(L-R) Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex arrive to attend Christmas Day. Photo / Getty Images
(L-R) Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex arrive to attend Christmas Day. Photo / Getty Images
By the time that Meghan Markle walked down the aisle of St George's Chapel in Windsor in 2018, she was an accomplished actress. Lines of golden gongs on her mantle? Maybe not, but she'd managed to make it to somewhere in the upper vicinity of the very greasy Hollywood pole.
But, her greatest performance?
Why, that would not take place on a carefully lit soundstage or on a backlot in Hollywood but on an icy morning in December 2018 as she, now the Duchess of Sussex, her husband Prince Harry and new in-laws William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge made their way to church.
As the foursome walked from Sandringham, that perfectly ugly red brick Georgian estate where the Windsors are required to spend the holidays, to nearby St Mary Magdalene church, the sea of hovering iPhones and the press caught the two Duchesses chatting amiably.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Photo / Getty
It was a transparently choreographed moment designed to dispel simmering rumours of royal bad blood but still, Meghan's face was warm and her smile wide as she chatted to her sister-in-law.
Now, documents tended to a London court have shed new and startling light on what was really going on behind the scenes at that point in time, during a dramatic week of legal events which has seen Meghan apologise for having "unintentionally" misled the court.
To get you up to speed: In October 2019, Harry and Meghan announced they were suing the Mail on Sunday's parent company Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) for breaching her privacy, copyright and data protection rights after they published parts of a letter the Duchess had sent to her estranged father Thomas Markle.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Global Citizen Live. Photo / Getty
The case began in earnest towards the end of last year, before in January 2021, Meghan's legal team applied for a Summary Judgement that is for the presiding judge Lord Justice Warby to make a ruling without the need for a trial. He granted that request and also found in the Duchess' favour.
ANL is now appealing that decision. So far, so soporific.
That is, until we get to the capital 'D' dramahhhh of this week which has seen Jason Knauf, the former Kensington Palace communications secretary, enter the fray, via a written statement, which includes details of emails and text messages from Meghan.
The biggest revelations: That she had written the controversial letter to her father "with the understanding that it could be leaked" and that Harry and Meghan had authorised him to brief the authors of the biography Finding Freedom. (Last year a spokesperson said that the couple "did not contribute" to the title).
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle seen at Melba's restaurant in Harlem. Photo / Getty
Exhausting, non?
The apology is highly embarrassing for Meghan and if ANL's appeal is granted, it could pave the way for a court case and the Sussexes being cross-examined under oath.
But what is most fascinating, I would argue, is the extent to which this tranche of new information reveals how fractured things had become behind the gates of Kensington Palace only months after the Sussexes' wedding.
Most markedly, that by December 2018, barely six months after the world had watched their glittering union, Meghan and Harry had become so frustrated with press coverage and so eager to get their side of events across they were willing to, via Knauf, brief the authors of Freedom.
By contrast (and while hardly on the same scale) it took Diana, Princess of Wales, a full ten years after her supposed fairytale wedding to grow so malcontent that she agreed to her tell-all – and I mean tell "all" – to journalist Andrew Morton for his palace-shaking Diana: Her True Story. (To this day, it is a must-read for all royal-philes or even the vaguely crown-curious).
Harry and Meghan, we now know after the events of this week, seem to have arrived at a similar breaking point in less than a year.
These documents now add intriguing new details to our understanding of events of the final months of 2018, a period of time that, in hindsight, was when things went irreparably off the rails for the Sussexes and the Cambridges.
Things had allegedly started to crack in October 2018 when Knauf raised bullying allegations against Meghan.
According to The Times, he emailed Simon Case, then the Duke of Cambridge's private secretary, writing her "treatment of X was totally unacceptable" and that "the Duchess seems intent on always having someone in her sights". (Meghan has denied the allegations, calling the report "a calculated smear campaign").
Around this time, Harry and William had what veteran royal biographer Robert Lacey has termed an "explosive argument".
"We now know that Princes William and Harry were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia … The brothers had parted on extremely poor terms, with the trouble centring on Meghan's stringent treatment and alleged bullying of her staff," Lacey wrote in his book Battle of Brothers.
On October 16, the Sussexes announced they were expecting their first child on the first day of their Australia and South Pacific tour, which saw huge, clamouring crowds turn out in force to meet the new Duchess.
Back in the UK, the media tide was also turning against Meghan.
On November 9, The Sun broke the first story alleging Meghan's "difficult" behaviour and raising for the first time the claim that there had been a row over her choice of wedding tiara.
It is against this fraught backdrop that we get to the sticky issue of Knauf, the Sussexes and their decision to brief Freedom's authors.
On December 10, Knauf exchanged emails with Harry and Meghan about the book the Duke wrote: "You giving the right context and background to them would help get some truths out there. The truth is v much needed and would be appreciated."
The same day, Knauf sent Meghan a list of questions which Freedom's authors wanted to discuss. Meghan later replied, and under a heading from the authors called "Tabloid stories that need correcting/batting down: tiara, etc" she wrote, oddly in the third person: "Meghan shared the very special story about choosing the tiara in their wedding exhibition now ongoing at Windsor.
"Shame to see such a beautiful sweet moment skewed in media. There was no conversation about any other tiara as a preference.
"Meghan loved the one she wore and it remains a very special memory."
On December 13, Knauf wrote to the Sussexes that he had "two hours with [Freedom authors] Omid and Carolyn yesterday".
"I took them through everything … They are prioritising the US market and will position it as a celebration of you that corrects the record on a number of fronts," he wrote.
That they all felt the "record needed correcting" so soon is startling.
While the documents make clear that what the Sussexes were concerned about "correcting" was largely in regards to the Markle family and Meghan's treatment by the press and online bullying, elsewhere, the "feuding Duchesses" narrative was, rightly or wrongly, taking hold.
On November 24, 2018, it was confirmed that Harry and Meghan were moving to Windsor, which hardly boded well to Cambridge/Sussex relations.
Two days later, on November 26, The Telegraph published a story called "Kate and Meghan: Is the royal sisterhood really at breaking point?" and which aired for the first time the claim that Kate had been "left in tears" in the run up to the Sussex wedding "following a bridesmaids dress fitting for Princess Charlotte".
(Meghan told Oprah Winfrey this year that it was Kate who had actually made her cry).
Things had allegedly deteriorated so badly that by sometime around this point, William "wanted Meghan removed, for a start, from the hitherto harmonious joint household that he and his brother had operated together for the best part of a decade. William simply did not want her or Harry around any more," Robert Lacey writes in Battle.
"William threw Harry out," a friend told Lacey.
This complicated, messy, and emotional miasma was swirling, both publicly and privately when we get to Christmas, 2018 and when the world watched Meghan and Kate's merry, side-by-side appearance.
No one, at that point in time, had any real inkling of just how sour relations had become between the couples or the extremes to which Harry and Meghan already felt they had to go to "correct" the narrative.
That Christmas moment – the two women putting on what now looks entirely like a transparent front – was ultimately a futile ploy and despite the Duchesses best efforts to keep calm and keep smiling, the world has ultimately found out.
So much dirty laundry has already been aired in public and if ANL win their appeal, so much more might also yet. (If that did happen, there is the chance that Harry and Meghan could be called to take the stand).
If there is one thing we have learnt this week, it's who needs a cable legal drama when they can do their best work on a foggy Norfolk morning and with the world watching?
We might not have had a real clue then, but boy, do we ever now.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
