Meghan Markle's 'worrying' plans to 'outshine' royals that left Palace terrified

Meghan Markle's life changed overnight when she met Prince Harry, and it's no secret that she struggled to adjust to royal life before the couple's self-exile to the States.

And she's not the only one who found life inside palace walls a heavy cross to bear. The late Queen's sister, Princess Margaret, famously resented playing "second fiddle" her whole life, and Prince Philip's world was upended when Elizabeth II suddenly became monarch. Princess Diana's painful divorce led to her suffering with depression, for which she claimed she got no support from the royal family.

Despite struggling with the contraints of royal life at times, few would try to break the mould in an establishment that prides itself on tradition. But not only did the Duchess of Sussex try to map out her own personal career as a working royal, she also tried to 'outshine' other royals - including the late Queen - according to a royal author.

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Tom Quinn, writing in his royal biography Yes Ma'am, claims that Meghan sparked panic in the Palace during her short stint as a working royal when she indicated that she wanted to operate separately from the Queen.

The author penned: "Buckingham Palace became really worried when they became aware that Meghan had plans for her life as a working royal that were not going to be part of a general strategy agreed with the staff – she just wanted to do her own thing.

"Which is fair enough if you're not a member of a tightly controlled institution, but it was never going to be acceptable that Meghan should outshine Princess Anne, Prince Charles [as he then was] and Elizabeth the Queen."

Speaking to the author, a former courtier for the late Queen said: "Elizabeth always had to be the centre and focus of everything the Royal Family did and I don't think Meghan understood why that had to make her do things she didn't want to do.

"She didn't understand that when you join the Royal Family, you don't do as you please, you do as you're told. In a sense, you become a servant of the family."

According to insiders quoted in the book, Meghan found it hard to get her head around the many protocols and traditions associated with the Firm - and she allegedly had a scathing assessment of the senior members.

Quinn writes: "Meghan really disliked the hierarchy," a member of her former team said. "Many of the rules do seem pretty pointless and exist only so that the relative status of each senior royal is protected. And the senior royals are such a sensitive bunch — if one gets a gold pen or a new car, they all want one. Meghan thought they behaved like babies."

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The Sussexes recalled Meghan's introduction to royal life in their six-part Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, and discussed her first meeting with the late Queen after they began dating in 2016.

"My grandmother was the first senior member of the family that Meghan met," Prince Harry said in the docuseries. "She had no idea what it all consisted of. So it was a bit of a shock to the system for her."

Meghan then shared that while they were on their way to meet the Queen, Prince Harry asked her if she knew how to curtsy. "We were in the car, driving and he's like: 'You know how to curtsy right?' and I just thought it was a joke," the Duchess admitted.

Prince Harry acknowledged the difficulty of explaining royal protocol to his American girlfriend, saying: "How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you would need to curtsy, especially to an American. That's weird."

Meghan also compared curtsying to Medieval Times, Dinner and Tournament, a dinner theatre featuring medieval-style games, and joked that "Americans will understand this".

She then recreated the deep curtsy she gave to the Queen, bowing her head dramatically and spreading her arms wide. "It was like that. Like, I curtsied as though I was like… pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty," she said. Her reenactment drew some criticism from viewers who claimed that the Duchess was being "disrespectful" towards tradition.