Bedell Smith’s Substack, in which she revealed that Queen Elizabeth’s deceased cousin, Lady Elizabeth “Liza” Anson regularly gossiped to Bedell Smith about QEII circa 2016-2020 (Liza died in 2020). Royal reporters are taking these third-hand accounts of QEII’s words like the gospel, as they weaponize two dead women against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. You see, according to Liza and Bedell Smith, QEII was mad about every single thing about the Sussexes’ 2018 wedding – QEII was mad about the wedding gown, mad about the Archbishop of Canterbury, mad about how Harry and Meghan were planning the wedding without running every detail by QEII. This whole time, I’ve refused to subscribe to Bedell Smith’s Substack, but as luck would have it, the Times of London published the whole sorry thing. Guess what the root of all of Liza’s bullsh-t was? Liza wanted to plan the Sussex wedding. And Harry told her no.
Liza had originally been positive about William’s younger brother, once telling me, “When the Queen delegates, the star is Harry.” After Harry and Meghan Markle announced their engagement in November 2017, I happened to be having tea with Liza at her home on Ladbroke Grove in London. Together we watched their televised interview. Liza thought Meghan, an experienced American actress, was “poised, very natural, intelligent, and thoughtful. You can feel a very loving connection. Meghan is clearly brighter than Harry, but she has to be careful not to overshadow him.”
Early the following February, Liza reported that she had recently met Meghan, who was “full of charm. But it was pointless to have a meeting.” Whenever Liza raised ideas for their wedding, Meghan said she couldn’t make any decisions because Harry was in Africa. (At the end of January, Harry had travelled to Botswana for briefings on wildlife conservation.) “He will write from Africa,” said Meghan.
“Harry wrote to me and said they were going another way,” recalled Liza. “He said, ‘I am close to my grandmother, and she is content with this.’ When I spoke with the Queen, she said she is not at all content.” Liza was not upset, but she added, “Meghan could turn into nothing but trouble. She sees things in a different way.”
According to Liza, the Queen was dismayed that Harry had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform the wedding service in St George’s Chapel without first requesting permission from the Dean of Windsor. “Harry seems to think the Queen can do what she wants, but she can’t,” said Liza. “On the religious side, it is the Dean of Windsor’s jurisdiction.” As a result, Liza said that “Harry has blown his relationship with his grandmother. She 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.”
So… Liza met separately with Meghan in early February 2018, and Liza was desperately trying to insert herself into the wedding planning and work over Meghan without Harry there. Meghan and Harry had already been planning their wedding for two months at that point when Liza-Come-Lately had this meeting. Harry did that thing which he kept doing with his family and everyone adjacent to his family – he tried to take the hit and allow Meghan to stay out of it. Harry told Liza that her services were not needed. And Liza immediately blamed Meghan: “‘Harry wrote to me and said they were going another way.’ recalled Liza….Liza was not upset, but she added, ‘Meghan could turn into nothing but trouble. She sees things in a different way.’” How many times did this happen? Harry tells someone no, Harry makes his opinions known, Harry organizes something, and every single person in that family was like “well, obviously this is Meghan’s fault!!”
By the way, having read the whole Substack column now, it’s particularly damning about QEII’s mental acuity and her loneliness in her final years, and it’s pretty clear that QEII was a very frail senior who was being taken advantage of by courtiers and hangers-on.
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